Image:A consistent performance over 650 miles of unusually tough racing across two events earned Red Ruby victory in the 2024 IRC Double Handed European Championship. Image: Alexis Courcoux/DRHEAM CUP
A consistent performance over 650 miles of unusually tough racing across two events earned Red Ruby victory in the 2024 IRC Double Handed European Championship.
Red Ruby was sailed by Jonathan McKee and co-owner Justin Wolfe in the first race, a particularly tough edition of RORC’s 150 mile Cowes - Dinard - St Malo race, in which they took fifth place. McKee was then joined by Will Harris for the Drheam Cup Grand Prix de France de Course au Large, finishing third.
Red Ruby finished the championship three points ahead of another Sun Fast 3300, Ian Hoddle and Ollie Wyatt’s Sun Fast 3300 GameOn!, while Nick Martin’s and Cal Finlayson’s Sun Fast 3600 Diablo competed the podium.
A hard windward leg with gusts to 35 knots thinned out the fleet even before the start of the race to St Malo, with a number of both French and British skippers opting to remain in port. This race also saw an unusual number of retirements – in addition to those who dropped out in the early stages when leaving out of the Solent in wind against tide conditions and more than 30 knots of breeze, gusts to 35 knots off Guernsey, which formed a daunting lee shore, brought another wave of retirements in the early hours of the morning.
The Drheam Cup also started in a dramatic fashion, with a weather front sweeping across the start line at Cherbourg and producing much stronger winds than expected. Red Ruby misjudged the start and crossed the line prematurely, picking up a one hour time penalty which cost two points at the end of the race.
After leaving Cherbourg competitors enjoyed a boisterous and fast reach across the English Channel to the East Shambles buoy east of Portland Bill with gusts to 25 knots, followed by a long upwind leg in reducing breeze to Wolf Rock near Lands End. They then headed south to La Trinité in southern Brittany via a virtual mark off Ushant and the islands of Belle Ile and Hoedic. Lighter winds forecast for the second half of the race as a ridge of high pressure became established resulted in a decision before the start to shorten the course from the usual 600 nautical miles to 514 miles.
Red Ruby was first to finish, however the time penalty McKee and Harris picked up at the start allowed the French J/99 AxeSail by Issartel/Sarbacane, sailed by Maxime Mesnil and Hugo Feydit, to take took first place after IRC time correction. They put in a stunning performance, also beating all the fully crewed IRC Drheam Cup competitors after time correction. However they were one of the French boats that didn’t compete in the St Malo race and therefore finished further down the overall rankings of the double handed championship. Rob Craigie and RORC commodore Deb Fish on the Sun Fast 3600 Bellino took second place after IRC time correction in the Drheam Cup, but sadly also did not compete in the first race, the result of an engine issue
"It was a great competition” said McKee, after the Drheam Cup finish in La Trinité sur mer. “The level in the IRC two-handed class was very high, with a good mix of the French and English fleets. We really enjoyed ourselves, the race was interesting, with changeable weather, upwind, reaching and downwind runs at the end and good tactical challenges to negotiate high pressure zones.”
"It was my first time racing in the Drheam Cup and it was a great race, like a leg of the Solitaire du Figaro,” adds Harris, “There was a bit of everything, reaching, upwind, downwind, we had a lot of wind then calms. We sailed very close with the rest of the fleet.”
“They were two pretty different races and they were both tough in their own way,” continues McKee. “There was definitely a different skillset required to succeed in the two. It's also great that we have this fantastic group of IRC double-handed boats. It shows the standard of the fleet is pretty decent and it's gotten better in the last couple of years.
“These last few years have really been gratifying, speaking for both for Chris and Justin and for myself and the other sailing partners. The reason that we come [from the Pacific North West] to the UK and to France consistently for these races is because that's where the competition is, and it’s where there's a good setting to race these boats. Don't underestimate what you have here and RORC has an outstanding calendar of races.”
No other boat in the fleet came close to matching Red Ruby’s consistency across the two races. GameOn!, for instance, started the championship with a second place in the Cowes - Dinard - St Malo race behind the youth team of Josh Dawson and Ollie Hill, who were sailing Simon Tom’s Sun Fast 3300 Zephyr. However, both slipped further down the field in the Drheam Cup, taking ninth and 21st places respectively.
Nevertheless this was sufficient for GameOn! take second overall in the championship, while Diablo took third overall with 11th and 4th places, having finished only 13 minutes behind Red Ruby on corrected time in the Drheam Cup.
Report: Rupert Holmes