Corran Narrows

The last challenge we faced before the end of the race, after bobbing around in the North Channel off Portpatrick and struggling up past Jura, Mull and Lismore, was to pass the bottleneck at Corran. Mike was steering and the tide had turned. The current was getting steadily stronger and the tide was falling. We tried on the starboard side of the channel and bounced back off a rock. Then we tried further out in the tide. Too strong. Stormer and Torbellino came up and took our wind and sneaked past with superior boat speed. Dismayed we dropped back to regroup and have a think about it. Then in the distance we saw the cheering sight of Kithros 2 with her Topsham SC spinnaker up rowing feverishly towards us. We decided to watch the masterclass and see if we could get any tips from Uncle Bill. The crew of Kithros collectively had about 25 years of Three Peaks yacht racing to our six. Creeping up the port side on the eddy they made it through in one go followed by the Helly Hansen girls we had been battling with all night. We tucked in behind them and followed them through, heart in mouth as we scraped past the ferry. With a sigh of relief we picked up the first of a chain of katabatic gusts and set off up the Loch again. Thanks Bill!

Menai Straits

This was the highpoint of the race for me. We left Victoria Dock in 7th position thanks to the superb running Pat and Paul put in on Snowdon. The plan was to stay on the mainland side of the strait and creep along in the shallows out of the tide. The only rocky area on the chart was up by the Brittania Bridge so we dodged along in and out of moorings and through fleets of children training in Oppies in Port Dinorwic. Out in the adverse tide the big asymmetrics gybed downwind and we crept closer as we approached the first bridge. There were four boats out in the channel including Journeymaker and GFT Adventure. EADS was stuck on the middle span of the Britannia Bridge. Flying our blue and red symmetrical spinnaker we sneaked along the shore. About 50 yards from the bridge I could see the tide ripping about a metre off the port bow, and Patrick was shouting "rocks off the starboard bow". Heart in mouth I steered through. With one bump on a rock we made it through at the first attempt. We carried on past the Swellies Rock and crossed over to the left side of Menai at the Platters passing the photographer in his RIB. Due to our invisible force shield he could not capture our image but we popped out ahead of everybody except EADS and one other boat. The wind then died away at Puffin island and the whole fleet bobbed in the Irish sea for the next 12 hours. And so ended our moment of glory.

Bardsey Head at night

Home again and having caught up on sleep I have been reflecting on our race. We had such a lot of fun and enjoyed ourselves so much the result seems almost immaterial. The weather was so fickle it was a battle to find enough wind to progress against the tide. Some of the night sailing off Bardsey Head was the most difficult I have ever done. While Pete was steering Mike was rock spotting in the dark and I was using the plotter both to estimate our distance off the rocks and calculate our progress against the tide towards the next waypoint. If we strayed too close to the cliffs we were in trouble, but if we went to far out we got caught in the tide and whirled backwards on a mad tidal merry go round. We past one rock three times! The other boats were doing the same and it was common to have a boat coming towards you backwards and out of control in the dark. Eventually we grasped the exact nature of the problem and steered our way out of the tide and escaped towards Caernarvon.