Round the Island Race

Rupert Holmes looks at how to have the best possible day racing round the Isle of Wight

Racing Round the Island

The Round the Island Race has long been one of the UK’s stand-out sporting events and is likely to be one of the biggest mass participation events since the first lockdown in March 2020. This year competitors will join an estimated 500,000 sailors and 70,000 boats that have competed in the race over the past 90 years. It’s a fantastic spectacle that’s amazing to be part of. Despite

Covid, this year promises to be no exception.

How can you get the most out of your time on the water? The answers to this question are much the same whether you’re a semi-professional team aiming to lift the event’s main prize, the Gold Roman Bowl, or a family crew competing for the first time in a modest cruising boat.

The race itself is not the day to try new boat handling new tricks for the first time, so it’s always worth setting up for the event a day or two in advance. This gives scope for a practice session the day before to cover key manoeuvres.

This is also a good time to familiarise yourself with the start line, which is more than a mile long and has a strong cross tide. On the Thursday or Friday evening, at a similar state of tide to your start time, identify the transits and sail along the line heading offshore from Cowes. This will help give a feel for the strength of the tidal stream you will need to allow for, and the variations in the flow at different points on the line.

If you’re around early you’ll also be part of the scene in Cowes that will be ramping up ahead of the race. On the afternoon of Thursday July 1, for instance, five ocean rowing crews will set off from the RYS start line to circumnavigate the Isle of Wight. The following day a team of kitesurfers will attempt to break the record for rounding the Island under sail.

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The Needles, arguably the trickiest part of the course

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Preparing for the race

Getting the basics right

essentials as well as possible. Whether you’re an Olympian or a newcomer the complexity of yacht racing makes it hard to get all the basics right. Teams at all levels fail on this count, especially if they get so wrapped up in fine tuning and tweaking that they fail to take account of the ever changing big picture scenarios.

Getting the fundamentals right is also the route to a happy day on the water, and can give those who are new to the race a chance to bag an impressive result. Indeed, a well prepared cruising boat that sails a brisk race, making use of the key gains available around the course, while avoiding the many timeabsorbing pitfalls, can achieve very satisfying results.

The three over-arching aims for a good result are to stay in the best tide, maintain a lane of clear air that’s undisturbed by boats to windward, and stay out of trouble. The first two are obvious and sound simple, yet it’s not easy to achieve both among more than 1,000 other boats. This makes it essential to maintain situational awareness, looking behind as well as ahead.

Of course, the density of traffic also makes a sharp lookout imperative, even if you are stand-on vessel. It may seem exciting to yell ‘Starboard!’ at a bunch of port tack boats whose crews aren’t accustomed to sailing in such close-quarters situations. However, the fastest boats are those that keep a close eye open for trouble and sail quickly around it – getting embroiled in a problem can cost far more than a neatly-executed duck.

If the course change will involve bearing away around the stern of another vessel be prepared to ease sheets in good time, especially when well powered up. There are times that boats with big over-lapping genoas may need the headsail sheet eased to answer the helm smartly.

To avoid dirty air it’s invaluable to be able to select a high mode to squeeze up above another boat, or a low mode to foot fast and low to a position few lengths to leeward and out of the worst wind shadow, is essential. Expert crews should be able to do this will little or no impact on VMG, but it’s a skill that’s always worth practicing.

Tightly packed groups of boats always move slowly, so the extra distance required to sail around them pays off more often than not. This applies on the start line, at the

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The start of the race

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Getting the fundamentals right is also the route to a happy day on the water corners of the island and anywhere else a group of boats may form, including the approach to the finish.

The perennially successful Folkboats tend to be exceptionally good at this. On a day with a westerly breeze it’s impressive and instructive to see them picking an efficient route between groups of much larger cruising yachts as they tack up the eastern Solent towards the finish.

Changing conditions

The wind strength and direction changes a lot as you transition between different sections of the course, so you have to think ahead and be prepared to keep changing gear. Hurst Narrows and the corner at

A day for everyone

The ethos of a ‘Race for All’ is extended this year with the inaugural Windeler Cup. This is a race for smaller keelboats that will set sail after the main fleet departs from Cowes. The idea is it enables boats including the Daring, Dragon, Etchells, Flying Fifteen, Mermaid, Redwing, Sunbeam, Swallow, Sonar, Squib, RS Elite, Victory and XOD classes to join in the fun with an exciting long-distance Solent Race. Many years ago some of these classes competed in the Round the Island Race itself, but progressively tighter safety regulation expectations, many of which are determined at an international level, mean they have gradually been excluded.

The Windeler Cup race will start from the Royal Yacht Squadron line around 0830, before following a course towards Hurst Narrows and around west Solent marks. It will then take advantage of favourable tides to return along Cowes beach and finish back on the RYS line.

