Cervantes Trophy Race- Podium Finish for Puma!!

The first RORC race of the season across the Channel to Le Havre started on Saturday morning in a light NE breeze, with a fully rested, raring to go, crew aboard Puma Logic. Even Philippe was quite excited as he unveiled two brand new sails!

Unfortunately, the strong easterly going tide was building and just pushed us over the line at the start, which meant we had to turn around and start again, five minutes late: 117 miles to go and an entire fleet ahead of us certainly concentrated our efforts to race to the best of our ability!

We steadily crawled our way back through some of the fleet and by the afternoon the sun had come out, we had negotiated a calm patch, rounded Rustington Outfall Light Buoy and were making our way south in a consistent 10knots of North West.

By nightfall, we had pulled ahead of all the boats nearby, proving that it pays to focus all the time. Of course, perfect conditions for our asymmetric and later the brand new jib top, definitely helped.

Eventually, the breeze filled in a bit from the NW, squeezing the fleet together and we crossed the finish line at 0505 to take 3rd place, only a minute behind 2nd on corrected.

All in all, a great start to the offshore racing season!