Shetland RB&I race 06

SHETLAND ROUND BRITAIN AND IRELAND RACE 2006
(scroll to bottom of page for award news)

(and click here to read an electrifying account of the rescue of another competitor, 12m monohull Vijaya, in the same Force 10 storms that threatened Paradox. This was first published in the Winter 2006/07 issue of the lifeboat and is reproduced with their kind permission. Our grateful thanks to all the heroic men and women of the RNLI)

Clockwise from top left: the Beggs' honeymoon gets under way, complete with inflatable toys; Paradox takes on Alacrity; relaxing on Palletline before the start; Pete and Paul chased across the start by photographers; Mike and Mike fulfil their Fantasy

11th June start
Plymouth - Kinsale. 230 miles

Sunday dawned misty and windless. Not the most promising start for a race, but the clouds lifted and the wind picked up to a southerly 10knots by the time of the start at 12 (multis) and 12.15 (monos).

Daz had hired a ferry boat to take supporters for both Dazcat entries (10RT Paradox, sailed by Matt Baker and Rob Husbands and 9.2 Palletline, sailed by Tony Van Hee and Angus Pridie), as well as friends like Mike Millerchip from MOCRA on Kelsall 35 Triple Fantasy with Michael Barnsley, Bob and Carol Beggs on Reflex 38 Cheetah of Plymouth and Pete Goss and Paul Larsen on Seacart 30 Cornwall PfS, and anyone else taking part.

Cornwall PfS was first over the line, storming along with RIBs full of photographers chasing them over the start. Paradox's start was much more relaxed, with Matt knowing his brother Simon will keelhaul him if he breaks his boat as he has his heart set on some racing of his own later in the year.

Cornwall PfS was into Kinsale at 10.59 the following morning, which is pretty amazing. Paradox made it in some 11 hours later, coming 4th after adjustment for handicap. Winds are looking favourable for the next leg to Castlebay on Barra in the Outer Hebrides.

Dazcats are in a class of their own ...

Matt writes from Kinsale 14th June:
Get me out of here I’m drowning in Guinness!!

Well that’s the first leg over with and it feels good to be finally underway after what seems like months of preparations and list writing. The start was a bit duller than we were hoping for but it was fantastic to see everyone out on the spectator boat. The first little leg out to the Eddystone set the tone for the rest of the leg as everyone dropped into their handicap places, and the rest of the Sunday night was very fickle with the breeze never more than about 5kts and swinging all over the place. We initially went offshore and then when the wind went into the north we headed back inshore to the Lizard to make the best of the tide.

Monday morning dawned and after not having seen anyone all night, there were Kenmore (Meridien) and Waverider (Mollymawk) just up to windward so I guess we can’t have done too much wrong. We then had a beat out to the Bishop Rock bouncing between full main and one reef. Once we got to the Scillies we cracked off a bit and then had a good fast reach all the way to the finish with the wind on the beam. The 135 miles quickly rattled off at an average of about 13kts. Along the way we had a few problems with the mainsheet on the boom exploding leaving us with a big hole in the boom. Still, a quickly dropped main and a few strops later and we were back up and running.

So now we're here in Kinsale enjoying a bit (too much) Irish hospitality. Tonight we leave at about 10 to continue up to Barra and again it’s looking like it’s going to be fairly light winds.
We’re currently lying in fourth place on handicap, but not too far away from the others and hoping to pull back a bit on this leg. So now I’ve got to go and buy a bigger stick to beat Rob with to make him go faster.

Kinsale - Castlebay. 440 miles

17th June
Matt and Rob made it to Castlebay at 10.17.20. Unfortunately they were too preoccupied with repairs to their reefing system (and R&R) to have time to send us a written report, but Matt did manage to speak to his brother Simon to tell him that they had a good run, managing a speed in the high teens in 30kn of apparent wind. After a gybe downwind they had the big kite up, but had to replace it with a screecher for the finish into Castlebay; they were lucky enough to get in just before the wind picked up.