It’s named in honour of Major Cyril Windeler, who in 1931 decided decided there needed to be an opportunity for owners of smaller yachts to enjoy a ‘bigger than usual’ competition. He donated the Gold Roman Bowl that’s awarded to the winner of the Round the Island Race and has become one of the most coveted trophies in the world of sailing. Windeler won it himself in 1939 in his 7 Ton cutter Kaliste.

the Needles are arguably the trickiest sections of the course. Southwest and westerly winds are funnelled here, so will be stronger than in the western Solent, while the faster current will also increase the effective wind speed. If you’re consistently overpowered in a westerly breeze after Newtown Creek it’s therefore worth depowering the sail plan before the tide sweeps you rapidly past Yarmouth.

West of Yarmouth the best of the favourable tidal stream follows a line from Sconce north cardinal buoy to just off Hurst Castle, and then along the southern edge of the Shingles Bank on the north side of the Needles Channel. But it’s a mistake to stick to close to the bank for too long as it’s easy to misjudge the tidal layline and overstand the Needles. Hundreds of boats lose out every year for this reason.

Don’t make a last-minute decision to cut inside the Varvassi. There’s only a 60m wide passage between this and Goose Rock, with a very strong cross tide sweeping onto the wreck. The only times I’ve taken the inside route I’ve been out in a RIB at low water springs the week before to re-acquaint myself with the route, both visually and on a chartplotter.

Even then it’s essential to be set up on a safe line well in advance and have no other boats around that will limit your scope to manoeuvre. For most sailing inside the wreck is a huge risk for a relatively small gain and nine times out of ten I go outside. The three separate sections of the wreck span a distance of only 250m, yet many boats sail well outside this point, which is extremely slow if the tide is adverse when you change course towards St Catherine’s Point.

In strong breezes between southwest and north-west the section from

Key information

When: Saturday July 3, 2021 Where: Organised by the Island SC, using the RYS start line

Distance: 50 nautical miles

First start: 0630

Last start: 0820 (approximately) Time limit: 2200

Late entry until 1200 Wednesday June 30 More info, Covid guidance and first timers’ guide: www. roundtheisland.org.uk The start is timed to give all classes the maximum chance of getting past the tidal gate at the Needles

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St Catherine’s Point

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Sailing down the south side of the Isle of Wight the approach to St Catherine’s Point to Dunnose is usually the windiest part of the course. In addition to the acceleration zone at the headland, in westerly air flows there are also steep wind against tide seas in the tidal races here.

The race often takes longer than

expected – although the big raceboats may be finished in four to six hours, the bulk of the fleet frequently doesn’t get in until mid to late afternoon. You therefore need to plan to contend with the coldest part of the day at dawn, the possibility of relentless afternoon sun, and the potential for big seas. This means being equipped for all eventualities, including sun protection, foul weather gear and warm clothes. Plenty of pre-prepared food and non-alcoholic drinks are also essential.

Immediately after Dunnose there’s often a relatively calm section before another acceleration zone in the northern section of Sandown Bay. By this stage you’re likely to be starting to feel tired, so if you’ve not already done so it’s a good time to shuffle crew positions and have a change of driver. In westerly winds it’s also an ideal time for lunch, although in easterlies an early lunch in the sheltered water before reaching St Catherines makes more sense.

Don’t be complacent about Bembridge Ledge – the outer edge of the rocks are very steep to, so the depth sounder will give precious little warning ahead of grounding here. After changing course towards the Forts be prepared for an increase of south west and westerly winds in the acceleration zone associated with the low-lying land around Bembridge Harbour.

Ryde Sands has the potential to be dangerous in stiff onshore winds. If you’re approaching against the tide keeping inshore is obviously beneficial, but don’t push your luck. This is particularly important near the western most of the two red posts that marks the north-east corner of the sands. Like all of the northern edge it shelves very steeply here, so again the depth sounder gives very little warning before grounding.

The approach to the finish is often one of the most crowded parts of the course and things can happen very fast here. Double check the sailing instructions so that you’re certain which of the two finish lines is used for your class. Equally, if you don’t have them rigged already, don’t forget to display sail numbers on the guardrails of the appropriate side of the boat.

When you cross the line note your finish time and the sail number of the boats immediately ahead and behind. And don’t forget to submit the declaration before having a well-earned drink.

Ellen MacArthur Cancer Trust

This year’s race will be an important event for the event’s official charity – it marks the first opportunity the Trust has had to get young people on the water since 2019. CEO Frank Fletcher says: “We’re so grateful to be the official race charity again and it’s great to have a boat entered.” The organisation is using it as a pre-season ‘test event’ for the extra safety and risk management controls needed ahead of a sailing tour across the UK this summer for young people living through and beyond cancer.

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View towards Bembridge

BELOW RIGHT Sailing past No Man’s Land Fort