We drifted to 2nd!

Sunday's race started in no knots of wind and ended up with about 4 knots! We spent the first 20 minutes (although Dayna says it was 40 minutes) on the wrong side of the start line pointing in the wrong direction, unable to turn Cheshire Cat towards the first mark. The rest of the fleet were drifting away from us at about 0.5 knots. Eventually a stink boat wake helped us turn around and we were OFF! After creeping towards Birkenhead with the headsail flapping we decided to furl it for a while and let what little breeze there was fill the main. It worked and we started to close on the back of the fleet.

Meanwhile the dinghy sailors had started and they too were drifting slowly. We eventually caught up to Amon Re, Scylla and a couple of others. The committee boat had been ferrying beer and collecting bored crew for a while. Then they came past and said the race had been shortened! Like that was a surprise.

Determined to persevere when all around us were abandoning the race we managed to pass Rogate at the corner of Snapper Island and finally found a small breeze. The wind made us forget all about the beers we were about to open. It was quite exhilarating to be clocking 2.5 knots on the speed log and we finally felt we might actually finish within the 3 hour time limit! And we did, with about 10 minutes to spare.

When we got to the club they asked if we actually did the race! The cheek of them. It was because we had furled the heady. They thought we'd decided to quit! Never! And we came 2nd which was great.