A cloudless sky greeted the early rising sailors but there was hardly a breath of wind as crews readied themselves for the 2004 Bathroom Bizarre Round The Island Race. Held at the Vaal Dam and hosted every year by Lake Deneysville Yacht Club, the Round the Island Race is South Africa's biggest yacht race with hundreds of yachts entered. The fleet is made up of keelboats, catamarans, trimarans and dinghies of all shapes and sizes. What promised to be a thrilling challenge ended up being totally dominated by Grant Davidge Pitts on the J27 Pure Magic and Mark Sadler on the brand new K23 Smartstone.

The start line in such a big event is always a little hectic but the fleet were away and sailing at the twenty past eight starting gun. Alex Schön and Rick Nankin managed to grab the lead at one stage but it was not to be their day in the end. The J27's made the early running after that, with On The Rampage leading from Pure Magic whose crew had had a hectic rush just to get to the start. Their skipper, Grant Davidge Pitts explains: "We were very late for the start. We stopped to tow somebody and then we ran aground just after we connected to them and our motor wouldn't start. So we were on thee wrong side of the line at the start and we actually had to duck through the line and then come out."

Despite that Pure Magic was on the pace: "Fortunately we had a little bit of speed so we got clear air and then we went past Beacon Island and we actually got a thermal wind there which we were planning on. We got this thermal wind there and it just shot us along and we actually got ahead of everybody there." The crew sailed very well despite having been cobbled together on the morning of the race: We haven't actually sailed for a year. In the meantime we just put a crew together. Anthony Tomlinson is the guy who normally sails with me and the two of us normally sail together really well. The other guys were just friends and Anthony's son William who sailed with us."

A puff came through and Craig Schweiser's newly imported Mount Gay 30 Nashua North slipped into the lead. This was not to last, Schweiser and his crew being the first to tack onto port, heading to the right and finding themselves firmly stranded in their own private wind-hole. Nashua North provided the chase boat that was used by Smooth Sailing to cover the event as well for which we are most grateful.

Of particular interest was the Caltex-Texwise Sport Boat Challenge, a race within a race between Alex Schön's Thompson 7 Wild Monkey Dance and Mark Sadler's newly launched K23 up from Cape Town. This challenge failed to meet expectations as the T7 struggled in the ultra light conditions while the K23, not happy in the ultra light either appeared to make better use of what wind there was.

The entire fleet had to battle with sloppy water churned up by the spectator boats and this made keeping the boats moving even more difficult. With the water level so low the fleet had to choose which side of Beacon Island they were sail on, some choosing the left and some the right. Wild Monkey Dance chose the left-hand side along with another J27 Bataleur 2, a move that paid off briefly for Bataleur 2 as they sneaked into the lead. Grant Davidge Pitts on Pure Magic went right and with Nashua stuck in a hole, moved back into the lead. "The wind died again and we managed to get across the dam to the other side to get a thermal wind on the opposite shore, which we did and so did Smartstone as well. They were behind us and that's really where we got ahead" said Davidge Pitts describing a very crucial part of the race.

This challenge faded out as the fleet approached the main island and it was Pure Magic that rounded the first island mark in the lead 3 hours and 2 minutes after the start. Mark Sadler had done well to bring Smartstone up to second and trailed by just over 7 minutes at this stage. A surprise in 3rd place was Chris Duff on the Beneteau First Eight Cabriole, which had been well sailed to be there.

The boats trailing the top 3 had been able to set their spinnakers but there was not enough wind to keep them filled and eventually it was the trimaran Magic Fly which reached the first mark in 4th. They sailed inside the mark however!

