The cancellation of the 2026 Inter-Departmental Offshore Regatta (IDOR), which CSORC usually enters, raised the question “What to do in its place?”. Several members had put their names down for the IDOR so they would be available for something else.
It was decided that the club could run a sort of familiarisation-of-Jeepster event instead, spread over the original five days. This was subsequently pruned to four to make space for the Morgan Cup race to Dartmouth starting on Friday 12th. So on Monday, morning, 8th June, five members assembled at Mercury Marina. One had to leave early in the week and another could only arrive later.
Phil Armitage had put together an ambitious programme covering onboard familiarisation, hoisting the sails, changing the foresail, rigging the storm jib and trysail, spinnaker practice, boat handling and marina berthing and assorted other items. In the event there were other issues and then the weather intervened as well!!
Having spent Monday giving Jeepster a very close inspection, learning where things were stored, we departed the berth on Tuesday morning. The day was sunny but the wind was strong, we saw a gust of 30.1 knots at one stage so the sea was very lively for a time!
The crew for the Dartmouth Race would need a full fuel tank so we went into Cowes for fuel. They were also required by the RORC rules to have a special type of tracking device on board which we had to collect from the RORC office in Cowes. The fuel berth operator agreed that we could wait on the fuel berth rather than find another berth so a crew member walked very quickly the length of Cowes high street and back in bright sunshine in full foul weather gear! A rather uncomfortable way to loose a few pounds.
Having dealt with the domestic items we set back out to sea and into Osborne Bay where we raised the main sail. At first with one reef given the wind and then after about an hour, a second. Very useful practice. We returned to Mercury around 4pm.
Wednesday dawned full of promise and we set out to sea just after 9am. We were raising the main sail when one of the sliders was caught and a strong tug on the halyard resulted in a tear in the sail. Disaster, the Dartmouth RORC was only two days away!!
A quick search for “Sail repairs in Hamble” returned a phone number and the repairer could take our sail immediately. So a rapid disassembly of the main sail when we were back alongside and a quick handover was all that we could do for the time being. We filled the next few hours with more on-board familiarisation and then collected the sail around 4pm. The repair looked very good so there was much relief and we have found a very useful sail repair contact.
Thursday dawned with the forecast of rain later, some of which turned out to be heavy. The wind was good though, 10-15kt so we tacked and gybed up and down Southampton Water. Jeepster was going very well with the racing main and jib. We had to prep Jeepster for the Dartmouth crew so we headed back at 12pm.
The four days turned out to be a bit more eventful than planned but we still covered a lot of familiarisation for which we were all grateful. So thanks to Phil A, for the concept and execution.