Having gone round the Island at an insane speed, I was wondering what the experiences were like for the other GK24's that took part.

For us it was holding the spinnaker from the Needles to Bembridge Ledge and either clocking 7+ knots or broaching. One slight distraction or someone trying to go forward below and use the heads and over we would go.

The fairly tight reaching section up from Atherfield Ledges to St Cats was done with the main out, the kicker off and the main flapping . Fortunately Steve the spinnaker trimmer is extremely strong and only let go of the sheet once by accident. Some of the bangs when the spinnaker refilled were pretty scary.

So was the gybe at Dunnose where I failed to lock the traveller and had the mainsheet accidentaly cleated and ripped out of my hand while the main was central. Fortunately the foredeck crew had completed the spinnaker gybe before the broach happened.

Nothing broke during the but the spinnaker halyard ended up pretty frayed. Down below was a complete mess.

The drinking session that followed was as epic as last years but at least this time we used the Folly launch to go back to bed.

i was wondering how you were an hour in front of me!! we thought about the spinnaker but when we saw 2 boats just in front wiped out we decided against it.Next year we will stick it up regardless of the wind.The only thing we broke was the toilet seat which launched itself across the cabin shortly after being used.well done for having the balls to stick with it ,a well deseverd win

You did rather well Mike, congrates.

Minx was a bit slower this year, an H boat decided to tack into us 35mins after the start whilst we were on st'bd, no time to avoid him so we tee-boned him amidship. It resulted in us getting tacked on to port and heeling Minx violently, as I went across the boat, I met his mast which came down in 3 bits, luckily a glancing blow to the side of my head and a headache, could have been much worse, one of my crew went over the side and the other 2 had cuts and bruises. Took 15min to untangle and then the lifeboat arrived, a quick check that everyone was ok and we went on to give the rig an 8 hour test to complete the course.

Brilliant kite run from Needles to Bembridge, a bit rock and rolly after St Cats but hit 12.4kts surfing, only one Chinese gybe which actually worked out well as we needed to gybe anyway!

The race really demonstrated why I have such faith in the GK24, big wind, big waves, and only a few scratches to show of our hassle with the H boat!

Good work on getting the spinnaker up on the down wind leg... we lost a lot of time by not being able to keep up it. We Broached immediately. I think I need a smaller Spinnaker as the two I have aboard Kayesse seem to be too big for anything over 18knts.

Anyone got an old one not being used?