has completed every race and this will be his fourth. ‘For me this is a proper offshore sailor’s race. You get all of the weather conditions and you use every sail in the locker. ‘The biggest achievement is to finish; a good result is a bonus. There is no better sailing test of the military skills of leadership and teamwork. Getting round in one piece is down to the crew. In 2018 we had power issues so we had to sail the boat like a dinghy. We crossed the finish line at 0200 on my birthday. It was my first race as skipper and we had got the job done. I genuinely love this race; it is a fantastic experience and that is why I keep coming back.’
Senior RORC member Gavin Howe competed in 2018 aboard Tigris, a Sun Fast 3600, typical of the size of boat that competes in the race. While it was his 23-year-old team mate Sam Cooper’s first time, Howe’s first Round Britain and Ireland Race was back in 1978. ‘I did the race when I was roughly the same age as Sam, so returning to it is very nostalgic for me,’ he says. ‘Back then I raced two-handed with Mike Owen on a 24ft Finot design, Rêve de Mer. We had to modify it to make it big enough for the entry requirement! ‘In those days we had no GPS, no electricity, not even a VHF. All of that is very different for the race today. You have to complete the statutory 500 miles racing with the RORC and comply with the special regulations. It’s incredible to look back and think that we really did this race in a boat with a 17ft waterline and no self- steering or electricity!’
The race attracts sailors of all ages. Teenagers Lou Boorman and Elin Jones are planning on taking on the race doublehanded, despite most of their racing experience being on short courses in Topper dinghies. The girls are doing everything they can to build the required experience between now and the start. ‘We were in the Welsh and British National Teams for Toppers. Elin has experience offshore and is currently qualified on paper up to Day Skipper but will be completing her Yachtmaster Ocean after her term at university finishes,’ says Boorman. ‘What drives me to do the race, especially this year, is that we will be breaking records. I will be the youngest skipper to ever compete in it (as far as we know the youngest skipper was 21 in the 1988 race). So I would be the youngest female skipper too. One of the best things about this race is that we can see the whole of the UK from a perspective that no one else gets to see it and that's a real privilege. I might be able to see my home
Above: in 2014 the MOD70
Musandam Oman Sail smashed the course record with an
astonishingly fast average speed of 23.48kts... and they
made it all the way around the course without ever needing to tack. Right: a strong contingent of Class40s is expected for the 2022 edition of the race, includ- ing Palanad 3 which took class honours in last year’s Rolex Fastnet and won the RORC Transatlantic Race outright
county in the first leg too which is always a bonus!’ The young duo are looking to charter a J/109 for the race and there’s a lot of fundraising to be done between now and the start, but Boorman and Jones are tenacious.
While the standard direction is to race clockwise, in 2014 RORC made an 11th-hour call to send the fleet anticlockwise due to the impending arrival of an intense low-pressure system over the northern UK. It came as a relief to the competitors who could now set out on a downwind charge instead of an uphill battle. It was a scary but exhilarating ride, particularly for the fastest boats in the fleet. Five world records were broken, including the outright record by the MOD70 Musandam-Oman Sail. Skippered by Sidney Gavignet, they finished the race in three days, three hours 32 minutes, 36 seconds. At an astonishing average speed of 23.48kts, Oman Sail-Musandam set a record that could stand for many, many years. ‘The weather was exceptional…I doubt you could find better for the course, let alone the race. We went around Great Britain and Ireland without a tack, only gybes. No tack, zero tacks. That is rare, possibly unique,’ comments Gavignet.
That same year, Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing’s VO65, Azzam, skippered by Ian Walker, set the monohull race record of four days 13 hours 10 minutes 28 seconds. ‘So much of that race is a blur now, but I can remember that we didn’t tack until we got back to the forts, not long before the finish. There’s no doubt that this is a pretty tough race, it's a proper offshore race. It's not like the Fastnet which is a bit of a sprint, it’s 2,000 miles of hard sailing. But you also see some beautiful places along the way. The whole west coast of Ireland is absolutely stunning.’ Ross Appleby, skipper of Scarlet
Oyster, has a wealth of offshore racing success and has some good advice for would-be competitors in the Sevenstar Round Britain and Ireland Race: ‘I was very careful about choosing and preparing this crew. Everyone on board has done a Fastnet or equivalent, and as a team we did three RORC races to pull ourselves together. If you want to finish this race, I would recommend you do the Fastnet first. Essentially this race is three Fastnets; colder at the top and you are very likely to encounter gale force conditions for extended periods – you need to be ready for that.’
roundbritainandireland.rorc.org q SEAHORSE 71
RICK TOMLINSON
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100 |
Page 101 |
Page 102 |
Page 103 |
Page 104 |
Page 105 |
Page 106 |
Page 107 |
Page 108 |
Page 109 |
Page 110 |
Page 111 |
Page 112
