Royal Air Force Yacht Club

 From Chris Smith and David Coles

Free from routine, three men in a boat, consuming too much, freedom of tongue.

Friday breakfast - of bacon and coffee – clear skies, cloudy heads: victualling, servicing.

Weather predicted as 2s and 3s.  Searching boatyards for parts, boats for sale – dreaming; boats discarded and decayed – lives left behind.

Out on the water, testing the chute; it worked a treat, prior to grounding for draught – ice cream on the beach and then back her off fast!

Flung on pontoon to recover my shirt – found it later in my aft quarter berth!

Crew now complete for a World Cup dinner …. no example for us – with the zest of a winner.

Turn in – a four o’clock rise – berth with a mate I don’t even know; snoring, raining and creaking, all through the night.

Saturday morning: light in the sky – fresh with the chill; juggle the raft for different starts; leaving soon after to join the throng, then cook sausage and bacon conjured from galley stripped bare.

Myriad triangles, dynamic and bright.  The sun fills the sky – glistening light.  Forecast’s wrong – 4s and 5s; we have a blow!

S-o-m-b-e-r voice for different starts – then it is us …. Group 8 – blue – ten seconds to go.

Cruising chute up – blue and billowing large.  Coloured balloons puffed up by the breeze.

Finding the tide, comparing our pace to take others in class.

Snuff the chute, rounding the pins, missing the boilers and finding the line - best wind, slack water - shortest line.

A mêlée of yachts, fore and aft, yachts all around us – avoiding the fray.

St Kats dead ahead, five minutes of chute, overlapping Genoa; snuff her again.

Power her up; catching the tide, jostling yachts reaching, Ventnor to Bembridge - cold north easterly, twisting and fluking off craggily windward cliffs.

Predict the lift, trim, ease the main, holding the power – leaving dozens behind.

Spot the cardinal at the ledge, then round and beat north – tacking and grinding; we nearly lost Ollie freeing a sheet!

Coffee for crew, pork pies and chocolate maintaining morale.

Watch out for pots and monitor depth – horseshoe sands Ryely wait the unwary – we take the safe route outside the fort

Then reach for home on the southern line –pipped at the post by a stealthy black ship – she crept from behind – just six seconds to spare!

What could we have done to save that time?  Wear lycra and leave the teaspoon behind!

Vogon of Cowes (sail number GBR 2378L) was skippered by Matthew Smith with crew:  Chris Smith, David and Ollie Sloper, Simon Chambers and David Coles.

She came second in Class 5 and 31^st overall (out of 1745).  She was also second in the family class.

 David

See some of our en-route photos on the gallery (Vogon Odyssey)