ROUND THE ISLAND RACE
Bear of Britain Wins Class and Comes Within
17 Seconds of First Out of 1800 Boats
The Round the Island Race is a counter-clockwise
circumnavigation of the Isle of Wight on the south coast of
England. This year 1800 boats did the race, which is an awesome
spectacle.
The start lines can have up to 300 boats
on them, and as it is quite tidal most boats end up going
for a short stretch of water, with inevitable collisions as
a result. This year was no different, with several massive
crashes.
The following account was reported on
the Madforsailing web site
(www.madforsailing.com) about how the Farr 52 Farr 52 BEAR
OF BRITAIN ended up second overall out of the 1800 boats.
B.O.B has a full set of UK Tape-Drive Carbon sails.
The Farr 52 BEAR OF BRITAIN came within
spitting distance of the Gold Roman Bowl trophy for thefastest
corrected lap of the Isle of Wight by an IRC rated yacht today.
But after helmsman Mark Campbell-James
spent a majority of the afternoon anxiously waiting at the
Island Sailing Club for the results to roll in, one of the
final boats to cross the Royal Yacht Squadron line, back in
IRC class 12 stole the limelight by a mere 17 seconds.
The Contessa 26 ROSINA OF BEAULIEU,
believed to be skippered by revered designer, Jeremy Rogers,
was the provisional 11th hour victor. Campbell-James and owner
Kit Hobday at least have the satisfaction of winning IRC class
one, beating the winning team from last year, Peter Morton
and Adam Gosling on the Mills 50 MANDRAKE.
After one false start and a general
recall, the class one yachts finally got underway at ten minutes
past ten this morning with BEAR OF BRITAIN, the Sydney 60
WARPATH and the Swan 70 SERANO OF LONDON making the best starts.
But in front of them lay a minefield of small yachts to weave
through.
"The whole of the beat up to the
Needles was dodging in and out of the small boats. A lot of
them were stopping to take photos which was quite funny,"
Mark Campbell-James, helmsman on BEAR, explained afterwards.
By the Needles, WARPATH held the lead
but Kit Hobday, owner and tactician of THE BEAR backed up
by navigator Luke McCarthy, made the winning call.
Campbell-James explained: "SPIRIT
OF JETHOU [Swan 60] and FLIRT [the new Corby 50] went right
along the shore and the two big boats, WARPATH and SERANO
went offshore to get away from all the small boats. We went
as straight as possible with our asymmetric and by St Catherines
we were quite a way ahead," continued Campbell-James.
"We peeled to a big runner and
tucked in along the shore to Bembridge to beat the tide,"
which by now was flowing quickly against them.
After a short two sail reach to the
Fort at the entrance to the eastern Solent, only a short fetch
to the line stood between BEAR OF BRITAIN and class line honours.
But the Swan 70 turned up the heat using her superior waterline
length to whittle down her five-minute deficit to just two
with the finish in sight.
"They were slowly catching us up
which got quite nerve racking. The hardest bit was the headland
just before the finish. We were worried for a bit we were
going to sit there in a hole."
Campbell - James, with his fiancé
Georgina looking on, held his nerve and crossed the line in
time of five hours, 22 minutes and 53 seconds for the single
lap 55 nm course. This was 12 minutes slower than their time
last year when they broke the rudder quadrant off St Catherines
although the near perfect conditions 12 months ago allowed
them to complete the course in just one tack and one gybe.
On corrected time SERANO dropped to
eighth while MANDRAKE moved up to second in class one.
After five hours of concentration at
the helm, Campbell-James admitted he had a slight headache.
It will undoubtedly get worse as the night progresses and
the satisfaction of their achievement in showing the oldies
the way home and writing another page in yachting history
is realized and duly celebrated...
