Saturday, May 13, 2017

RORC De Guingand Bowl Preview

RORC offshore race start (Cowes, Isle of Wight, England)- The fourth fixture in the Royal Ocean Racing Club's Offshore Season Series takes place this weekend, with the fleet starting around midday Saturday off the Royal Yacht Squadron line in Cowes, Isle of Wight. Over 80 yachts are expected to take part with the vast majority of the crews made up of passionate Corinthian sailors with their own set of goals.

Designed to last 24-36 hours, the De Guingand Bowl Race starts and finishes in the Solent and is a
“flexi-course”, allowing the Royal Ocean Racing Club to design a bespoke course. "Without the constraint of finishing the race in a totally different location, we concentrate on the weather and tidal conditions to decide the course," explains RORC Racing Manager, Nick Elliott. "We try to get all of the fleet to finish the first beat in the same tidal vector, so as to avoid a tidal gate early in the race."

In IRC Three, Trevor Sainty and Simon Forbes’ J/109 JALENKO is one of many 109s that will be racing with the RORC this season. The crew have been together for about ten years and did their first Rolex Fastnet with JALENKO in 2015. The De Guingand Bowl Race is part of the teams programme for another crack at the Rolex Fastnet.

"All amateurs and we are all friends, most of the time" smiled Trevor. "I am a veterinary surgeon working with horses, Simon works in the City, and the rest of the group are from the South of England and London, working in banking and IT. Our aim is to be top J/109 this season and improve our Fastnet finishing position by winning it of course. This will be my eighth consecutive Fastnet and last! - I said that last time."  In addition to the J/109s, there will be J/122s, J/133, J/105, J/97E, J/120 and J/111s sailing in the race.  For more RORC de Guingand Bowl Race sailing information Add to Flipboard Magazine.