Round Jersey Race 2020 at St Helier Yacht Club

Abracadabra wins Class 1 in the Round Jersey Race © Simon Ropert

St Helier Yacht ran their annual Round the Island Race on Saturday 5th September. This was west about the Island which is 'the wrong way around' as the tides tend to be against the yachts for a lot the race. The weather was superb with a Northwesterly force 3-4 gusting 5 at times. There was another very good entry of 24 yachts with Class 1 going off at 11am and Class 2 ten minutes later.

In the first start Lady Penelope got the best start and was first at East Rock closely followed by Jewel, Grace and Arctic Tern. There was an exciting sail along the south coast to Corbiere. By the time the boats arrived Abracadabra had managed to catch the leading boats and just managed to round the lighthouse in first place.

There was a tactical sail across St Ouen's Bay and Abracadabra managed to extend her lead by going in shore out of the tide with Arctic Tern and Lady Penelope behind. This allowed Abracadabra to hoist her spinnaker first at Gronez and with this extra advantage she further extended on the fleet. Spinnakers were kept flying all along the north and then east coast down to the Violet buoy off Seymour Tower.

The sail back along the south coast was against a building tide which was advantageous to the leading boats. By the time the yachts arrived back at St Helier Abracadabra was first to finish both over the water and on handicap. She was followed by Arctic Tern and Grace.

The second start was 10 minutes later and there was a close race to Corbiere between Super Q, Paper Tiger and Jack Rabbit however on the race up the west coast Super Q and Paper Tiger got ahead and hoisted spinnakers first at Gronez and then moved further ahead. These two were close together until St Catherine's but on the deeper run down to the Violet Super Q with her symmetric was able to build a significant lead.

Unfortunately with the building tide against them they were not able to get back to St Helier before the time limit so the finishing positions were calculated at the Violet. Super was first with Paper Tiger second and Filipene third.

This was the last scheduled race in the Coastal series.

Sunday was the Crew's Race around St Aubin's Bay. There was close racing between the Farr 727s with Jason Manning in Super Q taking the winning gun ahead of Alex Frost in Fahrenheit and George Brough in MicMac.

Class 1 results:
1. Abracadabra [Rhys Perkins]
2. Zanzibar [Alan Stevens]
3. Arctic Tern [Phillip Burton]

Class 2 results:

1. Paper Tiger [Peter Crabb and Peter Williams]
2. Super Q [Julian Barber]
3. Fillipene [Nick Baillache]