MIke Dean’s Round 80th Round The Island Race Race Report Pics
Team SunSnail 53 finished 113th from 985 in the Island Sailing Club (ISC) handicap fleet. Entered 1908 Retired 435 DSC 16 Finished 1303
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Team SunSnail 53, the majority being members from LLSC, belied their team name over the weekend by finishing (a feat in itself if you read the official reports) in 113th place overall. Even Ben Ainslie is quoted as saying “it was hairy” Dame Ellen McArthur, sailing with a young crew chose to retire).
Chris Hewitt, Gill Greenacre, Buffy Dean, Steve Pope, Richard Buck, Steve Wood, Julian Ingham and Mike Dean (what a team putter togetherer?)
It was a last minute decision to charter a Sunfast 37 yacht and put together a team of friends, some of whom had sailed a while and some who had not. As it turned out it was definitely not a “all the gear and no idea team”
The whole team met for the first time little more than twelve hours before the 0720 start time and most of that was gastronomic and liquid team bonding. With just 3½ hours sleep, réveillé was to a homemade breakfast accompanied by a F6 south westerly. The previous afternoon’s practice had been scuppered by technical hitches and ended being towed into Cowes Yacht Haven. The breakdown was a godsend as the prime location in Cowes was fully booked and we were squeezed in across the pontoon from Sir Robin and his fleet of merry Clippers.
So with just two hours sailing together and a few more drinking together we headed for the flagstaff transit and a Solent chop. The line was an organised frenzy of similar sized yachts, one already dismasted, an upturned life raft with no apparent occupants and us, trigger happy. With one minute to the canon the tide had swept us over but a speedy double tack put us on the button and one of the first away. What an awesome beat down the Solent with all but intimate contact with others and a really “swell” rounding of the Needles lighthouse. We then faced the decision of “do we or don’t we?” put up the spinnaker. With no previous kite experience together, broaches both sides of us and a close to hull speed of 9 knots the decision was easy! We reached along the south of the island controlling most of the broaches. By now we could see other Sunfasts astern or abeam of us but we weren’t complacent. A couple of inverted catamarans witnessed, we rounded the only mark on the course, Bembridge Beacon. Our next challenge was Ryde Sands where two grounded monohulls were the warning to sail wide. This turned out to be strategically negative as the faster Sunfasts gained an advantage. Amidst the havoc of a short finish line Team SunSnail 53 narrowly avoided a collision with the committee ship as we were “pinched” by GBR 2383L towards the line and lost steerage to be pushed back. Had we got a finish? The time was hurriedly texted to the Island Sailing Club and we waited…….
“Wow” not only had we got the finish we had done extremely well – 113th from 985 in the Island Sailing Club (ISC) handicap fleet.
With broken spinnaker pole, main halyard deck block missing and bits having rained from the rigging above we sauntered with a cocky stagger back to our honourable berth to rub shoulders with the great, popped the cork and felt really fulfilled!
We shared superlatives as Team SunSnail53 slowly, very, very slowly came back down to Earth with childish grins of the contentment that a just fed baby falls off to sleep with. How do you follow that?
The race was tracked by the Island Sailing Club and our progress can be seen at the JP Morgan website race tracker. www.roundtheisland.org.uk We were Sunsail 53.
If anyone is interested in competing in the Round The Island Race 2012 then email Mike [email protected]