Saturday 18th saw another exciting edition of RIOW Solo, Round the Isle of Wight single-handed, organised by Petit Bateau. With an excellent entry list of 28 boats, 26 crossed the start line and all bar the slowest boat in the fleet went round.
Several OSTAR entrants took the opportunity to put their racing skills at test on this classic course, Oscar Mead on J105 King of Shaves, Katie Miller on Figaro 2 bluQube, Rob Craigie on J122 Jbellino and Hannah White on Figaro 2 Pure Solo. Hannah has some issues with the kite at the start and did not start the race while the rest started downwind for a very quick approach to the Needles under spinnaker, laying the course all the way on starboard tack with Wind around 15knots from the North East, with occasional stronger winds around the headlands. It was cloudy and gray, but with no rain and very occasional brighter spells of misty sunshine.
The first boats to reach the Needles were Peter Olden's J92 Solan Goose, Mike Garvery's J92 J-Arrow and Andy Greenwood's Figaro 2 Imtech. Among the OSTAR skippers, Rob Craigie was followed closely by Katie and Oscar.
The characteristically stronger gusting wind around the Needles presented some exciting moments when it came to drop the kites, some of the boats made excellent roundings gaining many positions in the fleet, Solan Goose, Chris Rustom's Ding Dong and Simon Curven's Voador were certainly the closest to the lighthouse that I saw from the Rib, but I'm sure many more too the shortcut inside the wreck whilst a lot of the others opted for safety and went wide in deeper waters including all the OSTAR skippers who certainly had the safety of their boats in mind throughout the race.
After the rounding of the needles the fleet could lay the course to St' Catherine's point, with the wind on the port quarter, just a few points off a beat. The wind started to go lighter by this stage and would test the patience of the skippers.
At this stage we had to go to Yarmouth for a refuel of the rib and little did we know that the wind play such an important role. We rejoined the solo skippers around St Catherine's and I witnessed a complete reshuffle of positions. Those who went close to shore around the headland kept a fickle breeze and inched forward, those who imagined the stable air to be further offshore were majestically parked in a bubble. This affected all our OSTAR skippers, who went offshore, and lost many precious positions.
Andy Greenwood's Imtech, Peter Newlands' Anticipation, Noj White's SX Girl and the light trimaran Scooby III sailed by Simon Forbes gained the most over the rest of the fleet and kept the advantage right through the finish line.
Oscar, Katie and Rob were very close to each other at this stage, but struggling to find any air to move forward. Evenctually the fleet made it through the bubble, helped by the favourable current and found again a 5kt breeze to fill the sails for the beat to Bembridge.
Once round Bembridge the boats could just lay the course inside of the forts and close to shore. Passed No Man's land fort the kites went up again for a very shy spinnaker reach to the finish line. Most boats managed to keep the kites up to the finish line, some had to drop it when the reach was too shy.
Line honours went to Andy Greenwood Figaro 2 Imtech, who raced faultlessly all the way round, while OSTAR skipper Rob Craigie's Jbellino crossed in 7th position (16th in IRC), Oscar Mead's Kind of Shaves took 12th (11th in IRC) and Katie Miller's bluQube took 14th (20th in IRC). For the full results visit Petit Bateau results page.
The OSTAR entrants had an excellent opportunity to sail in race mode and play with their kites in benign conditions and get their moves practiced. The prudent approach they took to this race was well justified by the start of OSTAR looming just weeks ahead, none went inshore at the Needles and the kites were dropped in plenty of safety further out, this might have affected their final position but clearly they had different objectives and at the prize giving they were glad to have been out for a practice.
Pictures of the race to follow.
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