Royal Air Force Yacht Club

BLUSH ROUND THE ISLAND 2008 (Mark Breton)

We were soon beating our way into the fleet staring ahead of us although as we approached the funnel of Hurst we neatly avoided issues with other boats and progressed through to the needles. The wind conditions were brisk and due to my doubts over the gap between the wreck and Goose rock we went the long way round and were slow to hoist the spinnaker as we watched the chaos start with those who did.

We hoisted the 1.5oz kite and had some over powering to start with which we sorted and were making good speed through the fleets with surges of speeds up to 11kts however after about ¾ of the distance to St Catherines there was a large bang and our spinnaker became a sort of horizontal flag. A quick recovery took place without too much excitement or mackerel, we found that mast mice had eaten the halyard but recovered all including the snap shackle. Then against the suggestion from Nick Brebner I kept the boat on white sail through St Catherines and the jibe which probably was about 30mins worth of sailing. The conditions were now more windy and the sea state rougher and there was much damage taking place to sails all around us not to mention capsized boats and people falling off there boats etc.

Off St Catherines with me on the helm we actually achieved speeds of over 12 kts on white sail then post the jibe we re-hoisted ( twice actually ) with the spinnaker back up on the remaining halyard we had cribbage scores of speeds with the crew calling out 15- 2 15 – 4 from the log.

We managed a good spinnaker drop at Bembridge and threaded through a small gap and made for the forts.  We were battling with a Discovery 55 which should have taken us on off wind sailing under white sail but they didn’t and they enjoyed a very nice stable cup of tea during that battle which we could not do.

Through the forts and we tacked up the Ryde Sands and were bold in going well in – some copied us and did keel cleaning. Others went up the Ryde middle – possibly a better move however we held station with our now established rivals and with our over powering main struggled in.

The finish was a challenging affair as it was split in half for different fleets, we had overstood a little so we tacked on to starboard and came in across the Northern line doing 8 – 9 kts and on to our line to be confronted by a pair of Sunsail charter boats on port tack with a clear risk of collision – big dilemma – however they did the honourable thing and we passed through without incident. We tacked and finished and attempted to clear the area and had our first dangerous close encounter with a boat dropping his sail and under motor directly behind the line and in our way – all I can say is that we missed them – but it was very close and most unnecessary.

Our result would appear to be a little complimentary with 6th in Class and 77th O/A as to be up with the class leader we needed to take about 45 minutes off our time which is a lot, however no disgrace in the result with 1875 entrants.

We have done much work to Blush since our buying her now some 6 years ago with a plan to go off long term cruising and those works do not add to the racing aspect of the boats performance. The limited racing we have done has really been to test out the boats capabilities and be a proving ground. Other racing this year has been limited to the Weymouth and back 2 handed race where we were 2nd and 4th respectively. On that race we established that with the new LED navigation lights our night time sailing current is now down to 1 amp.

Our yearlong cruise is planned to start mid August and the racing equipment is coming off and the cruising stuff – even an onboard washing machine is going on currently !

Mark Breton

Amanda Pirie