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Hoya Round the Island Race 2000
For this year's RTI Race, I joined
Peter Morton aboard his X-99 Exile. As the boat is based in
Cowes Yacht Haven we had a lie-in compared to many other crews
and met up on the boat at 6am for our 6.40am start.
As one of the slower boats in the Group 1 start we knew clear
air would be key on the beat out towards to Needles. From a
start 300 yards off the green we tacked up the middle of the
Solent whilst keeping an eye on a couple of X-332s who we expected
to be our main competition in Class 3. As we approached Yarmouth
we were still well up the fleet, alongside much bigger boats
from Class 1 and 2 and this set the pattern for most of the
race.
After avoiding the well-known obstacles off the Needles we set
our Series 2000 AP spinnaker and headed off downwind. Here the
fleet began to spread out with many boats going hard inshore
to try and get out of the foul tide. We found that we were able
to sail lower and at the same speed as most of the boats around
us and pulled away from a gaggle of boats which included a couple
of HOD 35s and X-362 Sports.
We gybed half-a-dozen times as we tried to stay in the best
wind on the way down to St Catherine's Point. We then had a
tense few minutes as we gybed inshore around the Point (without
an echo sounder!) trading places with a Reflex 38, Mills 36
and X-382. It was then a long starboard pole run out to the
Seaflex buoy were we gybed and headed for Bembridge. The wind
picked up and larger boats around us began to pull away.
After a fetch to the Forts we hardened up for a beat against
the tide to the finish off Cowes. By now the feeling aboard
was that we had a good lead on our Class 3 rivals and we should
therefore be a bit conservative and not end up as another victim
of Ryde sands! Half way up the Solent we spotted another boat
in our Class, Zeal, catching us quickly inshore.
We tacked on to starboard and headed towards them. For a while
it looked very close and we elected to tack just ahead and to
leeward. With everyone hiking hard we managed to hold off Zeal
as she tried to pass to windward and they eventually elected
to try and sail through our lee, which they seemed to manage
all too easily!
Off Norris Point we sailed through the many moored cruisers
and had an interesting time as the wind gusted from 5 to 20
knots in a matter of seconds. With only a couple of hundred
yards to go to the finish we know we were close enough to Zeal
to beat her on corrected as long as there were no mishaps. As
always crossing the finish line was a tense affair with boats
coming in from all angles. On clearing the line we could at
last relax and head towards Cowes for a well deserved drink!
The result: a Class win by around three minutes. We also managed
to score a second in Group 1 (IRC Classes 1-4), beaten by an
IMX 40 from Class 1 by 36 seconds - if only we'd had an echo
sounder!
Hugh Myers,
Banks Sails
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