Race record broken after 30 years

Thirty years ago, on the August Bank Holiday weekend, eleven boats set out on a new and adventurous sailing race run by Penzance Sailing Club. This was 1978 and boats were taking part in the now famous PASAB - “Penzance Around Scilly And Back” yacht race. To mark this anniversary two Penzance boats set out quietly last Friday evening to re-trace the route of these sailors.
 
Today the main PASAB race, held each year on the last weekend in July, is raced over three legs and takes in a two day stop on the islands. 2008 saw a record entry of 31 boats and 140 competitors. However, last week it was all about re-sailing the original non-stop course around the Islands.

With Sam Kent’s Silverwind and Paul Whitehead’s Disting loaded up and ready for the off, they left Mounts Bay on Friday evening in a light north-westerly wind under spinnakers.

The spinnakers were held all the way to Mountamopus when night fell and the boats turned back towards Wolf Rock Lighthouse. With the tide pushing against the boats, Disting sailed inshore while Silverwind pushed on with the more direct tidal route for the rock.

With the wind forecast to back to the south-west both boats carefully judged their tactics as they sailing in increasingly light winds through the night. In the end both boats went far to the south of Wolf Rock before finally tacking towards the islands in the early hours.

As dawn broke the boats were out of sight of each other and could only guess as to the others position as they crossed the shipping lanes. It was not until the Disting rounded Bishops Rock Lighthouse (the southwest corner of Scilly) at midday on Saturday that Silverwind was sighted coming in from the south just three minutes behind after 16 hours of sailing! The race was on again.  

With the wind now building, as forecast, from the southwest the spinnakers were soon hosted as they raced down the northern coast of Scilly. With speeds touching 11 knots it was exhilarating sailing until about 14:00 when the need for speed was overtaken by the need to survive the race. After both boats performed multiply broaches the spinnakers were dropped and they continued under jib and main.

With Silverwind having to avoid heavy shipping just off Wolf Rock they dropped a few more minutes on Disting before the rock. Running down wind after Wolf Rock the boats accelerated again in winds which built to a force 7.

At 20:20 and just over 24 hours after the start Disting crossed the finishing line off Penzance with Silverwind 12 minutes later on corrected time.

This marked the end of an excellent 24 hours of racing for the crews of the two boats. They had seen everything from light wind tactical sailing overnight to heavy weather downwind sailing on the return home. The best news being that both boats had beaten the 1978 race time by a good margin.

A big thank you must go to volunteers that helped to run the race and in particular the shore contacts for the weekend.

More details of PASAB can be found at www.pzsc.org.uk/pasab

Crews:
Disting – Paul Whitehead, Leslie Bailey, Simon Chapman, Jeremy Gilbert
Silverwind - Sam Kent, Andy Bedford, Kevin Lane