The longest RtIR, ever…

July 1, 2019

June 29th 2019, a date set for one of the most spectacular sailing events: The Round the Island Race. The idea is simple, you get on a yacht and after starting go counterclockwise around the Isle of Wight and finish where you started. The weather briefing the day before promised us light winds and a new weather system trading the easterly winds for a westward one. 1210 yachts entered, crowding the Solent. Little did we know only 283 would finish..

Laura, Harry, Leen, Dirk-Jan, Joost D, Lennard, Floris, Boj and Joost H sailed Winsome over the starting line at 8.20 local time. Light winds from the forecasted east gave us a spinnaker start with the current pushing us towards the needles. As predicted by Boj the tide turned faster than expected, making our choice for a deepwater start in the middle of the Solent with the tide running with us a wise one.

With light winds accompanied by a strong current we sailed past a couple of park ups and past Hurst Castle. Here the wind decided to turn off completely, leaving us in a vacuum and just the tide pushing us towards the Needles.

Thanks to Laura’s driving skills, navigational expertise of Harry, some boat handling and Neptune favouring us today we drifted between the lighthouse as seen on the picture and the submerged Varvassi boiler/wreck. On our right hand side we could clearly identify the submerged boiler as numerous yacht floated against it.

We didn’t have a lot of time to feel happy as getting away from the lighthouse was challenging. With no wind and disturbed water Winsome floated slowly towards the rocks. I doubt many of us have been this close to the lighthouse before on a sailingyacht.

We had to start the engine to be able to avoid a collision with the rocks, we turned Winsome away form the rocks and into deeper water, with no gain for the race but mere safety reasons we turned off the engine as soon as possible after 40 seconds, flew the yellow flag and carried on sailing.

The more we tacked away from the Needles the more the wind picked up and 10 minutes later we were tacking to St Catherines in 16 knots of breeze.. Champagne sailing.

Passing Ventnor there was hardly any wind in Sandown Bay, tacking out and sailing around it was basically the only option. It took ages to reach Bembridge, often seeing less than 1 knot of boatspeed on the dials, frustrating as local wind patches favoured some at times and being 50 meters apart could be the difference of having wind or no wind at all! In the mean time the Genoa was taken down and traded again for the spinnaker, eventually giving us a slow but steady kite ride towards the forts. At this time many yachts were taking down their sails and turning on the engine, traffic to Gosport or the Southampton Water was getting busier and busier compared to the yachts still heading to the finish…

During this kite ride with happy faces on deck, we learned that on the Bramble the new weathersystem had arrived: 16 knots from the West, and we were still on a kite ride going West on the Solent… negotiating the last wind-hole of the day we took down the spinnaker and put up the Genoa for the last beat to the finish. At 21.15h we crossed the finish. After 13 hours of sailing we finished the RtIR, for sure the longest in time it has ever taken Winsome to circumnavigate this island.

Manfred Schepers (initiator of our joint dinner) and his crew were so kind to share with us a table with our crew at dinner in the Squadron, we were supposed to dine together that evening, however arrangements for dinner were made with another weather scenario than this one. That said, they were so kind to wait for us and after berthing Winsome and Harry making his way to the Race Committee we joined each other at the dinner table. A special permission (Trisha of course!) was needed to have dinner in our sail cloths. Without that we would not have reached it in time. Thanks Manfred, thanks Trisha.

The racing rules were clear as was the Committee, Winsome retired from the race and therefore we had no result. Big boys (and girls) do not cry, we learned our lessons and will continue to race another day.

It was a challenging and wonderful day on te water, another great weekend with Harry, Winsome and her crew. Thanks to all the competitors on the water, the Island Sailing Club for the organisation and we extend our congratulations to Eeyore and her crew for winning the IRC overall.

Special thanks to Fredy Prachoinig of Pilatus factory, who flew us together with Harry from Budel to Bembridge on Friday and back on Sunday. Good to have you with us this weekend!

Despite being one of the 851 retired yachts, this was hands down one of the best weekends of the year, thank you Harry for putting up with us. We are honoured and privileged to sail with you, always.