Jun 2011

Round the Island Race 2011

Seven SCODs started the 80th Round the Island Race beating up the western Solent in winds of 30 knots. The three boats that completed the race, Marbella, Rhonina and Bush Baby all finished within 5 minutes of each other, and 9th, 10th and 12th out of the 664 that finished in the ISC Rating System section of the race, Marbella being the first boat in Division 8D finishing in a time of 9 hours 25 minutes.
It was unsurprising that the challenging conditions resulted in 4 of the 7 boats retiring: Ngauruhoe with a broken tiller, Stirling with a damaged genoa track and Black Velvet with a leaking garboard coupled with a faulty bilge pump. Simon Bolivar, whose owner had entered for the first time, also retired having reached the Needles and making the seamanlike decision of not subjecting their relatively inexperienced crew to further discomfort, despite being very much in contention.