2008 Race Reports

The Illingworth Challenge Race

Richard Phillips, crew on J Fever has taken photos of the Race. www.esailor.co.uk

more pictures to follow:

Report from Electron, Class 5

"If that bloody watch beeps one more time I am chucking it over the stern" thought Skip. This thought tripped merrily into his mind on Day three of the race - Vickie's beeping watch! Still set to beep on the hour every hour and she did not know how to stop it. A sort of modern audio Chinese water torture!

Anyway - rewind. Electron arrived in Cowes and was duly inspected for the race and, as other Competitors arrived a carnival atmosphere developed. It was great to see so many boats all flying JOG battle flags and the colours of the race sponsors - Cognos. The race briefing was useful and Skip, for once, was told exactly what to expect as far as the weather was concerned by the expert Chris Tibbs - so he had no excuses!

"Now then Vickie" said Skip: "I don't want you drinking too much tonight, it's a long race and you know what you are like after a night on the sauce". Vickie for once agreed with Skip and assured him that she had learnt her lesson last time and would be a model of moderation. Skip did not look so sure.
Anyway, a gentle evening was spent in the Island Sailing Club with the crew of Draigy and there was even talk of an early night to bed! Obviously longer racers than usual have a sobering effect.

Next day the weather was exactly as Mr Tibbs had promised and exactly as no one wanted - boisterously blustery and on the nose for a hard beat down the Solent. Electron started on number 3 and a single reef in the main. Still the boat was occasionally over pressed but stayed manageable but lacking the weight of a full crew meant the other Class 5 boats had the edge on the way out.
Once past the Needles Skip settled Electron onto course and switched the autopilot on. Peter (the autopilot) steered unfailing for approximately five minutes then issued a high pitched screeched and seized solid. No more autopilot!( http://www.electron.nildram.co.uk/ click on video)

As Skip sorted the deceased Peter Pilot out Vickie started to go distinctly green around the gills. The sea state was still lumpy and the wind gusty. Skip looked at Vickie and said: "I told you not to drink to much didn't I?" and proceeded to rant on about the lack of willpower in "youngsters of today" Vickie just went quieter and greener and slowly adopted the foetal position on the cockpit sole whilst muttering "Honest - I did not drink much - reeeeallly" Skip steered on.

Several hours later as Skip started to feel unwell he realised that maybe, just maybe, Vickie's beer wound might just be something else. He even considered retiring because Vickie looked distinctly unwell. However, she showed signs of recovery and luckily (the first luck of the race) was able to take over the helm as Skip sunk into a "man bug coma" and lolled on the cockpit floor for probably longer than Vickie had done (Woman power!!) The first 24 hours of the race were sheer hell and are to be forgotten. What transpired as a tummy bug nearly stopped Electron racing but by late Sunday afternoon both crew were starting to feel better and ate for the first time!

Rounding Ushant was predictably lumpy. It was difficult to keep sails drawing as the chop sucked the breeze out of them and the boat rolled. As Ushant slowly rolled away behind Electron Skip regaled Vickie with stories of his various roundings of the island. He finished with a: "and whatever happens we must make sure we get far enough out from the Raz De Sein that we don't get sucked in by a foul tide". Vickie's eyes widened at the image in her minds eye.

As Electron rounded the Isle De Sein Skip could see several boats ahead. He got all excited when he realised he was catching them up - quite rapidly too. His excitement turned quickly to frustration as he realised the reason why - a wind hole! It took Electron around three hours to get moving again. At one point - just to cheer Vickie up, Skip showed her the tidal chart with a cross on the biggest blackest arrow on the page: "that's where we are now. If we don't get moving soon we're stuffed!" Fortunately no stuffing was done and Electron was able to continue racing south.

The conditions were just fantastic. Sunny and perfect for the big kite. Skip managed to record 18 knots through the water surfing on one big wave before he lost his nerve and called for the kite to be dropped! No easy job under the circumstances and well executed by Vickie virtually on her own as Skip could not leave the helm in such boisterous conditions.

