HOG Member John Skidmore shares a memorable experience from last summer.

“Having asked Gordon McBride if he would skipper my boat, a Contessa 34, in this famous annual race, the crew were signed up; one being a friend of Gordon’s, John, the other, a friend of mine, Ron.  We met onboard ‘Jay Jay’, on the Friday morning before the race.

My mooring is in Portsmouth Harbour and quite a long dinghy ride out, so I offered to fetch the boat to the sailing club pontoon, whilst they ferried all the gear down there and awaited my arrival.  Despite the absence of “joined-up thinking” on my part (I forgot the need to return the dinghy to the compound), it was about lunchtime when we finished loading up, and I was anxious to get to Cowes as early as possible to secure a berth for the night. So we all piled aboard and, dare I say it, with no crew briefing, no introduction to the boat (lucky I wasn’t going for my Yachtmaster), we cast off, arriving in Cowes before the rush, and established a mooring on the Public Pontoon.

Race morning arrived at about 0500, with lots of noise from the pontoon and on deck. Anyone crossing my boat seemed totally incapable of doing so without rolling the wire jackstays under their feet! By this time the boats were rafted up four or five deep but, in the face of all this noise and with commendable fortitude, the crew managed to stay in their pits until about 6.00 a.m. Upon surfacing, a fantastic view greeted us; there was a forest of masts with hundreds of people climbing into and over boats and generally making ready.  It was a scene of frenetic activity - you could feel the excitement in the air. Our start time was 0730, so we had to cast off at about 0645 to take up our position in the requisite “start box”.

This was my 2^nd attempt with ‘Jay Jay’ in this race; in 1998, we came last in our class and second last overall! The 2004 race was going to be different; Gordon had a well-calculated passage plan! – What else would you expect?

We got off to a good start, (along with over 1700 boats and 5 different start times). The conditions were perfect, with a south easterly force 4 to 5 blowing, mainly cloudy with a bit of drizzle but not cold. The sea state in the Solent was calm to moderate but this was expected to change on the south side of the island. We had hardly got going when another boat decided to luff us up against another boat, and still with some 10 hours of the race to go – hardly in the spirit of fun! It was a thrilling start and we made excellent time to The Needles, having had bacon and egg rolls on the way, Gordon helming, John and Ron handling sheets with constant adjustments to suit the conditions.  What fun it is to sail with people who truly know how to sail! 

As we dashed down The Needles channel, we planned to hold our course and proceed south for a further 3 or 4 miles, once we were past the rocks. Unfortunately, the clever ones had other ideas, and, as we neared the open sea, they tacked onto starboard on the North side of the channel, right across our bows. In the end there was no option but to join them. There followed a very pleasant beat to windward as far as St. Catherine’s Point and then a really great beam reach to Bembridge Ledge, reaching in excess of 8 knots.  Once round Bembridge, an amazing sight hit us - a continuous line of sails, stretching far into the eastern Solent! At this point we attempted to fly the spinnaker with some success.  We lost a bit of time raising it, only to take it down fairly soon after, in order to round the final mark before a run up the Solent to the finish.

The final two to three miles were very exciting. The wind had dropped to a gentle breeze and, with John on the helm, expertly coaxing the maximum out of the crew, we jousted with 3 or 4 other yachts, two of which were still trying to fly a chute. But they couldn’t keep them filled, and we managed to pip them to the finish; crossing the line at 1615.

Having queued at the committee barge to collect our pewter race tankard (I now have two on board), and a little bag of ROI goodies, we returned to the sailing club in Portsmouth and spent a pleasant evening there, consuming pints of bitter at only £1.20 a pint, before returning home on the Sunday.

And the Result? We came 46^th out of a class of 70, and 450^th out of 1700! 

Well done, Gordon, and thank you, John, for a great day’s sailing, a vast improvement on the previous attempt.

It was all worth it!