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Pipe stars in sailing spectacular
This year's JP Morgan Asset Management 2009 Round The Island Race, the biggest yacht race in the world, saw 1,779 entries of all types of yachts.
There were some big names among them, including Dame Ellen MacArthur and Robin Knox Johnson sailing in the Open 60 class, while Ben Ainslee swapped his monohull for an Extreme 40 Catamaran.
The light weather conditions made racing a real challenge yet surprisingly 1,563 boats finished, with 122 boats retiring and a further 13 disqualifications.
Eight boats from Sovereign Harbour YC completed the race and all of them appeared in the top 450 – a very creditable performance.
The congested start line saw light winds of 4/5 knots slowly building to 10 in a beat up to the Needles.
As boats rounded the Needles, the sun came out and so did the spinnakers as they were hoisted for the long run round the back of the island past St Catherine's Point and down to Bembridge Ledge.
Sailing up to St Cats was relatively easy going, however as boats headed towards Sandown Bay, the gusting winds began to press crews and challenge their boat handling.
Then the wind played tricks. Off Bembridge, everyone was on a spinnaker reach when the breeze suddenly dropped, turning the sea into the biggest boat park possible.
With no wind and even less steerage, skippers started drifting, shouting for water, while crews were busy fending off other boats and desperately trying to tack to avoid collisions and in some cases not able to avoid them at all.
Once into the eastern Solent, most of the fleet headed for shallow water to cheat the adverse tide and get close into Ryde Sands but, as usual, some did not gauge the depth right and quite a few managed to run aground.
Once past the end of Ryde pier, it was mostly short tacking up to the finishing line at Cowes, with about 1,000 boats passing through the line between 7 and 8pm alone.
The greatest result for Sovereign Harbour YC was by Nimrod, the Hunter Sonata skippered by Nigel Pipe, who came seventh in his class and overall.
Other SHYC positions overall were Captain Fantastic 86th; Quartet 207th; Jolie 252nd; Artemis 285th; Kratos 295th; Etoile 396th; White Rose 329th and Red Machine 431st.
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Weather for Eastbourne
Sunday 12 February 2012
Today
Light snow
Temperature: 1 C to 5 C
Wind Speed: 15 mph
Wind direction: North
Tomorrow
Cloudy
Temperature: 2 C to 7 C
Wind Speed: 15 mph
Wind direction: North west