By the third mark Smart Stone had closed the gap on Pure Magic to just under a minute and these two were simply showing the rest of the fleet a clean pair of transoms. Smart Stone, able to set an asymmetric spinnaker was able to carry it for longer than the J27 could keep her spinnaker up and this helped close the gap. Unfortunately the crew of Pure Magic managed to get themselves into the mud and this gave Smartstone the chance they had been waiting for and the K23 was leading by the 5th mark but the J27 was right up her transom. Grant Davidge Pitts was somewhat bemused by that particular turn of events: "Luckily we didn't get stuck but we were quite far from the shore and didn't expect to run aground." It was a bittersweet moment for Sadler as he famously blew his chances two years ago when he put the Jazz 30 firmly into the mud a bit further back on the course.

Pure Magic tacked on to starboard in a move which initially didn't seem to make sense, Davidge Pitts and his crew appearing to fall back in heading for the left of the course, a strategy which the stuck with for most of the rest of the race. Generally accepted knowledge is to go right and this is where Mark Sadler took the K23 and it was here that fortunes changed again as Davidge Pitts explains: "They were sticking with us at first but they were covering us like they would in cape Town but here you keep losing because the boat behind always catches on the wind shifts and you never get those wind shifts so that's when they left us alone." The first 8 was still in third four hours and ten minutes into the race but under pressure.

The leaders were having to deal with some extreme wind shifts by this stage with the K23 looking very good when the wind picked up a little bit. That Davidge Pitts was holding on to second was testament to his mastery of the Vaal Dam conditions. As the dam opened up the K23 continued to lead but this was the stage where the ultimate fortunes of these two boats were decide, Sadler staying right and Davidge Pitts keeping left. The two did cross tacks very briefly before tacking away from each other and by this stage, adjacent to Beacon Island; Davidge Pitts was in front again. He admitted that he and his crew might have been favoured with the better of conditions: "And then I think we were lucky. We got a couple of good gusts of wind, a couple of good lifts. Sometimes they got them, sometimes we got them and I think we just got the advantage and we sailed really hard and we really wanted to win again."

The breeze freshened at this stage and the K23 was powered up with crew on the trapeze and short tacking while Davidge Pitts took the less energetic approach. I asked Mark Sadler how advantageous being able to deploy crewmen on the trapeze was. "I think it makes a big difference, especially in the breeze. We got to use them a little bit on the beat up which gave us a little advantage but if there was a bit more breeze it's a hell of an advantage to have that weight out and holding the boat upright going upwind."

Five and quarter hours after the start, LDYC was back in sight and the race for line honours was still wide open. Things got a little stressful on Pure Magic when they were faced with first a ski boat stopped in the water and then a spectator catamaran blocking their way. The two crossed tacks again but the J27 was still in front a position they held on to. Crossing the finish line at 3 minutes to 2, it had taken Davidge Pitts and the crew of Pure Magic 5 hours and 37 minutes to win the race. Sadler on Smartstone finished 1 minute and 16 seconds later, edged out in the final analysis by Davidge Pitts greater experience in these light conditions, something that Davidge Pitts was particularly pleased about. "As long as there's some wind the J27 goes well and if the wind was very light they (Smartstone) actually seemed to slow down a bit. So they still need some wind but they were faster once the wind picked up a little bit but once it got stronger again I think we were faster."

Mark Sadler was also pretty happy with his crew's performance but was quick to admit that things hadn't gone perfectly. "We actually made a few mistakes because we managed to pass them and get ahead of them at from the main island to one of the smaller islands and we made a mistake. We let them get to the left of us and more wind came from the left-hand side of the course, which gave them an advantage. And they sailed over us. We lost a lot by doing that and all the previous races we've felt that the breeze came of the right hand side of the course. That's why the decision was made to cover him and stay between him and the right hand side which was unfortunately the wrong thing."

One consolation for Sadler and his crew was trouncing Alex Schön and Rick Nankin on the T7: "we're ecstatic. Our sponsors Smartstone and Caltex who got us here must be happy with the performance and it's great to have given them a good klap."

Unfortunately this scribe had a radio deadline to meet and hurried to catch up with the first two boats before tearing off to Johannesburg to file a report on SAFM.