The seven race Frostbite Series is the traditional opener to the Royal Channel Islands Yacht Cub’s sailing programme, this year being no exception.

We have again received generous sponsorship from Boatworks, which has enabled us to both organise the racing as well as host the ‘famous’ after race prizegivings, with prizes for the skippers of the first three boats in each class as well as a warm welcome in the club with well earned Hot Dogs and liquid refreshment for all crew members.

The series started on the 6th January which saw a good turnout, with a total of 17 yachts, spread between the 2 classes, venturing out into the light breeze in the Little Russel. To get things started a ‘gentle’ course was set with a leg up towards St. Sampsons the a scenic route around Jethou and back to St. Peter Port. The long downwind legs suited Simon Henning’s ‘White Rabbit’ who not only finished first on the water, but also was the winner on corrected time. It was very close in the cruising class on the water with John Knight ‘Fidelite’ and Rupert Dorey ‘Varmint’ out at the front very closely followed by David Aslett/Matt Knowles ‘Glory Days’ and Andrew Haining ‘Flute’ close on their transoms. They ended up all finishing within 5 minutes of each other. John Knight eventually winning on corrected time by just over 1 minute.

The ‘Wind Gods’ it seems were smiling on us, unlike last season when we were not able to sail 3 of the 7 races due to adverse weather conditions, this year we were able to sail all 7 races without any problems.

The rest of the races were all based in the Little Russel with a mixture of courses, some windward- leeward and some with longer off wind legs, in an attempt to allow for all yachts to have a chance on their best point of sail and test their navigational skills as well as sail handling.

For Race 6 I decided to set a course with a “foredeck challenge!” With a southerly breeze I set a windward/leeward inshore course, all seemed straightforward? No. There was a sting in the tail, the last leg for Class 1 racers involved two very short spinnaker turns around Terres point before finishing at the Castle – a serious workout for foredeck crew. I promise no more ‘Dinghy Courses’, not in this series anyhow!!

The racer class was again largely dominated by Roger Martel’s ‘Kaya’ with Martin Boyde’s ‘Jostler’, Martin Priest’s ‘Fandangle’ and the new team of Kevin Jones’ ‘Saiki’ keeping them on their toes.

The Cruiser class has seen John Knight ‘Fidelite’ and Rupert Dorey ‘Varmint’ take a virtually clean sweep of firsts and seconds with only 1 point separating them. It has been great to see some of the ‘real’ cruising yachts take part Mark Dunster ‘Elephant’ John Frankland ‘Spindrift’. Special mentions to Christian Hay’s ‘Mischief’ who has only started racing this year and Jacek Waronski’s ‘Minstrel II’ who is the only yacht in both classes to compete in every race.

After the final race on Saturday 30th March Stuart Tucker from Boatworks kindly attended the club to present the prizes to the winners. I have negotiated with Boatworks that on presentation of your current membership card at the till, a discount of 10% is available to all members, this was announced as a ‘special’ additional prize for all members.

Many thanks to our generous sponsors ‘Boatworks’, Stuart Place our Race Officer along with Derek Knowles for managing the races so efficiently, Jill our bar steward for pouring beers as fast as we could order them, Carol, Karen, Jan, Helen & Sue for making sure we are all well fed and everyone who took part for making it such a fantastic start to the 2024 sailing season.

Andrew Round.

Rear Commodore (Sail)
Royal Channel Islands Yacht Club(Guernsey)

email : RaceRCIYC@gmail.com
phone: +44 7781 166 011