3 boats, one epic battle

On paper, the concept of the Round Britain & Ireland Race (or RBI, as the insiders call it) is remarkably simple: start and finish in Cowes, sail around Ireland and Great Britain, and leave all the marks to starboard. So much for the theory!
In practice, it's a very different story: transition after transition, typically damp and foggy conditions worthy of perfidious Albion, wind shadows or currents — take your pick, or sometimes both at once to spice things up — and, to top it all off, a giant slalom through restricted areas and oil and gas platforms... a challenging race in its own right....

Such an amazing Race !
And on the water, the three crews had clearly decided to turn the race into an epic battle. "The RBI is such an amazing race! Those nine days were incredibly intense," confirms Greg Leonard, skipper and owner of Swift (No. 206). "We were sailing within sight of each other for almost the entire course, constantly keeping an eye on one another, checking our speeds, headings and distances... I was exhausted by the finish!"
I sailed with Gerald Veniard and Miranda Merron, a real dream team for a crew.   The three scows alternated places up the West coast of Ireland all downwind for days under Spinnaker with Penfret generally holding the front position.  After turning south at Muckle Flugga, the weather gods smiled upon us and gave us all 20 kts of wind at 110 TWA - super fast sailing, exactly what our boats are made for.  For a day, we were on fire tearing down the North Sea.  Of course, the North Sea is full of obstacles (land mines as we might say in English), oil and gas rigs and wind farms.  So, the navigation was busy."  

After leading the race and crossing the finish line first, Penfret was ultimately disqualified. But that did little to diminish skipper Pierre Leboucher's enjoyment of the race: "What can I say about this course? Beautiful scenery, varied sailing — in short, we had an amazing nine days. This race gave me the opportunity to test Penfret's new sails and fine-tune the final details ahead of the big event in November: the Route du Rhum."

By its length as well as the varied directions and weather systems, RBI offers a great all-around prep for a transat or even, just by itself, an amazing challenge in Class 40.  I hope we see more boats in 4 years! What other class of boat would sail within a few miles of each other over 1800 miles?  The class 40s are really special.