Our journey began, like they always do, in Plymouth with the arrival of our crew, all eager to begin their passage to the Isle of Wight for the Small Ships Race. We started off with a familiarisation sail around Plymouth Sound as a few of our crew were new to Johanna Lucretia, then finished up the day anchoring at Cawsand Bay to prep for our departure.
We left Cawsand Bay at 3am on Tuesday 1st October and everyone was settled into a watch rota. We made excellent progress SE past Start Point then headed up into Lyme Bay before rounding Portland Bill as darkness fell. We picked up some speed with the tide past St Albans head and sped off towards the Needles, this narrow entrance to the Western Solent proved a challenging navigational exercise for our Watch Leaders in training, checking courses to steer and looking out for important navigational lights, they did an excellent job getting us into the Western Solent. The last watch brought us safely along the Solent to Osbourne Bay where we anchored for the night. Overall we managed the trip in 27 hours.
After a good sleep we gathered the crew together and took Johanna into Cowes Yacht Haven for the night so we could enjoy some of the land facilities, showers, shops etc. The following day we were out in the Solent “Race Training”, basically lots of tacking and gybing drills with a few sail changes thrown in so we were prepared for anything! Another night at anchor in Osbourne Bay chatting about racing strategy over dinner and off to bed. The following morning we were back alongside at Cowes to begin our safety inspections and meet all the other crews.
Race Day!
The Small Ships Race is an annual event, held in Cowes on the first weekend of October. Organised by the Association of Sail Training Organisations (ASTO), the event brings together around twenty-five sail training boats of all varieties, from 72ft steel racing yachts to our own wooden gaff rigged boats. The only requirement to take part is that over half of the crew are aged under 25.
Up early! Everyone is buzzing with excitement. We prepped our sails and slipped lines, and headed out past Cowes breakwater. Main and Foresail up in a flash and the crew got into their Star Wars costumes ready for the parade of sail past the Royal Yacht Squadron. All the vessels from the fleet take part in the parade and look absolutely magnificent.
We head over to the start line and wait for the cannon…
BANG! We are off!
Our class is the first to start made up of Jolie Brise, Boleh and ourselves. The first leg is up the Eastern Solent, upwind and into the tide.
Everyone was working hard tacking the boat across the Solent, eventually we started making some solid progress but it was hard going, especially watching the rest of the fleet pass us by, but that did not deter our team! They know Johanna doesn’t go upwind but we would make up our time on the downwind leg, and so we did. After rounding the upwind mark we turned around and began setting our square sails and our fisherman’s sail, before we knew it we were doing 10 knots! We flew down the Western Solent to Hampstead Ledge then began sailing back upwind to Cowes.
With 15mins left in the race we still had 20mins of sailing to do, luckily for us the Small Ships Race committee had seen how hard we have been working to get Johanna round this course and made the decision to officially extend the race by 10mins. This was enough time to allow us to cross the finish line and post an official time.
Safely back alongside we were met with lots of friendly faces all congratulating us on a solid effort. The evening entertainment began with lots of socialising and we even managed to get a scout to participate in their investiture ceremony on our bowsprit before everyone headed off to the prizegiving event.
The atmosphere in the party was intense, lots of teams excited to see who won in each class. The host was ASTO chairman Mark Todd, wearing a Unicorn outfit! There were many prizes, too many to recall, but Johanna and her team had some surprises…
- We came second in our Class.
- We won the Bloodhound Cup, this is awarded to the youngest average aged crew, we won by one month!
- Finally we also won the Richard Langhorne Trophy, this is the ‘Spirit of the Race’ award. It is voted for by the entire fleet, who all decided that our commitment to finishing showed true spirit.
The night was finished up with a disco and lots of socialising with other crews. The following morning we sailed over to Portsmouth where we sadly had to say goodbye to our amazing crew. I can’t wait to have you all sailing with us again!
Daniel Webb
Skipper, Johanna Lucretia
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ASTO Small Ships Race 2024