The Racing Memory!

We was Robbed! by Terry Collins

"Greensleeves" came down to the Elephant boatyard on the Hamble on Thursday the first of June prior to taking part again in the 'Round the Island Race' - the sort of London Marathon on water which has become a fixture in the big-event calendar of yacht racing. Something like 1800 boats had signed in again and Roy Hart was set on winning the 'Modern Gaffer' Class this time, after coming second last year. Your Hon Editor had been offered the privilege of acting as crew; privileged indeed; last year it was the sub editor of Yachting Monthly!

All packed up from roading from the East Coast, Roy had Thursday to rig her into racing condition, plus sorting out all the gubbins that was needed for the cruise back to the East Coast on Sunday, the day after the race - (that's a separate story) The big boss of Salterns helped whilst yours truly held a rope or two. Eventually it was done and on the Friday we toddled off to Cowes to be ready for the 0600 hours 'off' on Saturday morning. Cowes is not something devoutly to be wished on these occasions : hundreds of boats crammed into the marina, rafted seven or eight deep, mean looking 40 foot hi-tech race machines, macho young males in designer gear, Gucci wrap around 'shades', strutting their fake ( maybe some of them real) tans in front of the svelte young J.P.Morgan Asset Management hostesses with shorts resting precariously a little above the pubic bone and bulging topsides, plus live rock music knocking hell out of the night sky into the small hours. Got the picture ? "Greensleeves" looked a little, one might say, 'diminutive' amongst all this hype. But we did find some good fish and chips and a decent beer.

Off Cowes, there were two big marshalling areas for boats to assemble before the start. We bobbed around on a vacant buoy to get sails up and trimmed before joining the throng. And here it was the dastardly deed was done. A fast rib came screaming out from amongst the fleet of officials on 'tother side of the river entrance. He demanded to see life jackets and distress flares. There were red ones and white ones - but there was not one of the orange smoke locating type (this in a force 2/3 brilliant sunshine, forecast to stay.) "OK, I'll have to report you" he says, and swishes off again. Roy said something to the effect of not being too pleased…. and we pondered the possibility of making a plea bargain later or even getting a time penalty. This was 10 minutes before our start; no chance to go out and buy smoke and there'd been nothing explicit in the 'instructions booklets'. Out in the assembly area, trying to spot the starting line, canons shooting off from the Royal Yacht Squadron, funny flags all going up and down - not too sure how Roy decided we had started but we got going at the right ten minute interval at least.

Three hours of the ebb remaining, down the Western Solent to The Needles, a nice breeze over the starboard quarter and four Shrimpers to leeward, a bit in-shore for some inexplicable reason. The sheer volume and variety of multi coloured balloon sails behind us was a rare sight in the sunshine, hundreds of 'em. Through the chop of the Hurst Channel we had long lost sight of the Shrimpers and three of the mean machines had got themselves aground on the Shingles Bank. For a moment I thought Roy was going to try to make it between the rocks, land side of the Needles lighthouse, over the wrecks - but it was now low water and RNLI appeared to be blocking the gap anyway. So we clipped outside the lighthouse by a few metres and found most of the boats ahead moving well out to sea, now south of the Island. Timing was great because the tide was now just starting to push us East and the wind was flukey. At the start of the flood there is still a bit of an adverse flow a way offshore, so we stayed fairly close in and gradually over-hauled the nearest Dragon and similar speed machines. Off St Catherine's Point, the chop of competing currents slowed progress and everyone flopped around in the heat for and hour or so. Towards Bembridge Ledge buoy (the turning mark to start back into the East Solent) things picked up a bit, Roy pulled in the light balloon sail and reset the jib, and in our patch of the sea twenty or so boats all headed for the three yard strip outside of the buoy - all a trifle unsettling for a race novice like me ! Roy yelled at me to keep the boom pushed out (the wind dead astern) for this was clearly no place for any hint of slowing up or worse still a gybe. As it was, three of us (or two and a quarter taking into account the size of "Greensleeves" !) came around the buoy at the same time, the inside guy really pushing his luck and hooking his very metallic boom onto our aft shroud. I'm sure you're supposed to shout something on these occasions, and probably Roy did, but there was a loud twang and he bore away. We still had a mast. Two other boats, who didn't get round the outside, drifted together downwind hurling very colourful language at each other. Now into the East Solent, waiting for the west going tide to start up again, it was a tacking game. In my book, this was where Roy's racing experience came into its own, the wind shifting as each time we opened up Castle Head. His concentration was continuous and I was more than impressed how close to the wind he could get "Greensleeves" to go, yet still moving well. The sail 'wardrobe' was critical - I think. The topsail, aloft throughout, had been cut and adjusted to fit the gap between gaff and mast exactly. And the working jib Roy uses is bigger and somewhat lighter than the Selman version, cut to a mid-sail seam (whatever the correct term for that is ! See pic. page) with the jib halyard on a small winch on the cabin top. The result is that the boat was pointing as close as many of the Bermudan cruiser/racers. A beautiful big modern gaff rigged yawl, flying three foresails, was a good half mile ahead of us coming into this phase of the race. On the last tack to the line he couldn't quite make it in one. We did, and we crossed the line one second ahead. It had taken us twelve and a half hours in pretty light winds. We downed sails and motored to the 'Declaration Barge', triumphantly to hand in our piece of paper. And this is when it happened. "Ah yes, Greensleeves" the man said, "You're disqualified !" We hot-footed to the Race HQ and argued the toss. There they dug out two big tomes of RORC racing rules and Sailing Instructions, with sections, paragraphs, clauses and sub-clauses. The missing 'orange smoke flare' had done for us. Wasn't mentioned in Roy's issued booklets about the race - but hidden in their small print was the cross reference to obedience to all of the two great tomes. They had us over a barrel. I asked one of the (many) officials with a kindly face, "Well, do you think you could work out for us how we would have done in the Race if we hadn't been disqualified on this technicality; after all, performance-wise, Roy did it by the book - and we're only little ?" He smiled a bit, reached for his computer and tables, and did the calculations. " Wow", he said, consulting the figures, "You would have won your class by a mile !" That was good enough; who wants a big cup and a silver tankard anyway. As far as I'm concerned, Roy won the Round the Island Race this year, in a Memory.

(Having said all that, feelings you understand, rules is rules and the ones about safety, this journal acknowledges, are paramount, especially when races like this one might well take place in very rough conditions. Ed.)

Racing Results: