Round the Island Race 2022 – report by Becky Goddard

Bob Buchanan  and I  were invited again to sail ‘Parallel Universe  ’, a Hunter Impala 28 owned and skippered by our friend Paddy in the RTI.

We asked for a practice weekend as the boat is all hank-on sails, which was arranged for May 13th,and had a very useful Saturday in light winds and bright sunshine - tacking, spinnaker up/down etc. Paddy’s wife Lucy came with us (she doesn’t like racing) so it was really a relaxed cruise with lunch afloat then dinner ashore in Cowes Tandoori.

Next morning we woke to heavy rain and blustery winds but set off about 11am (without Lucy) to sail into the wind and rain, reefing, tacking and getting very wet! After about an hour Paddy called it a day and we returned to the home mooring on a pontoon in the Medina river. Bob was stepping ashore with the bow line when he slipped on the pontoon which was thick with moss and algae and ½ inch deep in rainwater – no bones broken but quite painful! We cleared the boat, dinghyed ashore and made our way to Paddy’s home where a welcome fire was lit and we hung our gear to dry.

We returned to the Island on Friday June 24th  and as we had a late race start the next day we visited the Race Village at Cowes Yacht Haven for beer and burgers meeting up with Paddy’s long term sailing friend Simon and the previous owner of the boat “young James” bringing the average age of the crew down considerably.

Paddy brought the bacon butties for breakfast the next morning and loads of sarnies and snacks for lunch and we left the mooring about 7.30 am, to decide which foresail to use and put 2 reefs in the main. We also had a choice of two spinnakers – a racing man’s dream! Wind SSW F4/5 with broken sea state.

Our start was 8.50 and we crossed the line promptly to tack west down the Solent in our Class IRC Group 3.

We reached the Needles into a sizeable swell but were able to munch some sarnies before the spinnaker work after St Catherines. Simon is the main man on spinnakers so he was up and down the foredeck like a spring chicken! We broached a couple of times as we rounded Bembridge Ledge but the third broach nearly tipped Simon into the drink coming up to the forts! Only the back of his knees against the guard rail kept him onboard....Paddy leapt out of the cockpit and grabbed Simons arm pulling him inboard – Simon hadn’t called out or made any noise!

The spinnaker was down for the race to the finish line when a big storm cloud with heavy rain came up throwing double rainbows behind us – after the second squall came through the wind died suddenly leaving us with many other boats hardly moving – we were only about half a mile from the finish but our helmsman managed to get us moving again with a bit of rudder waggling!

We crossed the line at 17.54! 106 of 140 in IRC Group 3, 14 of 19 British Hunters.

A great boat, crew and race!