Round the Island: perfect conditions for record breakers

June 3, 2013

if you sail an AC 45 with a wingmast driven by an all star olympic champion……

if you sail a 100 foot A-sailing full on racing machine with a leopard on the side…..

All right, you got me there, I’m just a bit jealous. But only of their results. The Round the Island record for multi- and monohulls was smashed, sailing conditions were perfect and everyone was motivated. Floris and Herman did a great job of putting Winsome on her inshore diet and they kept their foot between the door of the PV to allow the remaining crew to enter despite the pub closing for the night. Saturday early we left the pontoon at 5 am to start for our Island circumnavigation. Just us and 1548 other yachts. No Gaffers were sighted with sawn of bowsprits and off we were to a good start. Peter Morton was keen as ever and drove Winsome effortless through the choppy Solent. The sun came out, to never go away that day. Ideal sailing with a great crew. Compliments to Herman who was a substitute for Joost Dantuma. He did well. We had a fetch to the Needles with wind ranging from 10-15 knots with the last part under spinnaker. After rounding the wreck and the  Needles we were hesitant on the routing, do we stay on the island side with less wind and less tide or do we go out, with more wind and more tide….. We should have been more to the island side. With windspeed picking up to 22 knots, things were becoming lively. We rounded St Catherine’s point and there the wind became light and was all over the place, resulting in a park-up. Interesting situations and luckily no accidents. Than again a fetch to Bembridge ledge and finally a beat towards Cowes. A great day on the water, however results were very disappointing. Although the course favored reaching yachts with a-symmetric sails, preferably on a pole, we could have done better as well. But, as a famous Dutch saying goes: That is looking a cow up it’s…….  You can’t have it all, although we really did try! No regrets however, we could have been somewhere else, instead of on a wonderful sailing yacht with great people. Harry, thank you for the great weekend and a Mr and Mrs Morton, thank you for wining and dining us Saturday evening. We all had one of the best weekends of the season.

Pictures will be placed in the gallery soon of our Race this weekend. Watch the site.

The coming month the Winsome blog will keep us posted with Harry’s coming adventure. He wants to beat Jules Verne’s record of going around the globe. We do hope he will succeed, as Winsome sails again the first weekend of July with the IRC nationals on the Solent. For now the sailors sign out, and the aviator kicks in. Harry best of luck on your new adventure.