Two WSC boats took part in the Round the Island Race this year – Arcsine, skippered by Kathy Claydon and Jo90, skippered by Richard Woof. Arcsine was crewed by Charlotte Weaver, Andi Heyting, Nathan Gray and Rocco and Thomas Franco. They had their longest race ever, taking 13 hours. Only 250 out of the 1250 starters finished.
The winds were very fickle, especially around the Needles and Varvassi wreck, where very light head winds were combined with adverse tide. Arcsine then short tacked through Freshwater Bay and across the ledges to avoid the tide. Several hours later they were able to spinnaker to Bembridge Ledge and nearly to No Man’s Land Fort but then the wind went westerly to make it an uphill struggle all the way to the finish at Cowes at 21.19 hours. This gave Arcsine fifth place out of 35 in their division and 80th out of all IRC boats. Jo90 came in 30 minutes later on corrected time, but came a commendable second in the HP30 class.
Submitted on 4th July 2019