Round the Isle of Wight weekend 22-24 June

Neil and I turned up at the Sunsail office in Port Solent to find Andy and Sandra already there. Not long after Jim Bradley and his wife arrived all the way from Houston beating Paul, Max and Chris aho had travelled at least 100 miles!!

Sent off to shop with Sandra and Andy, I realised my beer rations budget was seriously under estimated as Sandra kept popping up at the end of each aisle with another box of Carlsberg export!! Arriving back at the boat the stores were loaded aboard and with Neil having inspected the boat, a Sunfast 37 with the thoughtful name of "Sunsail 49", we headed off to Shepherds Wharf marina in Cowes. Turning into Southampton Water we hoisted the main, raised the supplied #2 genoa and after passing through the small ships channel we beat up the Solent towards Cowes.

The Sunsail Sunfast 37's are pretty good considering they get hammered by charters. Apart from a dodgy depth sounder, and the fore peak being a bit damp, (sorry Chris hope the rheumatism is OK now!!) the berths below are generous, and sleep 8 in reasonable comfort. On the water she sailed well close hauled evn if a tad under canvassed with the #2 which was too small for the aft genoa sheet cars but too big for the ones we were using so it was diffuclt to flatten the foot of the sail. Comprehensive coarse and fine main sheet adjustment together with a decent length mainsheet traveller helped tune out the worst abuse the main sail had suffered in previous years. Fitted with 3 reefing lines we removed the top most as it was collapsing the leech a bit too much. Supplied for the race was the standard Sunsail spinnaker, soaking wet I'd like to think due to it just having been washed but more likely from a fishing trip!!

We sailed on past Cowes for a short while as we wanted to try the chute out before the race in the morning. After a little while figuring out how to run the sheet and guy, and which winch to use for the spinnaker hoist we were running back down to Cowes showing 8knots on the clock in about 16knots of wind. After a good drop in front of the Royal Yacht Squadron (couldnt have been more public if we'd messed that one up), we motored into Shepherds Wharf marina to raft up as the outermost boat of 6!! to be fair the only compalints were from the inner thigh brusing sustained from climbing over 6 pairs of guard rails!! I'd brought along a pot of chilli which went down well with beer and wine.

Now you may be wondering why the photos so far of Venom a Farr 60. Well due to the delays in getting the yacht I am doing the Fastnet on Windward Sailing had being given clearance to sail her for the RTI with her requiring only some interior work done later in July to be signed off as fit after her coming together with a car and the ground after being blown off her cradle in Florida prior to being loaded onto a ship bound for UK.

So, feeling a bit of a traitor, I left Sunsail 49 at 0330 in the morning for a 0400 liaison at the GBR yard to meet the rest of the crew who'd be taking Venom out for her maiden voyage with new owners.

At 0450 with Derek on the helm and Mark calling the shots we were under main and #1 tacking amongst some famous racing boats vying for a good starting position. Mark had informed us that this would be a training session to get to know the boat, 10 mins later I was wondering what would happen if Mark decided to go 'racing'!! With a minute to go Mark had Derek feathering Venom 100yds from the line with Panthera and one of the clipper yachts to Windward and Leeward of us. Seeing the opportunity to squeeze the TP to windward we slewed hard to port then to starboard forcing the TP to round up then managing to find some clear air we were through like a rat out of an aqueduct. ICAP Leopard had chosen the Royal Yacht Squadron end of the line either to keep out of the scrap or more likely to enjoy being the subject of the flotilla of photographers boats. With up to 17knots on the nose we beat up to te needles staying in the top 3 up to Yarmouth when the flying seesaws (the Vovo VX40 catamarans) came shooting past (one helmed by Dame Ellen), after which as we freed off throughb the Hurst forts, the TP52's got into their stride and overtook us. Past the needles we launched first one fractional assymetric, then a mast head one (some slight mix up in understanding which needs no further discussion Sandra tells me!!). With good boat speded we were at St Kats by 8am and held the kite to Bembridge ledge ready for the reach back up the Solent. Behind us there was a good battle brewing between Bear of Britain and Chernikeef 2 (virtually identical Farr 52's) even though Bears brand new spinnaker had eventually to be cut free after trawling it for a time around the needles. Heading round No Mans land Fort we started to punch some tide bu held on making good ground against the Volvo 60 and TP52 'Red' ahead of us. We arrived at Cowes just after 11am completing the course in 06:08:46 putting us 15th in class and 137th overall. there were over 1800 boats in the fleet that set off so this wasnt a bad result for Venoms maiden voyage.

So what happened to Sunsail 49? Theor start was 0610, and to all accounts they got a good start with Jim and Andy calling the tactical shots and claiming a few scalps on the way down to he needles. the good work continued after they raised the chute the only fly in the ointmnent being Sunsail 33 which tacked over them around Ryde causing a bit of a birds nest with the genoa sheets wrapped around the spinnaker pole. They completed the race 5 pints after I did in 09:09:21 coming 14th out of their fleet of 60. Excellent.

Full celebrations afterwards with food and beer in the Duke of York pub, followed by dancing apparently (according to Chris, Andy and Sandra) at the Yacht Haven whilst the rest of us climbed into damp sleeping bags around midnight.

The following day started slowly, luckily only one sad muppet rafted inside of us feeling the need to set sail before 10am. It was also a bit wet the only benefit of which was I realised my oilies were only fit for sponging out the bilges and not suitable for venturing into the Irish Sea. Looking around I realised Max looked the smuggest so have now got an excellent set of Gul 'skins'. After sailing down to within a mile of the Nab tower we then decided we'd rather be somewhere else so were tied up in Port Solent by 4pm and heading home by 5pm. All in all an excellent weekend. Guy Shelbourne June 26 2007