As always, the racing Gods had the last laugh. Electron just missed the tidal gate into the Bay 10 miles from the finish. The wind also decided to do a runner too! It took all of Skip and Vickie's concentration to get any SOG in just 3 knots of breeze against a foul tide.
The last few miles took almost 5 hours to complete. All Skip could say was: "What did I do? Why me?" and other usual race gems like: "we're probably last". Vickie just trimmed and rolled her eyes.

The race was fantastic. The conditions could not have been much better and the fleet were lucky to finish in such fast times. La Trinite is a wonderful place. The people are friendly and the food superb. The SNT yacht club hosted a great prize giving party in the sun. Thank you to the JOG team for organising the race. Thanks must also go to the generous support of the race sponsors, Cognos and also to SNT yacht club for the party.
All said and done, both Skip and Vickie still said they would be looking forward to the Illingworth Challenge in 2010. . . . . . .

Report from Rapscallion Class 5

“Deciding to get across to Cowes sooner rather than later, we slipped late Thursday evening from Portsmouth and arrived in time to get a hug from Vicky and to see Electron’s skipper nursing a can of something onboard Draig ‘ Y 2.0. So no change there then!.

Friday seemed to go so fast it almost became a blur. What with boat inspections and the thousand and one other little jobs to complete, before we knew it we were joining the other crews at the ISC for a general brief and a full weather brief by Chris Tibbs, and pretty accurate it was too.

Saturday morning showed the wind starting to get up a bit, but the forecast had it blowing strongly until about midnight at worst. Can’t really say I was exactly happy with that as it meant the Channel would be a tad ‘lumpy’. Breakfast, courtesy of Cognos , was swiftly demolished and we soon set about final preparations. At 11:00 we slipped our lines and followed Electron out of Cowes Yacht Haven and off to Gurnard, where we stuck the No3 up and a couple of reefs in the main. In no time at all it was time to start. Just after Hurst we shook the reefs out and stuck the No2 up. Getting past Bridge and into the Channel proper was bl**dy ‘orrible. The wind had picked up and the waves just slammed into us. Still the sun was out and we were moving. We cracked on like this until 20:00 when we had dinner and then went to watches. Deciding to keep going south we rounded the TSS at it’s south east corner where we altered course to 240 degrees. In retrospect the NW corner of the TSS might have been a better bet.

Which is pretty much how it stayed until late Sunday evening, where we slowly bore away from the North westerly wind (which we’d had since passing Alderney), to pass 3 miles west of Ushant. Sunday was a really superb day, the sun was out, the sea was blue, the wind was good and the swell was, well a bit big sometimes. Boat speed was regularly hitting between 6 and 6.8 knots. We rounded Ushant at around 01:00 and tried to steer for Chausee de Sein, but the wind had gone light and it was impossible to steer that course. Instead we ended up steering SSW which was taking us further SW. By early morning the wind had disappeared completely. When it did decide to stir itself it couldn’t work out whether it was coming from the NW or the SW, and even then with some light puffs. We popped the kite up in the hope of utilising whatever was going as the wind was astern anyway. Slowly, ever so slowly, we got moving and by 14:00 on Monday afternoon we started hitting over 6 knots. Not much for you larger boats I know, but only 2 knots of our max hull speed, theoretically that is.

By 15:00 onwards we were cracking along at a hell of a rate. The wind had stayed North Westerly and by now was Force 4. By 16:00 we really started to hit the higher boat speeds. At one point the speed indicator was recording 11.2 knots !. Sigma 33’s are NOT supposed to do this sort of boat speed. These speeds were not a one off, and I had to repeatedly pick my chin up off the cockpit deck! We kept this up until around 21:00 when the wind started to veer to the North and then North Easterly, which is what we didn’t want. We couldn’t hold the course we wanted (120 degrees) and had to bear away to keep the boat on her feet. We reluctantly dropped the kite, went to whites, and maintained a good 6-7 knots as we hardened up some 15 miles NW of Belle Isle. We were now only 30 miles away from the finish.

