Official Race Report - By Nick Dewhirst - UKCRA Chairman
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Official Race Report - By Nick Dewhirst - UKCRA Chairman

Honda's Fast Cat accelerates from slow start

Drama intensified with the wind strength as the Fast Cat Race progressed round the Isle of Wight on Saturday 7th July. This was not just a race but also the finest of opportunities to see the spirit of adventure alive and thriving among beach catamaran sailors in the United Kingdom.

Over sixty cats lined up for a 10.00 start off Calshot Spit with kites flying for a down-wind start in light NW airs. Once Datchet Commodore, Mike Rothery and his team fired the starting gun, the fleet headed east down the Solent for clockwise circum-navigation. However within a matter of minutes the wind began to pick up, enabling the spinnaker boats to open a substantial gap ahead of the two sailed cats.

Tactics in the NE quadrant revolved around exploiting a high wind funnel down the middle of the Solent while dodging the double tide reversal by ducking in to the island shore, which led to frequent swapping of places.

The early favourites were Dick Ogilvie's Concept 25, out for its first race ever, followed by Will Sunnucks in the new high-powered Olympic Tornado after his unofficial 4-hour circum-navigation during the Hoya event a few weeks earlier. However both suffered damage. Sunnucks lost the spinnaker halyard and had to put in for a pit stop at Bembridge. Off the Bembridge Ledge, Ogilvie's dolphin striker actually hit one. The dolphin came off better, forcing Ogilvie to limp round the course with his carbon front beam cracked, and suffer the ignominy of being beaten over the water by mere Hurricanes.

Half a dozen of the slowest cats were also unlucky enough to be turned round at the gate off Benbridge Ledge for sailing out of time. Their true penalty was still to come because it turned out that their journey back in light airs took them longer than the race itself.

Round to Ventnor in the SE quadrant the island blocked the NW wind, creating more tactical difficulties. This caused competitors to choose between pinching to gain maximum lift of the wind bend but at risk of wind-shadows or freeing off for speed but sailing further.

These two incidents enabled local resident, Stuart Gummar, to show the visitors the way round his island in an Inter 20 from his home club Yaverland, right up to the Needles all along the exposed Southern side.

By this stage the wind had strengthened to force four and shifted SW enabling the Formula 20 class to sail to its strength, and dominate the leading places, while the theoretically slower Formula 18's picked off Hurricanes one by one.

This leg also showed the thoroughbred quality of a veteran 20 year old White Formula Tornado raced by Whitstable sailors, Lester and Winchester that glided apparently effortlessly through the chop, as wind was now against tide, to pull up to the middle of the fleet.

The SW quadrant leg to the Needles was an arm-wrenching hour-long twin-trazeze fetch. With the chalk cliffs shrouded in mist, competitors had to guess how high to point to get to the Needles without tacking. South Africa's, Philip Marks managed it best, exploiting a massive lift under the Needles themselves to take out six places in his Hurricane Sport.

It was the difference between chalk and cheese once past the lighthouse. Flat water and a following force five created ideal kite-flying conditions for the cats as they criss-crossed the Solent at speeds that made yachts look positively pedestrian.

That also caused a number of pitch-poling incidents and revealed the event's true hero - Alan Grace, handicapped sailor from the Lake District, who went over twice. Thanks to the lightness of his Spitfire, his crew, Peter Lawson, was nevertheless able to right it single-handed and pull him back on board to finish the event.

For the final NW quadrant, the smarter crews quickly ducked out of the tide on the North bank once past Hurst Castle - gybing repeatedly over the mirror-like water by the marshes, while the rest fought wind against tide in the main stream of the Solent. Gaps of a mile or more appeared between boats that had been racing neck and neck.

Here unluckiest man of the day, Ron Bentham from Llandudno broke a rudder from his Inter 20 just 3 miles from home - this showed the effectiveness of the safety system. The requirement for a mobile phone proved its worth for Ron simply called for a replacement and had it delivered to the far side of the Solent by water taxi, so he could continue the race.

The fight over line honours created a fitting climax to the event. Having shown visitors the way home, Stuart Gummer's Inter 20 lost out to Matt Eeles', Hobie Fox on the downwind leg, but that in turn lost out to Will Sunnucks, who had fought his way through the entire spinnaker fleet since his pit stop. In the end he finished 10 minutes ahead of two superbly sailed F18s respectively by French hotshot Aaron Sault and Dutch ace, Marius van Dam.

