The days events.

The Saturday dawned with a drizzly start, but we knew that the weather would pick up after about ten am, info we'd got at the ISC briefing the night before. We are all ready to go.


Slipping the lines from East Cowes at eight o'clock, we motored out of the river into a huge throng of departing boats. I can only imagine that there were about half of the 1779 boats in Cowes overnight prior to the race, and the other half arriving on time at the start from other bases around the Solent. All you could see were boats, boats and more boats!


0910.
Start!
Easier said than done. A bit of wind, but too many boats locally meant that others upwind of us were stealing the breeze at it were. We worked our way towards the line, cautiously at first, even pushing the sails manually from one side on the boat to the other, slowly picking up the tiny gusts of the available westerly breeze. Inching our way forward bit by bit with the other boats in our class, we crossed the startline with more tide than breeze. Duet began to slew round tail first with the tide as we wrestled with the genoa to pick up what little breeze there was to be shared. We crossed the line, comfortably inside the marker, but essentially starting our big day somewhat sideways. We had, despite the unconventional nature of this opening few minutes, made a perfect start to the race. Dozens of boats were trapped with no breeze, as the tide took them the wrong side of the mark. It would take them some ten minutes to regain their places.


Within a few minutes of our start we were clear of the pack and making four knots on a s'westerly course.
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0940.
Perfect sailing. Ten knots of breeze, full sail, the tide with us and Duet is starting to knock off the first couple of miles.


1045.
Good progress along the north coast of the Island, heading west to the Needles. Breeze picking up nicely now, with gusts to over 18 knots. With the tide well in our favour our groundspeed picks up to over seven knots as Duet heels enthusiastically to the north of Newtown Creek. Smiles all round. Duet is tanking along.


1105.
First scalp. We pass this green flagged boat ( below ) from a class that started ten minutes ahead of our ISC class (Blue). Using the handicap system, its possible that he could be as many as 250 positions 'behind' us.

1130.
We can see the Needles for the first time as we pass through Hurst Narrows. Its gusting strongly over the tide and its getting choppy, but we're all happy.

1215.
Needles!


We pass this iconic landmark just three hours five mins after we started. Brilliant. The wind eases a little as we round the lighthouse to our east. Plenty of boats decide to go for the inshore route, between Goose Rock and the old wreck, but we are happy taking a more conservative line about 500 metres to the west of the lighthouse. All the boats swing round heading s'east. Up go dozens os spinakers ahead of us, always a magical sight.

However, we decide to keep to the same sail plan for a while. We hold off on the use of our chute as the wind swings round to the southwest almost as soon as we pass. This enables us to continue as we have been over the previous three hours using full main and genoa.


1320.
Fifteen knots of wind over our starboard quater. Still no need for the chute as we are at full hull speed anyway, however, the sea state is beggining to worsen with some big rolling swells. Duet brushes them off, but the motion is starting to become uncomfortable. A sort of twisting, corkscrew motion that would see our little boat dissapear from view every few seconds if seen from alongside. A sort of mogul run. Matt offers to take the helm for a while as Duet is becomes a bit heavy on the helm, almost bargelike at times as movements on the tiller become more exaggerated. We are working hard to keep our track some 9 miles to the west of St Cathrines Point.

1400.
Still no let up in the conditions, but the crew are still smiling and enjoying the sun that begins to break through for the first time in a few hours.

We've 3 miles to St Cathrines, and are happy with the sail plan. Having the chute up here with all this rolling, following sea could prove a handful so we elect to leave it in the bag for a little while yet. Duet is still at full speed regardless. Plenty of boats near us have put their's away, but it's still a magnificent sight to see the others, more inshore than us, using their chute's and spinakers to full effect. We are further offshore where the tide will turn in our favour in half an hour.



1505.
We round St Cathrines Point staying out of the worst of the tide by keeping offshore as we push onto Ventnor.


The sea state begines to ease a little, and we think ahead to the use of the chute as soon as is practical.


1630.
With Bembridge Ledge marker in the distance, we ready the cruising chute. Perfect conditions. Plenty of boats inshore of us seem to have fallen asleep in the lighter conditions, so up it goes in quick time, and we take advantage of the bigger sail area as the winds ease off and strart to pick off a good number of boats for the first time since the start.