We kept up good speed until nearing Goue vas Sud, when wind started to fade a bit, but we managed to keep heading directly for Basse Nouvelle. There was little margin for error here as we had rocks to the north and south. We stood on past Basse Nouvelle and turned to port to lay the finish mark of Petite Treho. The wind was heading us and we had to put in a further two tacks to get close. We had estimated that we would cross the finish line at around 02:30, but the wind completely bu@@ered off at this stage and we had to rely on the north going tide to push us closer to the finish. At 04:30 bar 4 seconds we gently drifted over the line sideways ! Had the wind played the game we would have beaten Electron as we were only 15 minutes behind them on corrected time.

Got alongside at 5 am and packed away our headsails. One headed off to the showers, two decided to check the back of their eyelids, and I decided that a rather large ‘nightcap’ was an exceedingly good idea.

Excellent drinks party that evening at the Yacht Club, and the same again on Wednesday evening. Well done to all the Class winners, and also to the double-handed crews.

We thoroughly enjoyed the race, the longest we’d done on Rapscallion, some superb sailing, lots of sun, moonlit sailing, a few dolphins here and there, no rain and the excellent company of our fellow JOG crews in La Trinite.

Our sincere thanks to Peter, Sandie and the Race Officers for all their hard work in making this race so successful.”

Report from Fay-J (Class 4)

Every now and then a race comes along where the course and the wind cooperate to give perfect J105 conditions, this was one of those races! OK, we had to do some of that nasty beating stuff into 20 knots plus for quite a few hours after the start but the well forecast veer to the NW came through and up went the reacher, to be replaced by the masthead a few hours later. The masthead kite stayed up almost to the finish - as I said perfect J105 conditions, with an overall average speed of nearly 7 knots.

For Fay-J this was primarily to be a family holiday for the three Griffiths' plus one of our regular crew but a win in Class 4 was a very pleasant added bonus.

A few highlights of the trip:

· Our new Norths number 4 heavy jib was a revelation - incredibly quick and great pointing!
· Watching a huge number of boats blithely sailing through the traffic separation zone off the Casquets, then listening to Cherbourg traffic control trying to raise them on Ch 16.
· "Cutting the corner" through the overfalls off Ushant, saving us a huge amount of time but giving us a wild ride.
· Powering along at 8 knots in little more than 8 knots of breeze, the wind angle was that perfect!
· Our secret weapon - Grasshopper porridge. If you have not tried it you are missing a treat (www.teamgrasshopper.co.uk)

Our thanks go to Peter and the rest of the team at JOG for a great event and for choosing La Trinite even though it was a very long way to get back from in little to no wind! Our thanks also go to Cognos for sponsoring the event. I look forward to receiving one of their impressive trophies at the annual dinner.

Note from Sailing Committee. The item in Fay J's race report regarding the TSS was discussed at length in La Trinite and a number of observations were made. An important point has been made by Fay J and we are glad that JOG members take issues of safety at sea seriously. Col Regs state that the TSS must be crossed in the most efficient manner possible, which we believe that all JOG vessels would have done. On checking the track on the chart plotters of two JOG vessels neither vessel had sailed either the wrong way down one of the lanes or crossed the 2nd lane in an un-seaman like manner. This note does highlight that we must remain aware at all times that we sail in busy and regulated waters.

Report from Draig ' Y 2.0 (Class 4)

After a massive amount of organisation Draig 'Y 2.0 appeared to be ready for the off. Don and Tim had spent the best part of a week taking Draig'Y 2.0 round to Hamble to get nav lights fitted, to fit the second bilge pump etc. Mike had been busy preparing food for the crew and Skip had been at work trying to earn enough to feed Oliver prior to the start and once we reached French ports.