Castlebay - Lerwick. 420 miles

19th June 10.17.20
Paradox are somewhere on the way to Lerwick, with just them, Alacrity and Waverider from their class still in the race - both Playing for Success and Kenmore have had to return to Castlebay for repairs, though they are expected to rejoin the race. Open 40 La Promesse reported the wind as south force 7 at 5.15 this morning according to the RWYC website, and there are big winds forecast for tomorrow.

In the absence of more news, here is a picture of Paradox rounding the Eddystone back on June 11th. Many thanks to Roy Ackland for sending it to us

22nd June
With family and friends getting anxious that nothing had been heard from Paradox in two days of fierce gales, with winds up to Force 10, it is a relief to be able to report that they made contact off Muckle Flugga at 8.00 this morning. We hope to have a fuller report in the next day or so. We do know that they have been trailing warps to slow themselves down, so conditions must have been pretty horrendous. We also know Alacrity and Waverider have already made it in to Lerwick, and that both are rumoured to have had problems with blown sails. Winds are forecast to die down today.

Matt wrote from Lerwick on 24th June:
Never been so glad to get in!

Well first of all sorry for not posting a report from Barra but up there everything is still steam driven and the internet and mobile phones still haven't arrived. So I'll just give a quick run down of that leg from Kinsale.

We started out with a pretty light beat which turned into a drift around the Fastnet rock. It was so light we even tried rowing for a while. We didn’t have any proper oars so we had to improvise with the dinghy oars and some string for rollocks. However a bit of messing around and one of us could row at a steady 0.7 kts - better than nothing when you’re bored for hours. The breeze eventually filled in and we had a beat up to the NW tip of Ireland. After that the wind freed up and we had fantastic spinnaker reaching for a good few days. The last bit got a bit boisterous with the wind topping out about 29 kts, so we tucked a reef in and went with the screecher to keep the bows out the waves. The last 24 hours we just failed to crack the 300 mile day with a 298 and a 12.4 kt average.

Barra was a damp affair with the rain never really ceasing and fog intermittently rolling in. The first morning there I managed to solve the mystery of the bits of destroyed block we kept finding on the deck; all the reefing blocks in the boom had blown up and the casting was all cracked. So now we have a nice old fashioned external system with blocks lashed to the back of the boom. Not the prettiest of solutions but hopefully it'll last.

The leg from Barra turned out to be a seriously cold and damp one. The forecast was for a rapidly moving depression to land on top of us some time in the first 24 hrs. They weren't wrong. We'd just got the boat round St. Kilda when the storm front reared it's ugly black head on the horizon. We tried in vain to keep ahead of it but as it overtook us and the breeze built to 30+kts we went from full sail down to 1st, 2nd then 3rd reefs. The boat was trucking along but the sea state was building quickly too and we started to bury the bows. So off came the main, but still we were going too fast. So it was up with the storm jib. That also proved too much and so we went to bare poles and started to run with it. I thought that was going to be fine, but the boat would regularly take off and do 17kts and smash into the waves in front, dangerously close to going down the mine. So the last resort was start chucking stuff out the back to slow us down. Luckily I'd put about 300' of thick anchor warp on board and so we tied it into a big bight and threw it off the back. Thankfully that slowed us down to a steady 7kts and no surfing. We sat like that for about 18 hrs till the wind subsided, then it was back to trying to get to Lerwick. The gods in their infinite wisdom thought we needed a 120 mile beat to really kick us in the teeth.

So the long and the short of it is that we're a bit late getting here and all the open 40 monos have gone through us. A real insult to multihull sensibilities and a badge of honour we will try to regain in the next leg. In the multis we have moved up the rankings another place as the Seacart has structural problems and went back to Barra, and unfortunately Kenmore broke its mast. So it's all still to play for.

Paradox left Lerwick 24th June at 22:44:50

Lerwick - Lowestoft. 470 miles

(Playing for Success left Lerwick on 26th June at 10:04:00, so is back in the race.)

