Last man standing

madforsailing caught up with Team Tonic navigator Pete Selby after a frustrating Round Ireland conclusion

Clinking of Wicklow Sailing Club bar glasses could be heard in the background as madfor sailing tracked down navigator Pete Selby, one of the few survivors of Team Tonic's drinkaton, following their epic but ultimately disappointing Round Ireland voyage.

Right up until the eleventh hour Nick Newson's Farr 52 had been ahead of the round Ireland record time, but off Dun Laoghaire just 20 miles short of the Wicklow finish line the wind had all but disappeared. It had taken them seven hours to claw the final 20 miles south. To add insult to injury at the time of writing it looked set that George Radley's Imp, winner of the last round Ireland and a veteran of seven before that, would beat them into second place on corrected time.

"It was an interesting race," said Selby, who was navigator on the Australian Mumm 36 in the 1999 Admiral's Cup and is now as full time with Team Tonic as his amateur status will allow. "We had 15-20 knots at the start. This increased to 35 knots an hour later. We were on the wind to the Fastnet Rock and at that point the nearest boat to us was Fenix, the Swan. We lost them off Cork on the Sunday morning and then we saw nobody until the finish."

After a slow trip to the Fastnet Rock, the passage up the west coast of Ireland could not have been more different, in 20-30 knot winds from just south of due west. This picked up the further north they went. "We were flying. We did 124 miles in 9 hours, sitting at 17 knots and surfing at up to 22 under the 3A, our small masthead asymmetric."

Early on the Sunday morning after the Saturday start they had broken a halyard as the sail filled during a hoist. From then on with only one masthead halyard left they did bareheaded changes which given the fresh conditions, was not to be a problem.

Team Tonic reached Eagle Rock off the north west corner of Ireland early on Tuesday morning. "That was full on," Selby recalled. "We ran round across the top in 30 knots with our big symmetrical up. But then our starboard steering wheel gave up the ghost and suddenly we had no steerage." Fortunately the port wheel was still intact and the helmsman dived down to leeward as two others scrabbled down below to replace the broke steering cables. All was sorted in 10 minutes.

"Round the top it all got a bit entertaining," continued Selby. "We were running in big waves, going past some rocks that were not overly well charted. We were surfing within a half mile of them in the pitch black. On one occasion we had to run very deep for 30 minutes to avoid some rocks as we were plugging 3-4 knots of tide. That was a bit of a long leg..."

It was still going well by the time as Team Tonic ran back down through the St George's Channel under jib top in about 15 knots of breeze, but it was soon to turn pear-shaped. "At that stage we were going to break the record by two hours," said Selby. "Then unfortunately past Belfast Loch, the breeze shut down to nothing and then with a drifter up, we were slowly moving down." When the tide turned against them off Dun Laoghaire they were forced to kedge and could only curse as they witnessed any prospects for breaking the record slowly slip through their fingers. Aside from this disappointment Selby said it had been a good, very enjoyable race.

An obvious reason for doing the Round Ireland this year is that it will form part of the Admiral's Cup next year. "If we end up going to the Admiral's Cup it will have been a very valuable experience. It's not hard and fast that we'll do it [the Admiral's Cup], but we would't turn it down."

During the race they ran two watches of six with skipper Jeremy Robinson and Selby floating. Of the six on watch, they'd keep two down below on standby and rotate them within the watch. Watches lasted four hours during the day and three at night. "It worked pretty well," said Selby. "But everyone was pretty tired by the end, because everyone was up for the last 24-36 hours as it was only meant to take us 14 hours to get in!" The race was pretty physical and in the breeze they had had the offwatch grinding.

From a navigation standpoint, the course was quite straightforward - at 705 miles long, it is about 100 mile further than the Fastnet Race and you basically keep the land on the right hand side... "There are some big rocks to turn around. But the main problem is tide. Sometimes it was very difficult to work out what was going on. Running past Cork, to the Fastnet and up to Mizzen Head we seemed to have tide against us for 14 hours. I think a lot of it was current rather than tide. It was quite frustrating and not at all what the charts predicted. But the options are pretty limited - you take rhumb line between all the marks. You live with what you get."

They finished in Wicklow first home at 0130 in the morning. Despite the hour more than 100 people had turned out to welcome them in. "We were offered a full cooked breakfast more or less the moment we hit the dock," said Selby. "The bar was open when we landed and has been open ever since. I understand that unofficially the local police are fully aware of the situation." He was impressed by the local Irish hospitality as he was by how the Round Ireland Race had been run. "The whole event is informal but very well run. It is a very enjoyable event to do."

Despite falling outside the record, they were two hours faster than the time Laurie Smith had set on board the maxi Rothsmans. The only downside was that while they were away sailing half the crewbags were stolen from where they were staying. "Half of us have got no clothes to change into, so we've been out on the high street buying new clothes and Dubarrys..." he said.

The boat is due to return to Dun Laoghaire tonight, where the partying will no doubt continue, before the team fly home tomorrow. Team Tonic will remain in Ireland ready to take part in Ford Cork Week in July.