1st July: Round the Island Race
Someone in NCI decided it would be a “good idea” to open the NCI stations around the Solent at 06:00 hrs. so competitors could do “Radio checks” on ch.65. Had over 1000 competitors tried to do radio checks on ch.65, a duplex channel, it would have been chaos. However the Race Instructions told competitors to monitor ch.22 for race information so all was well. Instead all we had to do was watch the yachts go past and take photos.
The first start for the fast yachts was at 08:00 with the multihulls going at 08:10 so with high tide at 09:23 they would initially be tacking against the last of the eastwards flood, albeit only a 4.2m tide. With a westerly wind, some competitors were short tacking along the Lepe shoreline which was good for photos. The rest of the fleet starts continued at 10 minute intervals until 09:30 by which time the westwards current meant that the smaller yachts stayed on the Isle of Wight side.
There was a DSC distress alert just to the east of Newtown River, but with so many yachts in the vicinity there was no way we could identify the casualty or guide the lifeboat to it. In the event the weather was testing and it was reported that there were man-overboard incidents, dismastings, and multihull capsizes. From the start the two large yachts “Notorious” and “Tschuss2” were competing for the lead with the latter, USA yacht taking line honours.