The last weekend of June saw the team from Broad Reach Sailing taking part in the 80th edition of the now famous "J P Morgan" round the island race. The usual race preparations saw us "practicing" on the Friday, and taking every bit of unwanted weight off the boat in the afternoon. The forecast for the race showed SW F5-6 with poor visibility in the morning, probably the most wind we had seen in years of competing in the RTIR.At 4.30 on the day of the race we woke up to driving rain and wind howling through the rigging, with hot tea in hand we motored out of Portsmouth Harbour into the Solent along with several hundred other yachts making for the start line.
I was staggered to see so many crews un-prepared and so many examples of not just poor, but dangerous seamanship. We saw everything from yachts motor sailing with tri-colours and steaming lights, yachts with their anchors proudly still displayed on the bow roller. But probably the worst examples were crews attempting to hoist main sails in a very lumpy Solent!!! Why oh why do skippers do this? Why not hoist in the safety and flat water in Portsmouth Harbour? Or as we did in the Lee of the island in Osborne Bay.
As our start time of 7.10 approached we decided to avoid the start line meelah and crossed a few minutes after the starting signal, opting for a safe, clean air start instead of the chaos that went before us. We were amazed by the number of boats who were completely unaware of the predicted wind shift and gusts that can be experienced in the start area, and watched many boats attempting to reef on the start line!!!!
By 8.00 we were beating nicely down towards Hurst Point to be met by the dozens of retiring craft making their way back to their respective berths, some with broken masts and torn sails!!! We were down to the Needles by 9.30 and into some "lumpy" seas, and were nearly taken out by an out of control and completely overpowered charter yacht from a well know holiday firm based in Port Solent (I'm sure you can guess who).
As we reached down to St Kats opting for a slightly more inshore route than normal in an attempt to keep out of the foul tide that was still running, the VHF continued to be interrupted by a continuous steam of Maydays and Pan Pan calls. By the time we reached the mo
st southerly point of the island we saw the first of many upside down multi hulls!!!! We gybed our way towards Dunose point deciding this was a safer option than sailing dead downwind under Spinnaker, this actually lost us some ground, and on reflection I think we would have made bigger gains by sailing that leg under headsail alone in a straight line. Due to our fractional rig and swept spreaders we struggle to sail dead down wind with white sails.
At around 1.30pm we rounded Benbridge Ledge and started the beat for home, just off Sea View we came across yet another upturned multi hull!!!! We crossed the line just after 3.00pm with a finishing time of 8 hours 12 minutes. We had a great days sailing, but I cannot help but reflect on the 75 coast guard calls that could have all been avoided. Yes their was some wind and waves, but nothing more than a F6 and some wind over tide "lumps" around the needles.
We spent the evening rafted up down at the Folly Inn and woke up the next morning to brilliant sunshine!!!!
