Round the Island Race 2009

 

The wind had managed to play tricks, providing spinnaker-shredding gusts around St Catherine's Point before turning through 180 degrees and disappearing completely for some time at Bembridge. Despite the challenging conditions, 1,566 boats completed the course, an increase on 2008. Some, like the Cornish Shrimper Nornie and Catalac 8.5 Blithe Spirits had been at sea well over 14 hours, in contrast with fleet leader Oman Sail Masirah (Extreme 40 - Pete Cumming) which crossed the line in half the time.

The big boats suffered more from the lack of wind leaving the smaller, lower rated entries to carry off the top prizes. Tattarat (Folkboat - Philip Williams) won the Gold Roman Bowl by heading the leader board in IRC followed by sistership Nordic Bear (Brian Appleyard) with Scallywag (Quarter tonner - Ali Tyler/Steve Lawrence) third. In the ISC Rating System section for non-regular racers, Tudor Rose (Hunter Medina - Richard and Ian Cooke) gained a 35 minute lead on handicap from Clarissa (David Thomas one off - John Langdon) to take the Silver Gilt Roman Bowl.

Bare Knuckles finished 33rd in group, 71st in class and 351 overall out of 1564 finishers. Congratulations to the crew for finishing towards the front of the fleet.