TAMESIS Offshore Group

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Jack's Trip 2009 was a bit of a blow 

The clerk to the weather was playing games with us again.  He knew that Rear Commodore Steve Katz was offering very good odds on the Offshore Race - Jack's 36th Trip - being galed off for the third year in succession.  So he warned us it would be windy.  The 10 Offshore Group yachts that set off from Portsmouth on Saturday 25 July were therefore prepared for a bit of a blow.  But when Marigold opened the gate at Gleeds there was hardly any wind at all.  Boats shook out their reefs and hoisted larger genoas. Pickle and Sereia of Mersea led the way with a series of painfully slow short tacks against the tide towards the Gilkicker shore.  Boat by boat they rounded the point and eased into the slacker waters of Stokes Bay using the biggest sails they could manage.  Then he struck.  As the leaders tacked over towards Cowes to round the West Ryde Middle buoy they found themselves heeling heavily in a good Force 5.  This proved too late for the crew of Celeste, who, having failed to clear Gilkicker, started their engine and retired from the race.  It was a great relief to be able to bear away on the run up Southampton Water in choppy seas to the finish at Coronation.  Pacifying the wildly flapping sails before motoring up the Hamble to Swanwick was an exhausting relief.

The clerk to the weather could not be blamed for Fossdyke being unable to start her engine (a flat battery) and she was kindly towed up to the marina by a passing catamaran. Pickle was the first to finish in just over two and a half hours and must have been expecting to keep the Cup because Jeremy forgot to bring it for the prizegiving at the barbecue in the marquee at Velsheda's at Swanwick Marina.  This lack of foresight has been referred to The Society of Ancient Mariners as a possible Seacock Trophy award.  Although Pickle was first across the line, after the handicaps had been worked out the winner was Cicada, sailed by Steve Osgood, Ted Neal and Peter Johnson.  

Peter Johnson, Steve Osgood, and Ted Neal

The finishing positions after the application of handicaps were:  1 Cicada (Contessa 28) Steve Osgood, 2 Sereia of Mersea (Hustler 25.5) Andy and David Gibson, 3 Pickle (Dufour 34) Jeremy and Max Vines, 4 Murena II (Rush 30) Martin and Barbara Adams, 5 Marigold (Hustler 25.5) John and Rita Dunkley, 6 Fossdyke (Sadler 290) Herbert Hunt, 7 Shen Shui (Moody 33) Tony and Leonie Steer, 8 Mojo (Hanse 301) Steve Katz, 9 Carminowe (Freedom 25) Richard Gooderick, 10 Celeste (Beneteau 44) Anne Hutchins (RTD).

Afterwards four boats - Cicada, Marigold, Pickle and Shen Shui - joined the cruise in company to Portland to support the Tamesis Club organised National 18 Championship and Club Captain Phil England presented the Offshore Cup to Steve Osgood and Ted Neal at a special ceremony at the Olympic Sailing Centre on Tuesday 4 August.

 Phil England presents the Offshore Cup to Steve Osgood and Ted Neal (Photo:  John Dunkley)

The Tamesis Offshore Group evolved from a race and rally that was started in 1973 by Jack Tuson and Bill Pettitt (Commodore from 1977-79) to cater for members who had graduated to racing yachts as well as dinghies. The inaugural race was from Yarmouth to Poole.  Jack Tuson donated a trophy and the event soon became known as Jack's Trip. It is now held annually, usually in the Solent, and attracts up to 15 yachts.  The Group was formalised and its captain elected to the Sailing Committee during Peter Simpson's first year as Commodore in 1992.  Participating yachts range in size from 25 ft to over 40 ft and are handicapped for racing using the RYA's Portsmouth yardstick system.  The rally dinner is rated a "not to be missed" event and is held at a different venue each year, usually a Solent yacht club, attracting up to 62 people.  Tamesis dinghy sailors are usually invited to crew in the race.

Members of the Offshore Group have achieved high placings in many yachting events, including Cowes Week, the Round the Island Race, the Atlantic Rally for Cruisers, Antigua Sailing Week, Cork Week, and the National Sigma Championships. 

Ed and Genie Webb flew the Tamesis burgee around the world on their Rival 38, Wandering Dream, on a four year circumnavigation that began in August 2000 and took them across the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian Oceans. They won the Cruising World Trophy in Wandering Dream as the fastest couple to make the Atlantic crossing in the 2000 Atlantic Rally for Cruisers, taking just under 21 days. See the VOYAGE page for a brief account of their circumnavigation.  

Jeremy Vines, Genie's father, crewed in the 2003 ARC in Sky Hunter, a J42, and Alastair Whyte crewed in the 2004 ARC in Pearl Fisher, an Oyster 56.  Free Spirit, Peter Smith's Sweden 42,  was placed 73rd overall out of 163 competitors in the 2006 ARC. Stewart Colley crewed in the 2009 ARC in the yacht Star Chaser, a Swan 51, which was 7th in Cruising Class E and 74th overall. 

Brian Timbrell sailed in the Global Challenge yacht Imagine It Done in the 6,700 mile leg from South Africa to the USA in 2005. The fleet of 12 identical 72ft ocean racing yachts left Cape Town on this fifth leg of the race in May and arrived in Boston in June.  Brian has sailed across the Atlantic four times and his wife, Caroline once.  Brian has also cruised in Arctic waters to 81 degrees north, within 500 miles of the North Pole, aboard the former 67ft British Steel Challenge yachts.  Anne Bayne did a similar cruise in 2009 on the yacht Tilting at Windmills, a 43 ft Australian ocean racer and former Sydney-Hobart winner. 

Charles Fox has raced across the Atlantic, and Chris Ledger has crossed the Atlantic single-handed in a Folkboat.  Not bad for a Thames-based dinghy club!

The late Len and Kay Smith (Peter's father and mother) cruised in the Mediterranean in their catamaran, Willow Cat, from June 1981 to December 1984.  Adrian and Jane Fearnley cruised in the Mediterranean in their Westerly Oceanquest 35, Helenaswell from 2004 to 2008 and now keep their yacht in Jolly Harbour, Antigua.   

Jack's Millennium Trip in 2000 produced several offshore nominations for Uffa's Spoon - the trophy awarded for the biggest sailing gaffe of the year - but when these were outshone by a dinghy nomination, the Offshore Group created Jack's Trip-Up Trophy, which was presented to Martin Adams and David Baker (then Commodore) for going aground at the end of the race and nearly missing the rally supper. This was replaced in 2002 by the Seacock Trophy, presented by Steve Osgood, the skipper of a competing yacht which was flooded down below to berth level during a near gale, after Roy Doughty (a former Commodore) had left a heads seacock open. This has become informally known as Jack's Cock-Up trophy and is presented before Uffa's Spoon amid great hilarity at the Vice Commodore's Dinner in February.  (See SOCIAL and NEWS pages.)

For more details please contact the Tamesis Offshore Group Captain:  John Dunkley (phone 020 8399 5993).

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19.01.10