David Branigan from Oceansport sent us this great shot of Dinah rounding Wicklow Head on June 20th, just after the start of the Round Ireland Race 2010.

With the boat already in Wicklow sporting her new bowsprit, faired and polished hull and stocked with provisions; our weather and tidal routing sorted, and bags packed, there was nothing left to do in preparation for the Round Ireland Race 2010. On Friday afternoon I had the pleasure of relaxing with a beer watching other crews scurry around completing last minute tasks. It’s always good to be more prepared than your competition! On Friday night I picked up Hannah from the airport, and we drove straight to Wicklow for a brief look over the changes that had been made to the boat, so as to put Hannah’s mind at ease. We then joined the other crews at the official crew party, and a classic Wicklow Sailing Club night ensued. Saturday we went to fetch the fresh fruit etc, and threw a dockside Dinah drinks party to say thanks to those who had helped get Dinah to the startline, and to get to know some of our competitors better. It was a great success, and we definitely won the hospitality prize!

Sunday morning dawned sunny with light airs. The pin end of the line consisted of one of the Irish Naval Vessels at anchor, so positioning on the line was very important. Dinah won the weather end of the line, and started as weathermost boat, albeit with only inches to spare between ourselves, the next boat to leeward, and the Naval Vessel to weather. One of the tightest starts I’ve ever had, but thankfully we ended up nicely to weather of the bigger boats that were sure to sail through us in the first few minutes of the race.

We headed off towards Tuskar, and quickly discovered that we were lacking horsepower in the light airs upwind. Not good! Rounding Tuskar we were alongside boats from the class below, and we were really struggling. Along the south coast we pushed hard to gain from every windshift, but even with some really clever tactical calls we were still only holding our distance on the boats ahead of us, instead of catching back what we had lost on day one. We lost another few miles around Galley Head due to a strange unexpected tidal race just under the headland itself, and rounded Fastnet on Tuesday morning a little disheartened.

Finally, after two days of light airs upwind sailing we had an opportunity to bear off, crack sheets, and let Dinah do what she does best. We peeled from asymmetric to symmetric kite at Sceilig Rock, and headed due North, dead downwind in the building breeze. Dinah relished the opportunity to run downwind in big waves, and we headed offshore from Sceilig Mor comforted by the fact that we were now catching everybody ahead. As the day and night went on the breeze continued to build, and through the night we were running very fast in 25knts+ and big Atlantic seas. They were fantastic conditions, and it was a run we’ll both remember for some time. We called the gybe perfectly, despite gybing over more than 120nm from the next corner. As we came in along the layline for Tory Island we realised that we had jumped forward a whole pack in the fleet, and we were now alongside the Reflex 38’s on the water. Much better!

Along the north coast we had breeze of varying strengths, getting progressively tighter in angles right through to Rathlin. At Tor Rocks just off Malin Head we peeled to the asymmetric kite again for the tight reach past Rathlin. The tidal gate just started to close as we passed, and we knew no other boats would get past Rathlin for several hours after us. We had held the bigger boats on the water and we were swapping places with Lula Belle, Tsunami, and Cheetah Cub for the whole day. As the evening closed in the breeze shut down off Strangford Lough, and we worked really hard to pull away through the night and catch up with the lead pack. A small mistake by Alchimiste allowed us to overtake, and soon we were right back in this race.

In the morning we were one of the first boats to get the new southerly breeze, and the only option was a long beat along the eastern shore all the way to the finish line at Wicklow. Despite being at the front of the fleet, we were careful to keep focus on racing the clock, rather than just the boats around us. We had to be an hour ahead of our main competitors, and two hours ahead of the next guy. A big ask in steady upwind conditions, but we tried our hardest all day. At the finish it soon became clear that we didn’t have quite enough time on our competitors to beat them on handicap. We finished just inside five and a half days, minutes before midnight on the Friday night. We would have to settle for 3rd in class 2, 4th in the double handed class, and 12th overall. This was a little behind our original aims, but when we did a full debrief we understood that we simply had too much work to do after spending the first two days underpowered. In fact our pace from Fastnet to the finish had been one of the fastest on the water. For this race it just was not to be, but we felt a bit better knowing that we had in fact sailed really well, and would not have done anything differently.

It was a pleasure racing with Hannah. Our layline calls were bang on, both upwind and downwind. Our weather interpretations and navigational tactics were as good as they get. Crew work together was exemplary, usually carrying out hoists, drops and peels significantly faster and better than the fully crewed boats around us. This was a real eye opener to many boats, and confirmed my belief that racing with another successful solo sailor was the best way to go about this race. Added to all that we laughed a lot. I can’t remember another offshore race where there was so much laughing and smiling, with never a cross word. Together we make a formidable team, and I look forward to racing together again in the future.

The last couple of weeks have seen more changes on Dinah. In order to improve her performance dead downwind I wanted to fit her with a longer spinnaker pole. Since we would take a hit on our rating to achieve that we decided we should fit a bowsprit of the same length, to allow more efficient handling of assymetric kites on close reaches and get the tack point much lower than it had been with the old pole. In the photo below you can see the new carbon fibre spinnaker pole and bowsprit finally fitted and ready to be tested.

Yesterday myself and Andy took part in a local coastal race double handed, with the intention of pushing the boat hard as a final opportunity to find any weaknesses prior to the Round Ireland Race next week. Quite fortunately we had every weather condition imaginable during the one race. The pole and sprit were used in everything from 3knt ghosting conditions under the Baily Lighthouse, to a screaming 25knt reach approaching the Kish Lighthouse and a complete white out squall on the way back into Dublin Bay. Everything worked absolutely perfectly, and the bowsprit makes a huge difference to the set of the assymetric. I’m sorry now that I didn’t have this setup last year!

This week is all about Round Ireland prep. Dinah will be lifted out of the water tomorrow to make sure her bottom is fair. We’ll also fit a new propeller, and a few other little things, before loading her up with provisions and safety equipment and heading to Wicklow at the end of the week. Lots to do, but everything is on schedule. More during the week…

One of the jobs that had to be completed before the Round Ireland race was to replace Dinah’s rudder bearings. The original bearings consisted of a delrin ball inside an aluminium collar. The original bearings started to seize during the transat last year, and by the end of the season the steering was very stiff with a significant amount of “play” or lateral movement in the rudder itself.

Jefa, a Danish company specialising in bespoke steering solutions, were comissioned to produce a set of self aligning GRP bearings with needle rollers as the bearing surface rather than a simple ball and collar. More technical details of the solution produced by Jefa can be seen on their website.

Over a long weekend in April the old bearings were ground out of the hull, the new bearings were bonded in place, and then the new structure was carefully laminated into the hull to make it part of the hull structure itself and ensure the rudder loads would be spread appropriately.

The photo below was taken from inside the boat on a bright sunny day. With the rudder not yet fitted the sunshine illuminated the inside of the tube containing the lower bearing, and the light projected up to the new upper bearing fitted into the deck above. Bob did such a good job on the laminating it looked like a modern art installation!

The rudder itself now sits much closer to the hull underneath which is great as it reduces drag. Also, the lower bearing is faired perfectly flush with the hull outside, again to reduce drag compared with the original solution. When the rudder was refitted the improvement was immediately obvious. The rudder used to be stiff, and would not move easily. Afterwards, the rudder was swinging freely in the lightest of breezes. The boat now feels very different to sail, requiring only fingertip control in all but the heaviest of conditions. A huge improvement!