(Cowes, Isle of Wight, England)- With 40 knots of wind speed recorded during the 110.0nm race, the 2019 RORC De Guingand Bowl was undoubtedly a tough test for both the crews and competing yachts. Starting from the Royal Yacht Squadron Line, a four-mile downwind leg to Browndown provided a breath-taking start. The fleet then returned through the Solent upwind with a building tide through Hurst Narrows. The beating continued all the way to East Shambles off Weymouth. After the long hard beat, the fleet turned east for a long sleigh ride back around the south side of the Isle of Wight, with a beat to finish at Mother Bank.
“The southwesterly pressure and the tidal flow meant that heading east was not going to be a good option,” commented RORC Racing Manager Chris Stone. “The lesser of the two evils was to send the fleet east for an hour or more, then send them west through Hurst Narrows, when the water was still fairly flat. As a 24-hour test, these conditions are great for preparing for the bigger races that the RORC organizes, the Rolex Fastnet Race being one of them.”
Because the race was so brutal, most divisions recorded nearly all DNF’s. The sole J/Team to finish was Chris Miles’ J/97E HIGH JINKS in taking 5th place in IRC 4 Division and 4th place in the IRC Doublehanded Division- quite a remarkable feat in such harrowing weather. Fifteen boats finished, forty-two did not, an extraordinarily high attrition rate for any race! For RORC de Guingand Bowl Race sailing information Add to Flipboard Magazine.
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