Race Report - 30-31 May

For the last weekend of the Ian Mackinnon (May) series, the Island Sailing Club ran an excellent weekend's racing for the Darings and the Dragons.

Saturday 30 May

I'm afraid I've not nominated anybody to write this one and I wasn't on the water myself - so commentary is limited!

With all models saying no breeze until 2pm at the earliest, the ISC race committee allowed people to make something of their mornings by announcing AP over 2 the day before. This decision bore out on the day, and at 2pm a single AP was hoisted to await the filling-in of the breeze.

With racing getting underway at 3pm, two short courses were raced. While the courses were similar, the changing tidal conditions would have made it complex with the first start at HW+3.5h, and the last finish shortly after low water at 1745.

Both races started to the West, going to Gurnard cardinal, in the WSW breeze. A run up onto a mark on the Brambles bank followed, after which a beat up the southern edge of the bank; a reach over to Royal London YC; and a beat home.

Paul Wiseman's Doublet won both races, with Dancer picking up second in both. Dolphin and Dreamer shared the other podium places.

Sunday 31 May

3E (The Boss); 4F (RTYC); 3W (Williams Shipping); 4W (Ancasta); 4N (Ben F Wood); 4P (W Ryde Middle); Finish

Sundays' trace from Defender - spot the navigational blunder halfway down the long run!

Joining Chris Torrens' Defender for the day, I was raring to go! We were joined by Alex Forsyth and Ollie Light.

Starting on time, and with only one race, Barrie Harding gave us a longer (2.5h, 14nm) course. Going West off the line in a strong ebb tide, the fleet was very shy of the line but got away cleanly. Until it was clear that tacking would be involved, most boats did a long stint on Port tack to get out into the tide.

It became clear at this point that the wind would puff up and down and shift a lot during the day. Average wind built from 10 kts to 17 kts over the race, but even the 5-minute averages regularly oscillated by 4-5 knots with gusts of +7 being regularly seen. The angle was barely any more predictable, moving between 225 and 310 over the race period.

Pietro Strada in Dreamer got the best of the early part of the beat, with Laurence Orchard's Dancer, Defender, David Gower's Dolphin and Doublet all in the mix. However, as the mark came closer, Dolphin and then Dancer managed the shifting conditions best to round first and second, with Defender and Dynamite following.

The fleet split at this point, with Dancer taking the shortest, straightest line to the second mark and as a result going further offshore into the foul tide.

The next three boats went further left, trying to get some tidal relief around Lepe Spit and then over the Brambles bank. They couldn’t make the most of this however as the wind spent some time in the North, and limited how high they could carry their spinnakers.

Dolphin at this point seemed to spend time overcoming technical issues on the foredeck, which compounded their losses after having earlier sustained an injury on board and initially heading back to Cowes before resolving to continue. She fell back into the chasing pack, most of which were following Dancer’s line offshore.

(A bump on the head, I'm told fixed later at St Mary's with liberal application of filler and glue)

The downwind was a very long leg, against the tide, to Royal Thames on the South of the bank. However, surprisingly, after the whole leg Dancer had held their position and come in first to the mark by barely a length or two. The situation might have been different, but Defender and Charles Mathew's Dynamite, converging on a deeper angle, found a small squall which set both boats rocking for a time and I on Defender took the opportunity for a navigational blunder and called for a kite drop, convinced that we were approaching the mark – only to realise the error when I read the name of it! Dancer gained the important length or two at that point.

Rounding the mark, Defender found some space inside of Dynamite and held them off as the kite was hastily repacked. Defender then got a perfectly timed tack and held his nerve in the shifty conditions to lay the mark in one, and snap at Dancer’s heels.

A shaky spinnaker hoist however let them stretch out again and the last couple of legs proceeded with evenly matched racing and little change to positions. The last opportunity to catch, before the home beat beckoned, was the reach down to West Ryde Middle. However, by this point the wind was back in the SW and our efforts to hastily repack and spin the gear were in vain as it became clear that the wind was well forward of the beam. Dancer covered expertly all the way home.

Dancer; Defender; Dynamite;