The most dramatic episode in Nancy Blackett’s Round the Island adventure actually occurred during the preceding night, when our mooring – on a buoy out in the  Cowes Roads – started to drag. The wind had got up, it was raining hard (in contrast to the weather on both the day before and the day after). Our skipper, Bryan Bonser, was sitting anchor watch in the cockpit. He alerted the rest of the crew, by starting the engine, and we moved into the shelter of the river, tying up at the Island Sailing Club’s pontoon for the remainder of the night.

Aboard at this stage, in addition to Bryan, were Frank Martin, navigator, Bob Hull, Peter Willis, and a new member of the Trust, Jamie Vaughan, who had joined us the previous evening. Jamie’s in the Royal Navy, aboard HMS Dauntless, one of the new Type 45 destroyers. Joining us first thing, from her 19ft memory gaffer was Jane Challener, of the Solent Old Gaffers. Both Jane and Jamie wisely assured their welcome by, in the true Ransome tradition, bringing supplies of excellent cake aboard. Chocolate and nut from Jamie, fruitcake, plus flapjack, from Jane. They also proved to be excellent sailors and invaluable on the foredeck.

Start time for our class, Traditional Gaffers, was 05:10, just after sunrise. Nancy was flying her yankee jib, the downwind sail bequeathed to her by the late Terry Absalom to give an extra shot of speed on occasions such as this. With the wind in the north, about F3 to start with, it was in its element and hauled us rapidly to the Needles by about 8am. Arounf the corner, along the ‘back of Wight’ towards St Catherine’s Point it continued to pull, with Nancy making 7 knots on occasion, but the wind increased to Force 5, and Bryan ordered a sail-change to staysail and reefed main. It put Nancy on a more even keel, but barely affected her speed.

Time at St Catherine’s was about 11am, and at Bembridge ledge, the next ‘corner’, about 3pm. Nancy crossed the finish line at 17:34:37, giving her an elapsed time around the course of 12 hours, 24 minutes and 37 seconds.

Only two finishing boats crossed the line behind us, but on corrected time (ie ‘handicap’) we performed rather more respectably, coming ahead of Aeolus, a fast  ‘plank-on-edge’ yacht, and three modern pilot cutters, Merlin, Amelie Rose and Morwenna.

The main thing, though was that we got round within the time – well within – had a great Nancy Blackett sail and added to Nancy’s list of achievements.

(An alternative and longer account will appear in the August issue of Classic Boat, on sale from 15 July)

Photo shows some of the crew: from left, Peter, Bryan, Jane and Jamie. Bob was pressing the shutter, Frank was in the cabin, doing navigational calculations.

More photos in our photo album and slideshow: