You might remember that I mentioned we were going to be doing the ‘Round the Island’ race on the J24, well we completed that marathon last weekend. You might also remember I described the J24, as a race boat with NO creature comforts, so it did turn out to be a bit of an ordeal!!
We started early Saturday morning in gloomy weather, with a forecast of rain and winds up to force 5. At least we'd be going fast if the forecast was right. We motored up to the top of the island through the floating bridge and got ourselves ready for the start. It was going to be a spinnaker start - always interesting.
We got away pretty
good in light winds and were soon up in 4th place. After a couple of hours the wind died, then we got very light wind, then it died, then it picked up a little, then it died, then it picked up a little, then it died - get the picture - it was like that for the next 14 HOURS!! We had spells of lovely sunshine but mostly cloud, not overly warm as you’ll see from the piccies, we’re all in wet weather gear. We rounded the bottom of the south west tip of the island in the last of the daylight and sailed agonisingly along the bottom of the island to the Meganissi Channel. North now up the Channel and we did have some wind for about an hour, enough to get us up near Nidri. From then on it was painfully slow all the way to the finish and Ligia. We crossed the finish line around 3 am Sunday morning. I for one had lost the will to live by then and just wanted my bed!!
How did we do?? Surprisingly well, we crossed the line in 4th place and thought we probably would get 3rd on corrected time. We were right, we did get 3rd, we were only 17 seconds behind the 2nd place after 16 hours of sailing. Frustrating or what!
It was definitely one of those races best looked at after the event but needless to say we won’t be doing it again on that boat.
Have a look at the piccies from the race here
We started early Saturday morning in gloomy weather, with a forecast of rain and winds up to force 5. At least we'd be going fast if the forecast was right. We motored up to the top of the island through the floating bridge and got ourselves ready for the start. It was going to be a spinnaker start - always interesting.
We got away pretty
good in light winds and were soon up in 4th place. After a couple of hours the wind died, then we got very light wind, then it died, then it picked up a little, then it died, then it picked up a little, then it died - get the picture - it was like that for the next 14 HOURS!! We had spells of lovely sunshine but mostly cloud, not overly warm as you’ll see from the piccies, we’re all in wet weather gear. We rounded the bottom of the south west tip of the island in the last of the daylight and sailed agonisingly along the bottom of the island to the Meganissi Channel. North now up the Channel and we did have some wind for about an hour, enough to get us up near Nidri. From then on it was painfully slow all the way to the finish and Ligia. We crossed the finish line around 3 am Sunday morning. I for one had lost the will to live by then and just wanted my bed!!How did we do?? Surprisingly well, we crossed the line in 4th place and thought we probably would get 3rd on corrected time. We were right, we did get 3rd, we were only 17 seconds behind the 2nd place after 16 hours of sailing. Frustrating or what!
It was definitely one of those races best looked at after the event but needless to say we won’t be doing it again on that boat.
Have a look at the piccies from the race here
Pictures of the Summertime refit here there are a lot of pictures in this slideshow now and it takes a while to load so you'll have to be patient :-)
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