Nigel Davis on Femme Fatale

Five members of Draycote Water Sailing Club will once again be among the 1400+ boats competing in one of Britain’s largest participation sporting events of 2018, the Round the Island Race in association with Cloudy Bay, on 7 July.

Racing for the second consecutive year, Skipper Nigel Davis, his 20-year-old son and three friends Richard, Andrew & Michael, will join some 12,000 other sailors set to master one of the world’s largest yacht races, often referred to as ‘Britain’s favourite yacht race’. The crew will be racing in a Beneteau Oceanis 37 called Femme Fatale. Although a charter yacht, this boat holds fond memories for some of this crew as several years ago, two of the group of midlands-based friends completed their initial yachting qualifications on it on the south coast.

In the summer of 2017, they went on to charter Femme Fatale for their first Round the Island Race, with Nigel commenting: “Last year was the culmination of our previous impromptu races in the Solent and the pinnacle of our shared experience. We loved it so much: the challenge, the camaraderie and even how well we did with our preparations on this first experience. To be a keen amateur sailor and be given the opportunity to take part in such a prestigious event organised by the Island Sailing Club is a great privilege.”

The crew have known each other for five years, regularly getting together at Draycote Water Sailing Club, as dinghy sailors themselves, and for their younger sons (aged between 12-16) who sail in the DWSC Youth and Junior Fleet. The ‘dads’ utilise this as a social occasion but in recent years decided to start their own social yachting group, with Round the Island Race being just one of the many events on their social calendar over the years.

In July, Nigel’s eldest son Aaron (20) will once again be on board Femme Fatale for the Race as First Mate, and the rest of the sons look forward to one day joining their fathers and increasing the personal competitiveness of the event by creating their own ‘race within the race’.

The famous 50 nautical mile course around the Isle of Wight, now in its 87th year, organised by the Island Sailing Club, is an all-encompassing event. The race’s unique ‘Race for All’ ethos caters for and embraces first timers, families, amateurs and professionals competing at the highest level. There is a long-standing charity connection with the race through the Official Race Charity the Ellen MacArthur Cancer Trust, where over £266,000 has been raised to date.

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