On the evening of 17th the crew, minus Chris and Oliver, set sail from Beaulieu across to the North Basin muster point in Cowes marina. As we approached the Marina wall we were greeted by the fantastic sight of Cognos and JOG Flags flying from the Marina Flag poles, which really emphasised the sense of occasion that we were all feeling.
After an evening of meeting up with Electron, Sandie and Pete, and the Cognos team over a curry we found that in the morning we still had plenty to do on Draig' Y 2.0 and plenty to do fitting trackers, meeting with Neil Sackley from the BBC H20 show and ensuring the crew were at the brief. "All hands to the pump" ensured that all the jobs were dished out and completed. With Chantal from Cognos staying calm, Sandie staying calm, and the rest of us flapping about all the jobs appeared to get done in double quick time. Tony and Dave, the scrutineers are excluded from the flap (it probably was only me in reality).

Having been joined by Chris and Oliver we made our way to the Island Sailing Club for the race briefing and an excellent weather brief from Chris Tibbs. Once the briefing was over The Draig'Y 2.0 crew and the Electron crew quickly booked in for an excellent meal at the Island Sailing Club before retiring for a relatively early night.

Saturday morning we awoke to a blustery day, as predicted by Chris Tibbs. After a pre-race breakfast courtesy of Cognos. We returned to our boats and readied for the off. As we motored to the line we made the choice to set off with one reef and the number 3.5. Our start put us in a reasonable position, about upper mid-fleet. As we neared Hurst a strong smell of diesel was noticed coming from the radio room (Don's office). A quick inspection showed that diesel was weeping from the join between the filler elbow and the tank. At this point I enjoyed the bridge chop whilst leaning over the heads into the radio room tightening the seals on the tank and mopping up the diesel. When the job was finally completed (Cif foamy cleaner is not bad at removing all traces of diesel) a green gilled Skip decided that some one should invent odourless diesel especially for boats.

Needless to say the Thai Chicken curry that was on the Menu for Saturday Night did not get eaten until Sunday lunch time. The bash to windward pinged some of the sail slides apart and caused us to put in a second reef for a while. The amazing thing is the Draig'Y 2.0 went faster and her motion got easier. Lesson 1 learnt!
As we approached the Northern corner of the Channel separation Zone we changed watch and took the opportunity to make a couple of quick cheese sandwiches for the ongoing watch, this had a huge effect on the moral of the crew and bought my watch an extra 20mins in bed off the grateful ongoing watch. Through the small hours the wind clocked round towards the NW as predicted by Chris Tibbs. As the wind freed off the speed through the water increased and up went the kite.

Sunday morning we found that we were in company with Breakout, Longue Pierre and S X Girl. As we approached Ushant we opted to stay close in whilst the others went about another half mile offshore. The reflected swell slowed us to the point where we realised that the strategy followed by LP BO and SG was the better one to have followed. For the next day we played tag with our friends briefly being joined by Merlin. At a point after Ushant we had to jibe the kite. During the jibe we suffered from the old problem of pole through the kite, precipitating a peal to the heavy weight kite. We persevered with the heavy kite throughout the night, during which time we were visited by a huge Dolphin, who had been calling out for some time prior to her visit. I am not sure who was most surprised, the Dolphin or us when she emerged alongside our transom bumping the hull of Draig,Y when she submerged. Not long after this visit we were joined by a pod of young dolphins that played around our bow for some time.

As dawn arose we hoisted the asymmetric (same colours as the old Draigy's reacher) and found that Draig'Y 2.0 went much faster. Lesson 2 learnt. We then cooked a bacon feast for the crew and got the stew out of the cold bag in anticipation of our next evening meal at sea. The combination of tidal gates, good wind and smoother seas saw us make fantastic time towards the finish. At about 1545 we rounded Bass Nouvou (celebrated with a tin of Bass beer each) in order to head for the finishing line. We enjoyed a fast fetch all the way to the line only to be overtaken by a trimaran that flew two hulls for the length of the bay, showing us how slow our 9kts really was.

