You may recall we have been following the adventures of Mike Brooke in his Round Britain challenge to raise funds and awareness for Leber’s Congenital Amaurosis (LCA), a rare eye disease. Mike fitted a host of Barton equipment to his Cape Cutter last year in preparation for his successful trip and we are delighted to report that Mike has just won his Class in this year’s Round the Island race. We have included his full report below:

“I have been meaning to get in touch with the excellent news that we managed to win the Modern Gaffer Class in this year’s Round the Island Race! We had a titanic struggle with another Cape Cutter all the way round and thought we had lost out as we approached Osbourne Bay. However, we tacked in out of the tide (not entirely necessary) in order to tempt him to cover us, held our breath and sure enough he fell for it and beam on to the tide, sank right back towards us.

Although he tacked on our wind to cover us, we managed to somehow squeeze up under his lee bow and establish the narrowest of leads. We then powered on for the point and finished beyond securing a 15 min lead in the end. He must have been as gutted as we were over the moon!!

The 3rd place boat was over an hour behind which gives you an idea of how competitive it was as the front end. Our overall time for the 50nm course was almost exactly 12 hours having started at 07.40! Weather was on the lighter side at Force 3/4 although down to F2 towards the end.

Barton Equipment made a huge difference in two key areas. Firstly, with your excellent track and car, I was able to set a really powerful curve on the Genoa which meant we accelerated just that bit faster out of the tack. (You will recall that the Genoa sheet on the standard boat goes through a bull ring which isn’t adjustable) Secondly, the excellent Barton mainsheet and horse system enabled mainsheet trimming to be executed in a far superior way than the opposition with their standard equipment. Indeed, all the blocks you supplied including the turning blocks for the genniker and the double purchase for the dolphin stay worked superbly!

We won the Discovery Trophy which I hope to collect from ISYC later in the month. This was the first time that the Cape Cutter had won this class and as you can imagine, Honnor Marine owners Bob and Norma are delighted. Incidentally, I have had another Cape Cutter owner on board who is now considering the Barton block system.”

Mike uses our size two blocks on the horse traveller system and kicking strap with size three blocks on his mainsheet system and halyard lines. Barton manufactures the largest range of end fittings of any manufacturer globally, to find out more information on the Barton range of blocks visit:
http://www.bartonmarine.com/marine-equipment-products.asp