Tales from the High Seas

Surgeon Skipper Andrew McIrvine (Kings College Hospital) recounts his crew's triumphant endeavours at this year's high octane NHS Regatta.

Yet again the intrepid band of vascular surgeons set off with the twin targets of raising money for the Circulation Foundation and winning the B. Braun sponsored NHS Regatta.

We have been doing this for some years and have always taken the boat a day early to get some crew training. This has developed into an essential part of the weekend. Instead of returning to a dodgy curry in Port Solent at the top of Portsmouth Harbour, we have worked out it is much more civilized to spend the Friday night in Cowes with dinner in a Royal Yacht Club. Some may think that this could detract from our performance but this year luckily not.

There was an initial snag - after all these years of training Sunsail have changed their fleet. They have gone from a rather battered fleet of 37 footers which we had got to understand to a new set of 40 footers. 3 foot length difference may not sound a lot but in overall volume and weight of gear there is a big difference. Handling the spinnaker gear was hugely different requiring some new tricks to be learnt by our old dogs!

The weather was as always for this event kind, even too much so – there was a reasonable breeze on the practice day, but only just enough on the Saturday for one race – though there should have been two. In the first race we had an excellent start and played the tide and wind right to be in the top three at the first mark. The wind then went lighter and lighter and with the tide building against us it looked as if we would never finish. We managed to get ahead and crept across the line in the lead. Just behind us were three boats very close together. One on starboard with right of way and clear to be second had a brain storm and tacked away for a boat on port and let him through. We watched in astonishment but did not realize how serious this was to be.

The good news was that we had won the B Braun Challenge Cup for the winner of the first day - this was presented at the event dinner in Cowes that evening.

The next morning dawned, as has happened almost every year with this event glassily calm. Probably lucky as there were some rather jaded crews from the night before. The fleet was then taken East down the Solent looking for wind. We tried three areas with lots of hanging around and no sign of any wind at all. We had mixed feelings as with no more racing we would have won. With the delay some crews even went swimming despite a water temperature of only 8 degrees. Eventually we moved to a start line just off the now sadly defunct Royal Naval Hospital at Haslar. Quite a good breeze came in and we set off with a good start and again third and thought we had won. Unfortunately the boat (from landlocked Birmingham!) that had been ‘gifted’ the second place in the first race won this one so were one point better than us.

Still second overall is one better than we have ever done before – we will just have to keep trying. We were very sorry not to have our usual mainsheet man, Ray Dawson from Edinburgh. He is recovering from major surgery but we were able to exchange good wishes and report on the event and hope to have him back next year. We must thank Ian Brown and Rostra for their very generous sponsorship. I hope we will raise £3000 for the Circulation foundation – also better than ever before. The Challenge Cup now resides on the Circulation Foundation office mantelpiece.

The crew:

Andrew McIrvine (Kings College Hospital)

James Brown (Southend)

John Wolfe (St Mary’s)

Jonathan Beard (Sheffield)

Mike Wyatt (Newcastle)

John Thompson (Exeter)

Peter Lamont (Bristol)

Matt Waltham (St Thomas’s)