Did it matter who won in the end? Not to half a dozen Hurricane sailors who graciously volunteered that they had been given too generous a handicap. Not to the bulk of the fleet, for whom completing the event itself was an achievable adventure.

Does anyone begrudge Yves Loday for winning on handicap in the Spitfire he designed himself? Most of us will be proud that we managed to finish a few percent behind an Olympic Gold Medallist and Runner Up in "The Race". In the words of yachting guru, Jeremy Evans "it was the right level of challenge".

Report by Nick Dewhirst from Whitstable, helming Hurricane spi124 with Rob Guy

For more information call 01227 282625

Sailors reports and comments

The event was great ! Sailing, Hobie Tiger 33 , with Rob Redman we had aneventful race. My only suggestion would be to make more use of the internet to publish the results real time; place photos and video streaming etc. Having been disappointed at Texel last year due to event being cancelled I feel the Fastcat RIOW provides excellent sailing, good host venue not to mention contingency courses and a reserve day. Overall, the organisation and management of the event was superb and a credit to all involved. Definitely up for the event next year, "when is it

David Myers. Stokes Bay SC Hobie Tiger 33

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Visibility of a mile or so and very little wind were not quite what we were hoping for, a brave decision by the Race Officer to send us. After a 15 min postponement we were in the middle of 60 boats heading (thankfully not too fast) for the downwind start-line. 

Most of the way to Bembridge was torturous, one of those endless downwind legs where you wonder if you are making any progress. Worse was to come. We needed to be through the Bembridge gate within 40 minutes of the lead boat - which we later found out we did with 8 minutes to spare - but in this visibility had little idea where we were in the pack. Then
no wind at all and we were really questioning just why we were trying to sail all the way round the island.

 Slowly the wind started to hint that it might fill in. Very gradually it did and soon after we passed Sandown it reached a SW 3/4 and we were both out on the wire. Safely negotiated the tide race off St Catherines and then an hour and a half twin-wiring on port tack up to the Needles and certain bits of the anatomy were starting to ache. A real feeling of remoteness, quite often we couldn't see any other competitors and could only just make out the shore. Still couldn't see where we were aiming for, but our decision to sail as high as possible paid off as other boats ended up putting in a couple of extra tacks.

 The Needles lighthouse looming up in the mist was one of the highlights for me. Once round the visibility improved and the fun really started. 15 miles or whatever it was screaming downwind with kite up back to Calshot, long stretches of mirror flat water, with the force 4 behind us, we were seriously humming.

 On corrected times, out of the 58 starters we finished right in the middle. Race or no race it was just fantastic to have completed the course and sailed so far in a small cat - 80 or 100 miles - who knows? - in just under 7 hrs. The sense of achievement of finishing was all that really mattered.

 Event organisation was superb; this one is just going to get bigger and bigger. This inaugural event attracted a wide range of entries from a Concept 25, to iF20's, F18's, Hurricanes, Tornados, Hobie 18's, Stealths and Sptifires, and competitors from France and Holland. Can only recommend putting it on your to do list, right up at the top; it's one that has just got to be done. (I've got to do it again just to be able to see the coast).

 Cheers.
Jonathan Jenkins Inter 18

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Superb Course, How about the possibility of a race within the race based on corrected or indeed elapsed times between each gate For example Bembridge to St Cats would have been good for upwind boats( a headache for the gate boats to time i know!!!!), needles home good for downwind boats it may well even out the prizes, also 1st non kite boat. Only gripe couldn't find the showers and it seemed a bit disjointed on land. (camping boat park club bar?) Apart from that we will do it next year once again thanks to all the team that got it off the ground.

Fantastic Race! Please make sure it happens next year!

 Grant Piggott (hurricane 337)

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Viki Crew on The Mutts Nutts - Hurricane

Thanks for organising an excellent event, especially for setting a straightforward course, not being put off by light shifty winds at the start, and maintaining a good atmosphere throughout. I thoroughly enjoyed it and apologise for having to rush off afterwards before I could see the results.

On the subject of straightforward course, I don't think it is possible to be too simple. I heard that a couple of people managed to miss a gate yesterday: and today I read that the original America's cup race in 1851 had a muddle. The race instructions required the Nab Tower to be left to Starboard to keep people away from Bembridge ledge. But "America" didn't - all 14 other schooners and cutters did. But she won by so far (having started late) that no-one protested.

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