Tuesday, 14 August 2007
3pm update
3pm update:
More stories are emerging at the Bar at QAB in Plymouth. It seems Lion was lucky not to have a mast failure after noticing that one of the fittings going into the masthead had failed, leaving the mast with a nasty twist and unstable at the top. Skipper Nigel made a top call to head for Plymouth, and out of the mounting gale in The Channel.
Having had chance to catch breath and speak to all the skippers today, it seems that we owe a huge debt of gratitude to Brixham Coastguard and the Salcombe Lifeboat who helped coordinate the evacuation of Tom and his broken leg. After speaking with Brixham this afternoon, it seems that they have been involved in some 50 yacht rescues over the last 12 hours so it just shows what the conditions were like. Salcombe Coastguard described last nights conditions as ‘interesting’, a classic understatement if ever there was one.
On a brighter note, we seem to still have 2 yachts leading their respective classes, Jaguar Logic and Bongani with Exabyte 3 and Sidney now round Lands End and heading into the Irish Sea. Weather there at the moment is windy, blowing 25 knots from the SSW and with about a 1 metre swell running. To put it into perspective, the Challenge 67 yacht ‘Endeavour’ skippered by Becky Walford is just 1 mile ahead of Jaguar and Bongani, and is twice the length, so our little boats are doing exceptionally well in these very difficult conditions.
More stories are emerging at the Bar at QAB in Plymouth. It seems Lion was lucky not to have a mast failure after noticing that one of the fittings going into the masthead had failed, leaving the mast with a nasty twist and unstable at the top. Skipper Nigel made a top call to head for Plymouth, and out of the mounting gale in The Channel.
Having had chance to catch breath and speak to all the skippers today, it seems that we owe a huge debt of gratitude to Brixham Coastguard and the Salcombe Lifeboat who helped coordinate the evacuation of Tom and his broken leg. After speaking with Brixham this afternoon, it seems that they have been involved in some 50 yacht rescues over the last 12 hours so it just shows what the conditions were like. Salcombe Coastguard described last nights conditions as ‘interesting’, a classic understatement if ever there was one.
On a brighter note, we seem to still have 2 yachts leading their respective classes, Jaguar Logic and Bongani with Exabyte 3 and Sidney now round Lands End and heading into the Irish Sea. Weather there at the moment is windy, blowing 25 knots from the SSW and with about a 1 metre swell running. To put it into perspective, the Challenge 67 yacht ‘Endeavour’ skippered by Becky Walford is just 1 mile ahead of Jaguar and Bongani, and is twice the length, so our little boats are doing exceptionally well in these very difficult conditions.
posted by Sailing Logic at 3:39 PM
