Weymouth
Sailing
Club

Despite growing up on the Hamble I had never done the Round The Island Race before so when folks in Weymouth were asking me what boat I was intending to sail round in my answer of “a Melges 24” was met with inevitable comments on the lack of facilities and general comfort.  On leaving the house at 06.00 with grey sky, little breeze and drizzle, I have to say that the selection did seem a little foolhardy.  However, as we motored out of the Hamble, joining a steady and growing stream of traffic, the skies brightened and some wind began to fill in. The Round The Island is an experience; with an entry list of 1,779 boats, it can’t fail to be. Where else can you be in a holding area waiting for your start and be immediately alongside Leopard the supermaxi and a gaff rigged classic yacht (with along with several hundred of your new best friends). The Melges were in the second start at 07.50 with the other sports boats and day boats.  We started right at the pin about a mile away from other Melges which had chosen the Gurnard shore against the few hours of the last foul tide.  Tacking our way through the very large boats there was a close call with an ex-BT Global Challenge yacht, now resplendent in bright orange and renamed Big Spirit, who explained that it was actually the orange colour that made their boat look bigger than ours.  Initially the middle seemed to be the place to be but between Yarmouth and Lymington the wind appeared to fill in from either side to give a healthy breeze from the south west as we bore away past the Needles and straight into the westerly tide.
  Fabulous planing conditions, waves and sun made for an unforgettable experience as we took the decision to clear our wind and head for Le Havre, while astern the view of a wall of spinnakers widened incessantly.  A long hitch in to the back of the island showed us that staying inshore had been the tactic as we encountered Melges 384 with a bright pink gennaker. Being inshore brought its own penalties as we picked up a pot buoy with 12ft of floating line and only escaped because we had enough speed to pull the buoy under the boat and clean round the keel.  Minor disaster averted we took to trading places with the other Melges as we gybed in and out of the other boats sometimes with fabulous turns of speed in the gusts and waves.  Then came our moment.  We made a slightly clumsy gybe and broached, not in a desperately spectacular way but a glance up to windward showed the true gravity of the situation. Death can come in many forms but in this case the grim reaper had swapped its traditional garb and scythe and now appeared in the guise of 72ft of Big Spirit under spinnaker.  We all desperately hoped that Crazeology wouldn’t stagger back on her feet and sail the 20 feet to put us irretrievably under their bow.  I have never been so glad of a slow recovery from a broach as they cleared past us. The gybing practice carried on past St Cats well towards Ventnor with frequent calculations on whether you could clear larger boats transoms or whether you would need to gybe away.  By this time Melges 294 (Blue) and 337 (Risky Business) had drawn out leads against us.  The wind dropped and turned more northerly and as we headed through Sandown Bay we took a more inshore route which paid off and gained the places back as we approached Bembridge Ledge.  As ever with the Solent, anything can happen with the wind and we approached a large flat spot with a number of boats pointing the same way on different tacks and gybes just at the ledge.  We got through this fairly well by going to white sails early get away again under gennaker only for the wind to falter just as we got to the buoy off Bembridge Ledge.  A spectacular raft of boats was beginning to form on the buoy and as boats slid inside us.  While we debated the rules concerning water at marks with an Open 40 who slid inside from clear astern with the comment that this was the “Round The Island, there were no rules” several things truck me:

1. The consecutive overlap at the buoy was likely to become measured in terms of miles
2. If we didn’t get a puff of wind we could be stuck at the buoy until next week
3. How far at the front of the fleet all the Melges were.

Thankfully we got a puff and got out of there to be able to watch the mayhem unfolding astern.  It may have been a bit busy when we were there but it was going to get a lot busier.  Initially flukey winds gave way to a consistent breeze which settled to give a port tack beat back up the island shore, navigating the shallower areas with a combination of charts and my brother in laws PDA.  A 12 mile duel with Blue eventually was settled in our favour just off Osbourne House and we got a gun from the committee boat for line honours in our class. 

Although all the Sonars beat us on corrected time and you shouldn’t take this too seriously. Well done to all the Melges who competed, with results (based on corrected times) of Crazeology 42^nd, Blue 50^th,Risky Business 56^th, Filska 57^th, and Auf Wiendersehen Pet 61st overall out of 1576 finishers.  Given the fact that it’s the slow boats that did well on handicap (yes I know that the first five were Extreme 40’s but they have a rating of 1.000 which is obviously cheating, so I think we can all claim an overall position that’s five places higher!) the performance is all the more impressive as a class.