27th June
Latest news is that Paradox arrived safe in Lowestoft last night, which means they will be leaving on the last leg at 23:41:40 tomorrow night. Hopefully we will hear from them before then so we can hear how they made it in such a short time (incidentally, winning the leg on handicap). Alacrity leaves Lowestoft at tea time tonight and Waverider tomorrow late morning. As of 6.30 this morning Playing for Success had just under 300 miles to go to reach Lowestoft.

Latest latest news is that Kenmore rejoined the race today after fixing their mast, and had 338 miles to go to reach Lerwick as of 3.30 this afternoon. Well done to them.

Rob wrote from Lowestoft on 27th June:
After leaving Lerwick we were closed hauled over the line and even got a gun from the club to start!

As we left the shelter of the harbour we quickly reefed as the breeze built, and as we settled into our race watches it felt as though the trip was all downhill from now on.

Knowing that we had been punished badly by the previous gale, and after the beat from hell, we're keen to make up as much time as possible on this leg. We had light but favorable NE winds, we had the kite up and gained a reasonable speed for the wind strength by heading up a bit, taking some apparent, getting on a small wave then bearing away and soaking off on the wave. This quickly became a semi-automatic rhythm. But the net effect was a good speed 10 to 12kn and we were relatively comfortable. The sun was even out! Much relief.

As we came south the wind was stronger from the NW and we had the screecher up. As the sea built the surfing continued and the miles clicked by.

We gybed downwind through the oil platforms, which loomed out of the night like floating cities, the occasional gannet gliding by in effortless flight.

The last 200 miles the sea state was large waves interspersed with confused slop - very hard to find a comfortable way through. At one stage we dropped more reefs and went to the headsail, not because of the wind strength but because of the sea state and the tremendous load that banging and crashing through this mess puts on the rig. The speed was very variable but mostly over 9kn and peaking to 14-15 on the waves - and a very hairy 19 on one rollercoaster ride!

The last 50 miles was fairly painful but with the bonus of a favourable tide we made it in. Unfortunately after last orders!

We were glad to find we had taken a large chunk of time back off Alacrity and Waverider, and are now in second place after corrected time.

Final leg
Lowestoft - Plymouth. 300 and a bit miles

1st July, RWYC website reads:
"Paradox finished Saturday at 07:00:45 to beat Alacrity into second place on corrected time by just under 45 minutes. Matt Baker and Rob Husbands put in much hard work paddling in the light winds to take first place in class on each of the last two legs so securing their victory."

Still can't quite beliieve it!!

At 0700 and 45 seconds we paddled across the line doing 1.2kn in a flat calm cattewater.And guess what, apparently we've won our class. Fair and square, no blubbing about how the boat broke or the mast fell down just a good old fashioned win. Still can't work out how we managed to catch up the 18 hr deficit we had on the 50' Newick Alacrity but there you go.

This leg was plagued by some very light winds as the area of high pressure was sat right over the top of us. At one point yesterday afternoon we even kedged in 60m of water in mid Channel in the shipping lanes to stop ourselves from going backwards at 2kn. Don't recommend it for bad backs as it was a nightmare dragging the anchor up from that depth by hand.

About midnight last night [my brother] Biffa told us we might be in with a shot at first in class as Alacrity had taken so long to get in. It never really seemed possible as the breeze failed to materialise all night and I kept going off watch leaving Rob with a pitiful 2kn VMG.Then I woke about 3 this morning to find a 10kn north easter had kicked in and we were doing the same boatspeed. Suddenly the finish was only a few hours away. We eventually crossed the line and won class five by some 35 minutes. Rob and I were ecstatic at the news and it's made the whole trip doubly worthwhile.

So another class win in the RBI for a Multimarine/Dazcat boat to add to the list. It seems only fitting after the boat was originally designed and built for that purpose, and it feels good to finish what Alan Grace and Chris Briggs started in 1998. Cheers Alan, the boat's a peach and she loved it.

Matt

Matt and Rob toast their win. Well done chaps

Coda - Matt and Rob were awarded a Seamanship Award in Multihull Review's 2006 awards, for a "considerable achievement by an experienced crew sailing a small and exposed trimaran in
heavy weather at over 61 degrees North!"