1710.
Bembridge Ledge. The wind suddenly picks up again as we approach the marker. Boats ahead are under full sail, so we drop the chute and get back to just main and genoa as we approach the mark. Accelerating away from the marker, Duet is up to full speed again as the gusts pick up quickly to eighteen or twenty knots. Ahead, and for the first time in hours, we can see boats from the bigger, faster classes. We find out later, that they were pushed back by the last of the east going tide, as the wind eased a few miles north of us at the time we were passing Bembridge. To cut to the chase, we've caught up with a huge number of boats in classes that started upto forty minutes ahead of us. A huge boost, and very exciting.


1725.
Passing between the No Man's Land fort and Ryde Sands marker, we push on in a n'westerly direction towards Portsmouth. From here on in, there are many race tip's available regarding the best route at this time of the tide. Inshore to avoid it, or more northerly, to collect more breeze at the expense of the stronger tide. We decide to stay with the breeze, and track continually WNW for as long as we can. The conditions are good still, and we are all enjoying the day as much as we had when we started out out. The high speed ferries are having a ball taking ' route one' tracks through all the boats as they pass behind us from Portsmouth to the Island. We're glad we're out of the way of them.

1855.
North of Wooton Creek with just 5.5 miles to go to the finish line at Cowes. Our offshore gamble has paid off as inside us, numerous boats are beggining to suffer on the inshore route with it's weaker breeze. We hold our course as long as we can to limit the tacks requuired to get back towards Cowes from our current position.

1930.
The wind is easing constantly now as the evening draws in, looks beautiful as we tack towards the setting sun. Boats in all directions now as everybody, little by little, begins to gather and funnel in towards the goal that is the finish line. We are able to call the team ashore with an estimated time for the finish for the first time in the day, we think it should be about nine o'clock.


2030. Cowes in the far distance.


2055-2108
Last tack in the bag as we make our way towards the finish line. Its an imaginary line between one of the local ferries moored half a mile north of the Cowes shoreline, and a smaller comittee boat some 300 metres to the south of it. Two finish lines though, must make sure we get the one to the south. Boats everywhere, all with the same intention as us.
The wind has almost died, but there is still around five to six knots of breeze. Gordon is at the bow, calling the boats ahead (very close) and im staring intently at the masthead, trying to eak out the best from Duet by simply using the windex. It's the most accurate bit of kit we have at these low wind speeds. Matthew and Claire calling out the proximity of the boats to left, right and rear of us as we ghost forward at about three knots. There is a sixty five foot ketch just a few feet behind us who changes course on a whim to the left to try and get by us. Three boats immediately outboard of him to our left, and one coming in at us from an accute angle from my right as we have all but 100 metres to go. We hold our ground. This is fantastic.

2109.
Three boat lengths to go, two, one, FINISH!!! A huge cheer from us and from the other boats around us. We've done it.

2115.
Sails stashed quickly, motor on now, we get out of the way! Hundreds of boats arriving just behind us, as at full speed we push our nose into the Medina River through the masses of boats already back in Cowes and towards an emotional welcome from our loved ones.



What a day. We hope Prostate UK will benefit tremendously because of this.



1779 boats took part on the day

Our actual race time was 11:59:27 ( elapsed time )

Corrected time was 10:27:22 using the ISC handicap system.

We came 175th out of 825 boats in the ISC class and 20th out of 67 in the family class. We eventually raised in excess of £5000.00 for Prostate UK.

Click this link and sneak a little look at one of the JP Morgan videos from Saturday 20th.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=R4sevp-Kf78&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Eroundtheisland%2Eorg%2Euk%2Fweb%2Fcode%2Fphp%2Fvideopage%2Ephp%3Fa%3D93%26src%3Dhttp%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Eyoutube%2Ecom%2Fv%2FR4sevp%2DKf78%26hl%3Den%26fs%3D1%26&feature=player_embedded

..or try this fifteen minute video of the events of June 20th 2009

www.cowes.co.uk/zonexml/video?story_id=6739