Daily treats

Grace has kindly sent us off with a bag of daily treat to surprise us. Day 1 is a sugar boost to get us across the start line. Watch this space as the story unfolds....

Fastnet tracker

With final preparations complete, albeit somewhat stressed with a variety of electronic glitches, we are now ready for the start of 2011 Fastnet Race at 11:50 Sunday. To follow our progress go to the tracker page at http://fastnet.rorc.org and technology permitting we will also post comments on this blog.

Richard & Jeremy.

Seeing Red

Not a good start to the final Fastnet preparations. Firstly the rig is still missing - I can cope with that as its due back in today following a routine checks and some minor fixes. But red water in the bilges was a shock - diesel! Luckily I have found the source - the emergency fuel cannister had split with 7Ltrs missing. If this had happened next week, at best we would have had diesel in all the lockers, at worst.....

Fastnet 2011

The 2011 Rolex Fastnet Race is fast approaching, with the start on Sunday 14th August. Jeremy & I will once again be racing together, competing against 30 other yachts also racing 2-handed. Having set the bar fairly high we are out to improve on our 8th place in 2009. So go to http://fastnet.rorc.org/ to follow the race.

Stowaways

"It was a dark and stormy night said Sir Admiral......" So how did the penguin find himself drinking rum with a pigeon mid-channel?

Some 25 miles south of Portland Bill, this bird flew in to take up station at the "Crows Nest" atop Jangada's mast. He hung on for almost 15 minutes as the mast tip swayed around with the motion of the waves. Finally deciding that we were friendly he flew down to take up station on the "poop deck". Fed tit-bits of flapjack, he seemed to perk up but showed no signs of abandoning his free ride homeward. So George took pity and carefully transferred him to the warmths below. Fortunately I had ticked all the luxury options for the J109 including a bird bath it seems.

Arriving back in the Solent we found out that that our guest was indeed a fellow racer, on his back from France to Croydon. He was provided rest and water overnight, to be freed in the morning to continue his journey home.

19kts on a 5 ton surf board

Surfing the waves at up to 19 kts on a 5 ton surf board in 20-30 kts of wind. Just another Bank Holiday weekend onboard Jangada Too in the RORC race to the Eddystone Light & back.

It was an exciting race with a quick windward leg to Eddystone, taking less than 22 hours to cover the 120nm. And as we rounded and headed home the A2 kite was soon exchanged for the brand new A4 heavy weather kite, fresh out the bag from North Sails. We were quickly impressed by how easy it was to handle as we built up speeds of over 16kts surfing the waves. But the highlight was seeing the log read over 19kts at one point.

The lowest moment was the look of despair on Jeremy's face as a lapse of concentration from me on the helm left the new kite firmly wrapped around the forestay. It seemed as though the game was suddenly over. But we held our nerve, gybe the main over and let mother nature do the rest.

The best moment was the look of disbelief on Jeremy's face as the kite started to unravel itself and pop open on the new gybe - the game was back on.

The return leg took 13 hours to cover the 110nm.

Final position 6th/29 in IRC3 and 7th/25 in the two-handed fleet. Were are very pleased with the result as we know we still have room to improve. And grateful to have completed the race without damage or major incident.

Race to the Edystone Light

Jeremy was at the helm as we got off to a flying start on this RORC race to the Edystone Light & back. With fresh winds we are expecting a quick race covering 235nm in 34 hours.