Round the Island 2010
This year’s Round the Island was an early start affair – it is all about getting to the Needles before the tide turns. So, this year there were two boats with involvement of HSSC members – Steve Moss with Louise, Steve’s son Joseph and nephew Ian and Ian’s friend Katrina on “Yamma”; and Robert and Victor on “Matahari” as part of a seven man crew under skipper Mike and first mate Pete out of Haslar. Matahari started at 06h10 and Yamma at 06h20.
Matahari sailed on the Friday afternoon to East Cowes during which time we practised everything likely to be needed on the way determined to do better than last year. This included proper preparation on the Friday night – hoping to get inspiration from watching England playing Algeria on the pub TV. Suffice to say, don’t emulate the England squad in the race on Saturday.
The weather was different this year from last, there was sufficient wind in the right direction to go down the Solent on a spinnaker run to the Needles, jibe it and then drop it once round. That part of the race was quite uneventful really, but a very good learning experience on kite flying. Once round the Needles the north easterly wind was fairly constant but building as the day wore on. St Catherine’s Point was the usual melee of boats taking the off-shore route joining the inshore group. We again took the offshore route not to have to deal with the wind shadow from the island. The turn at Bembridge Ledge was relatively quiet, but we couldn’t catch up an all-girl crew on a Jeanneau Sun Odyssey 43. By this time we were reefed – even though Matahari is a 38ft, it is a light boat relative to the likes of Yamma.
We tacked past the forts and were on the home straight. Looking to port we saw a Sunsail boat well heeled over but not moving very fast. Quite obviously the navigator had underestimated the depth of the water while presumably taking a short cut across Ryde Sands – these things tend to end in tears.
Matahari did a last minute dash after shaking out the reef to overtake a couple of familiar Hamble boats, and finished in an actual time of 9 h 2 m. With an ISC rating of 1.008 the official time was 9 h 06m, placing her 676th and 28th in class. This was a quicker time than last year, but then everybody else was even quicker. Should we have taken the beer out of the saloon lockers before leaving? No, this was not the elitist sport that the likes of the BP Chairman Tony Hayward on yacht Bob participate in, this was a gentle potter on a summer Saturday sailing in formation with others. Yamma finished in 8h 57m, and with an ISC rating of 0.978 had an official time of 8h 45m 11s to finish 498th and 24th in class.
On Saturday night we went to the Island Sailing Club for dinner; there was much ribbing about our corporate image “Round The Island 2010 – Matahari” tee-shirts – they were cerise in colour, and then back on the ferry to East Cowes that was running a special complementary free service for Round the Island participants.
On Sunday while Mike did the food, ably prepared by his wife, and Robert continuing to finish off a film (yes, some photographers are still in the 20th century) the rest of the team got us back to Haslar.
Once again, on Matahari, thanks to Mike wife for cooking in advance for the crew, and on Yamma a well earned “self drive” rest in the West Country.
Contributions from Robert, Victor and Steve.
Subscript from Steve and Yamma:-
"After the RTI Louise and I carried on to the West Country getting as far as the Helford River via Dartmouth where we met up with Paul Newgass a former HSSC member who now lives there and who also has a gentleman's motor cruiser, "Ardeola", previously owned by Hughie Green, moored in the River Dart. We're sure that several members will remember him."