At the finish we headed into the La Trinite marina where we were shown to our berth by a very enthusiastic young chap in a motor boat. One by one the JOG fleet arrived in La Trinite, although the crews were tired they all had big smiles and all headed straight for the showers (all those who were able to resist the call of the Bar)
As usual our finishing team stayed on hand until all of the boats were accounted for, Get Carter arriving much later than most after being caught on the wrong side of a tidal gate.
The Jog Party that followed was fantastic with bright sunshine and great chat from the crews. The Prize giving on the Wednesday night was hosted by the Yacht club and Roy from Cognos had made a great effort to be with us to hand out the prizes.

As usual the ever smiling faces of Sandie and Peter greeted all of the crews to a beautiful destination. The race was a great success for all who took part and it benefitted from the special ingredient that only JOG can produce. Thank you to all of the race officers, a special thanks to Cognos and a big thanks to every one who took part in the inaugural Cognos Illingworth Challenge.

Report from J-Fever (Class 3); a crew effort

It all started so well, arrived at Cowes to join J Fever on Friday afternoon and with all of the crew assembled it was off to the race briefing then on to the crew dinner. Peter and Jo Chugg had arranged a superb dinner at the Royal Corinthian Yacht Club; for some, this would not be the last sight of their evening meal. After some last minute shopping to ensure that a crew of eight could be sustained for 5 days, we set off for the start.

Skipperene realised that there were no sardine sandwiches for the skipper and we all know he can't sail without 'sardinis' so the problem was quickly rectified on the way out.

Tim had done a Fastnet, Ian the whole of a Clipper Round-the-World Race, but for the rest of us a race this long was a new venture. Preparations had been going on all season, but the start felt like a normal JOG start, and we got a nice one. Brisk wind greeted us as we beat down the Solent and after those of us forward on the rail had had a couple of waves over us the Skipper said he didn't want us cold and wet and instructed a de-camp to the aft end . Phrases about horses and stable doors came to mind.

Out past the Needles to slam about, three or four days of this might be an adventure too far, but we were forecast light winds to come and the Skipperene had bought fresh herbs to prevent scurvy so we declined supper and waited for the good times.

Meanwhile on the sailing front we shook out one and then two reefs, tacked to change to no2, and found ourselves in line astern of Cougar and Simply the Best, with three others in line astern of us. During the night they seemed to vanish- - where ?? We kept company with StB until they diverged South or we went West trying to choose the best approach to Ushant and not forgetting the required 90 degree track across the shipping lanes. By this time we had tried a light reacher, a heavy reacher and swopped to the downwind pink which we shook about in the races around Ushant. We tried a bit of tide dodging after rounding Ushant in company with Jacanna and StB with the latter taking a wider route while Jacanna and ourselves came closer to shore. A dog-fight with a 133 was a new experience on J-Fever - and rather exciting!! We're not sure Jacanna saw it the same way.

The small dots behind us grew larger, the fleet with favourable tide catching up as we struggled against the adverse current. Jacanna put up a huge grey spinnaker and strolled away into the far distance while, behind us, Simply the Best grew larger by the minute.

Sunset was really lurid, moonrise orange, dawn pink and beautiful, appetites were restored, bacon and egg seemed in order for breakfast. Change down spinnaker, desert galley for pit, return to galley, change to white sails, desert galley for pit, return to galley, put up pink spinnaker again.

Approaching the finish the boat converging from upwind proved to be Jacana and the boat converging from downwind proved to be Simply the Best. Suddenly it all looked very promising and battle resumed with enthusiasm.

Breakfast served and nearly lunchtime as we floated through the Passage Teigneuse. On the wind with the pink one, had no idea we could carry it that close! Approaching finish Skipperene at helm, not in pit, change to white sails, Skipperene watching ensuing confusion with concern, but not about to cede helming the finish to anyone so.....They are still sorting out the gear as we take our time at the buoy. Less than 48 hours. Fantastic!! Food for a week largely uneaten. It didn't rain but we had most other weather conditions.

The pre-race breakfast was a really inspired event and most welcome, our thanks to Cognos and as always to Tony, Peter and Sandie and all those who have worked so hard to get the race underway, a wonderful idea and a wonderful race.