Round the Island 2009

This coming weekend I’m competing in the Round the Island Race which takes place every year in June.  The race is just over 50 nautical miles around the Isle of Wight in an anticlockwise direction, although most boats will cover more like 60 nm because of the need to tack and gybe.  I’ve competed in this event a few times before but this year will be particularly special for me and not because I missed last year because of work committments but because for the first time I’ll be competing without my sailing mentor.

Tony, my friend and mentor had a horrible motorcycle accident in mid April involving high speed connection with ladders in the carriageway of the M1 and resulting in multiple injuries.  The motorway was closed for 5 hours after the accident and Tony’s condition was poor for many weeks.  Infact, he was in a coma for a month and is as I write still in hospital but with no memory of the accident and still not strong enough to walk, although I understand he’s now giving the nursing staff a run for their money and working towards getting a discharge so he can continue his recouperation at home.

I first got involved in sailing when I was working with a friend who having done a little sailing in canada, was now living and working in England and taking a day skipper course at his local college.  Tony was the tutor and as a yachtmaster instructor with his own boat on the south coast was always inviting his students to come and experience the real deal on board.  Tony and his brother Rick own a fully coded boat called Emily V and run her as a charter boat providing weekend training, experience and fun and they were short of crew for a particular weekend.  My friend asked if I’d be interested in coming along to make up the numbers and I said yes.  I’d never been on a sailing boat before and was pretty excited at the prospect.

Once we got the main sail up and switched off the engine I could feel the boat moving through the water under natures own power;  the sound of the water along the side of the hull was magical and I was in a place I liked being.  It became obvious within the next few hours that I loved sailing and I knew I needed to own my own boat.  Not a shared boat, my own.

Over the rest of the summer, some of the winter and the next summer I spent many weekends on Emily V with Tony and all manner of different crew mates but the yearning to become an owner never went away.  In the following February I sent tony an email asking him to let me have the name of the boat surveyor who had reported on Emily V when he brought her and Tony replied together with some sage cautionary advice about the cost of keeping and maintaining a boat.  I asked him if he’d consider coming and looking at a few boats with me because, although I’d now clocked up a few hours sailing experience I really didn’t have much of a clue about what to look for in a boat.  Tony’s reaction -

“you try and stop me, I love crawling over other peoples boats.”

And so it was that in February Tony and I went around most of the boat yards on the south coast, oggling boats well of of my budget, stepping on boats within my budget and generally poking around and seeing what kind of boats I could afford.  At one boat yard in Lymingon I found a fairly old but very well maintained boat and after talking it through with Tony I offered £7,000 under the asking price.  The broker put the offer to the owners but the NO, was immediate.  I upped my offer by £2000; again the NO was immediate.  I decided to walk away.  On the same weekend I found another boat at Hamble.  It was a later version of the first boat I’d offered on and there had only been 19 made before the makers went into administration in the early 1990’s.  The price was similar to boat one but the electronic equipment was of a lower standard.  I knew if I could agree the right price i’d have a few grand left over to make the upgrades I wanted to bring the kit uptodate.  My second offer was accepted.  There I was; owner of my own boat.

Tony helped me with the delivery trip, afterall I still wasn’t competent enough to single hand a boat even though she was only 29ft.  He’s also provided me with help and advice on maintenance, showing me how to service the engine, clean and antifoul the hull, replace sacrificial annodes and together we fitted a new Garmin chart plotter, a new DSC radio with command mic and replaced all of the clutches that the ropes thread through.  There are still loads of upgrades I want to do but time is always going to be an issue.

Anyway, I started this post about the RTI.  Rick, Tony’s brother contacted me and asked if I’d consider still doing the RTI with him and some crew; afterall, Emily V is entered and Tony would be disappointed if we didn’t compete on the grounds that he’s in hospital.  So early on Saturday morning we’re leaving our berth in Southampton and making for the start line.  Our class (ISC Rating Sys Division 6C TCF 0.970 to 0.977) starts at 08:50.  There are 52 entries at the time of writting in the class all of whom will be displaying a purple flag to identify which class we’re competing in.  As of this morning there are 1778 boats entered for the entire event.  Whilst we won’t take winning too seriously I’m not there to come last so expect a little competitive spirit to surface once we’ve had the bacon butties!

For Tony’s benefit I’m going to be tweeting our progress around the course.  If you want to follow then you can either subscribe to my twitter feed @markhendy or visit HERE.  I’m also going to be taking photos of the crew and event and will publish a gallery on the Sunday.