Race Report - 22/23 August (Roddy Carritt Cup)

This year's Roddy Carritt Cup saw the Committee Vessel Zenobia, under the control of the Island Sailing Club, also play host to the Etchells in their ongoing re-alignment with CCCA racing.

We are very grateful again to Ian Lallow and to Charles Perry, whose private arrangement on behalf of the class enables the ISC to give us committee vessel racing.

With six "sprint" races scheduled each day, the forecasts looked light and several boats stood down. However, racing of a fashion took place on both days, and the ISC committee did well in challenging conditions.

Saturday 22 August

Courtesy of Simon Broxham, Darius

Race 1

This was always going to be a tricky day with light and variable winds forecast and a lot of races planned. With the Etchells declining to participate, expecting a write-off, the first challenge was getting to the Committee boat on the Brambles Bank (up-tide, and up whatever wind there was).

This activity took the best part of an hour and, having arrived and waited, and just as the fleet was thinking about giving up entirely, a light breeze came from the south which proved just enough temptation for the race committee to put in place a round-the-cans race.

The course, from a start near Ben F Wood on the Brambles bank, was a beat to Goodall Roofing (on the Ryde Middle Bank); a reach to W Ryde Middle; then a run back to the CV to finish. The wind was moving around but at or some time after the start gun there was a significant left shift. This, combined with pressure filling in from the left, led to Darius and Destroyer sailing over the boats on the Right. The main aim thereafter was staying in wind , and Darius and Destroyer arriving at the windward mark well ahead of the rest of the pack.

A short two sail reach to W Ryde Middle did not seem to make much difference to the lead two positions. A hundred metres further back Doublet, at the tail end of the leftmost boats, and Dauntless, leading the rightmost boats, rounded the weather mark nearly together and had a tight battle all the way up the reach. First Doublet's weather position allowed her to roll Dauntless, whereupon Josh made an aggressive luff around her transom and rolled her right back.

Darius and Destroyer rounded cleanly and then set off on a run across the channel to the finish. Meanwhile, on the approach to West Ryde Middle, the wind started to fail. At one point Dauntless was contemplating a tack as she was headed in light breeze, while from astern Streak had hoisted her spinnaker!

On the final run, the leading boats sailed a rhumb-line course across the tide which worked well for them and they got home with no further changes in position; Darius, followed by Destroyer. Dauntless, Doublet and Streak and some of the other boats went high on Port tack to look for more breeze filling in from the West. The other possible benefit of this was to remain the up-tide boat should the wind have died completely.

However, none of this arrived, and Dauntless remained in third closely followed by Dolphin in fourth.

Race 2

The PRO bravely tried for a single leg second race back to Cowes, with a finish at Royal London. The race went well for about half the distance but when the wind died with the fleet still a quarter-mile from the mark the race was abandoned and we were all towed home. As the third gun went Destroyer were in the lead, with Darius a close second and Dauntless in third.

Our collective thanks to Richard Palmer and his team for perseverance, some sensible course setting and a sense of humour.

Sunday 23 August

On Sunday, normal service for the sprint races was resumed with five races completed after a short delay to await the South Westerly wind. Both Etchells and Darings raced, and while some comments were made about the bias of the lines, all boats reported enjoying the format.

Overall from the weekend, Doublet came top of the eight boats to win the Roddy Carritt cup, recovering from last place in R1 to take 2,1,1,1,3 in the remaining races. Dolphin was second (4,1,6,2,2,4) and Dauntless third.