What a cracking day! This is a photo of our start and we are the boat at the bottom of the picture. You can see the wash of the start boat going across the line just before we all head off. We had a good start with clear water and we stayed in close to the land pretty much the whole way to Lowestoff to keep out of the chop. Boats that took a straight line hit 3 metre waves and found it tough going. We in contrast probably did an additional 15 miles but maintained a good speed of 50 to 52 knots all the way apart from going across the Wash which was lumpy. We feel all the better for it now. A really interesting coastline and amazing wind farms out at sea and dotted along the coast.
Wildlife today - we saw puffins!
We had an excellent race against the 2 other Scorpion RIBs in our class SeaHound and Mystic Dragon - neck and neck all the way! At the finish, there was 20 seconds between the three boats. Unfortunately, we were pipped to the post but it was a great race. Looks like we came in 16th today and our overall position is still 12. Not bad for a couple of novices!
Scrutineering and re-fuelling went well and we had a jolly party at the Royal Norfolk and Suffolk Yacht Club with our fellow competitors and race organisers. It feels very strange that tomorrow evening it will all be over.
There is a good regatta atmosphere here. We are always greeted by a huge smile from Peter who runs the re-fuelling, the girls at race control are so positive and full of encouragement and the race officer has been very helpful at showing us the ropes.
We are really looking forward to tomorrow. The wind is dropping to 10 knots from the West going around to South West so should be fine all the way to Dover and then might be a bit of a bump on the final leg to Portsmouth. The wave hights across the Thames estuary are less than 0.5metres so we will take a straight line at full pelt! We are only 20 minutes behind the boat in front so it would be great to catch up.
Can't wait to see my family and looking forward to a glass of Bollinger on arrival at Portsmouth! (Hint hint!)
1 comment:
OH MY GOD - I've been away and I guess you've now finished and I've even missed you at Portsmouth. You two have been absolutely amazing - not too many people - let alone women - would even contemplate doing something so rigorous and physically demanding and I'm guessing you've had a good finish also! So a HUGE WELL DONE and for such a wonderful cause and what an experience. It now explains why you've been so quiet this year - all that training!!! BIG HUG lol Muffy xxx
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