Round The Island Race

Sponsored by "Alvine"

If you have left your time on the Results Secretary's answer phone please also advise the webmaster of your finish times and if in class 3 or 4 the number of crew. Mike Fox - webmaster@pyra.org.uk        or   phone07946447646

PHHS Passage Series A

IRC and MOCRA Passage Series A

Results of Round the Island 2009 ResultsBook.pdf

Round The Island Race Weekend.

On Friday the 19^th of June, The PYRA fleet set off on the feeder race to Cowes in a good fresh westerly. This got the fleet into Cowes quite quickly but not quick enough for most to get a berth in West Cowes! Never mind. Commando missions over the barbed wire at Venture Quays again!

The weather for this year’s race was forecast light, and for boats starting early, it was, with tricky starting conditions for most fleets. Boats starting later had slightly more favourable conditions and were able to catch boats that had started much earlier. This made the bottle necks at Bembridge Mark and Ryde Sands corner considerably busier than usual.

Tactics for Dream On starting last start, were to Keep close in for almost the entire race. This gave great views of the beautiful south side of the Island that most of us only see once a year. No time for site seeing though, as we’re keeping an eye on depth and looking out for starboard boats.

Even in lighter airs, Saint Catherine’s was as tricky as ever. Sailing very deep and Gybing in a swell is a time to take great care. Sometimes, another boats tactics become incompatible with your own, and accidents happen. Unfortuately, at this point, a crew member went over the side of Fraid Seau during a forced gybe. Thankfully, Roger’s approach to safety meant that life jackets were being worn already and the remaining crew knew exactly what to do, to recover the crew, unhurt but a little shaken. A lesson to us all here, on how important safety preparation is.

I’ve been told that due to lack of wind, many boats found themselves rafted up at Bembridge Ledge Mark. Some even resorting to fenders! Conservative estimates by PYRA members not normally known to exaggerate, say there could have been five hundred boats parked up all at once! Could this be a new raft up world record?

Fortunately, Dream On arrived as this was clearing and we rounded the mark with no trouble, except we were now sailing with many fleets sandwiched together, so it was inevitable that Ryde Sands would be tricky to navigate through cleanly.

Just off the sands, there is a few metre wide strip of less tide against that everyone wants to be in. This made for a very exciting few minutes of short tacking with a very compact and varied fleet. There were a few raised voices heard, a few bumps and numerous groundings, some temporary, others looking more permanent.

The last leg seemed to drag but eventually we were back in Cowes. Worn out, but with that sense of achievement that only comes with completing a fifty mile yacht race, with nearly ten thousand other competitors.

As in most years, there were some impressive results for PYRA members.

Shebeen, First Escape and Eclipse all managed top ten finishes in their class while Fraid Seau managed an extraordinary fourth in class despite man overboard drills and stopping for a warm up coffee! Well done!

In IRC, Panache was the worthy winner in her class and Kudos, an impressive seventh. Amethyst was third in class which is a sign that Ian’s new boat will be as competitive as Resume was.

It was great to see a new member to PYRA do well. Mark Hughes sailed his F24 Tri, Legless into third place in MOCRA division. As for us in Dream On, We were second in our class so room for improvement next year!

Finally, Two PYRA team results stand out above the others. The IRC team of Pavlova3, Firestarter and Flair4 were joint first in their group and the ISC team of First Escape, Eclipse and Dream on were second.

Well done to all who competed. Now we can all relax again. Only fifty one weeks to go until we do it all again!

Report By Matt Hitt.