Needles wreck

[arfa]

The link below should show a photo of the "round islanders" rounding the needles highlighting the historic wreck. Apologies to those who are familiar with this one but I thought it might be useful for first timers !
link
Sadly I will have to postpone my first attempt at the round island race to next year but best of luck to all on the day.

 

[snooks]

That\'s me!

That's me in the RIB in the biggest circle! /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif

If you look in the water of this photo you can see the wreck under the water, that's in the biggest circle /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif

 

[bilbobaggins]

That's odd! Every time I've been in that neck of the woods during the RTIR, there have been several top-rating racing yots piled up on the remains of the Varvasi - and media-rented helichoppers filming the fun!

Most of them-thar top racers had smart-alec pro navigators on board, who'd been boasting in the chi-chi YC bars around the West Solent for days previous about how good they were. Some even got paid to go out and do their own hydrographic surveys! Little good it did them and their hapless 'revolving wallets'.... er, owners.

"Kerangh!'"could be heard, time after time, for embarrassing distances..... then "Kerunch" as the 'whitebait' piled into them.

There's no good reason to suppose this year will be any different.

/forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

 

[Neraida]

One of Stephen Sails' videos of last year's race had a perfect example of the awful noise made when one yacht wellied into Varvassi.

 

[savageseadog]

What's the depths on the various bits of wreck?
The video of the yacht hitting something last year, was it the wreck or one of the rocks?

 

[snowleopard]

Damn stupid place to raft up for a party!

 

[ShipsWoofy]

Does anyone have details of this wreck, what, when, why etc.

The photographs by snooks is eerie!

 

[BrendanS]

Varvassi

Details here
http://www.needles.shalfleet.net/varvassi/

 

[Rustyknight]

If you Google "Varvassi" you should get quite a lot of info......

 

[ShipsWoofy]

2 minutes, you're slowing down! /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif

 

[BrendanS]

/forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif

 

[ShipsWoofy]

interesting, I wonder why they have never swept the wreck or made a better effort to mark it.

 

[BrendanS]

Too expensive to remove?
It's only really a danger to yachts cutting in close, usually when racing, and most locals (mainly) know it's there and avoid it, and it's marked on charts.

 

[ShipsWoofy]

[ QUOTE ]
and it's marked on charts.

[/ QUOTE ]

Is it marked as drying? my charts are all on board.

Trouble with many wrecks on charts they are only there for shipping, most of us just sail happily over the top without a thought. There is a wreck on a sand bank off the Wirral which is quite similar to this in that it is under the surface at high water, in fact it is worse as from the seaward side, pre GPS it was really difficult to work out if you were cutting it too fine.

I would have thought Trinity house would have at least marked the outer danger of the needles wreck with a pole. It is unlikely as a non-local I would ever cut the corner that much if I was visiting, but stranger things do happen. After seeing the video last year from people who should know better, it is not that difficult to hit!

 

[BrendanS]

I don't have my charts to hand either, so not sure exactly how they are marked.

 

[Twister_Ken]

"it is not that difficult to hit!"

But it is very easy to miss. There's a well-known method of doing so. It's only damnfool racing skippers trying to shave a few seconds of their RTI times who welly the thing. And, frankly, that's their fault.

 

[fflakey]

I'm not sure 'rounding' is the word to use here. That suggests boats moving through the water.

'Parking' was used several times along with some phrases I couldn't repeat on a public forum :-S.

The loudest sound I heard was Aztec hitting Goose Rock. They recovered and sailed near to us for most of the rest of the course. We kept on checking on them fully expecting their keel to fall off.

Good to hear you were there Graham, any good pics of Skywave with us smartly turned out in the sponsors T-Shirts... boldy going nowhere?

F