Yeah I was miffed about this as well. A nice big day out on the Isle of Wight for the club. Turn up at the ferry terminal to find the start of a Wiggle sportive, about 500 cyclists, then being told they couldnt fit any more on the ferry! No mention of this on the ferry website either 🙁
To make matters worse, a few of us had pre-booked tickets so could get on, the others told it would be an hours wait and still no guarantee of getting on! If Wiggle are going to fill an entire ferry (on a busy route) they really ought to arrange with the ferry company to lay on an additional sailing.
As it was, it looked like about a third of the sportive riders weren’t allowed on either, so they were going to be hanging round for an hour or so too (and presumable messing up their times for the ride).
Bit of a balls-up really.