For the race back only 2 boats were entered so we had a little match racing pre start action going on but it was drifting conditions and my little brother on the helm got pushed over the line early by the old guys on Imperator so he had to go back. We then worked our way out of the bay – very light upwind. At the 1st mark 7 miles away we were about 200 yards ahead of Imperator who is 5 feet bigger than us. It should have then been a reach for 70 miles to the next corner however the wind increased and it became a dead beat. With 7 crew on the rail Imperator took off as we changed down to a number three and went into a watch system with 2 on deck and 2 below – it was going to be a long race if the grib files were correct.

Imperator could not point and for the next 9 hours kept on tacking above us and then falling down onto us and ending up miles to leeward. We just stayed on port tack and watch them be a satellite! Finally we decided to have fun so when they crossed ahead really close my little brother Myles and I hid in the cockpit with Myles helming from on the cockpit floor so when they crossed no one was to be seen – they had 5 people hiked out at the time with way to much headsail up. Then they tacked a 1/2 mile to weather of us and started falling down on us. So we went to the next stage of having a laugh. Myles put on his ski goggles, Flavio got out the fog horn and I suited up in my lifejacket, harness and trapezed while Flavio sounded the horn. We were in fits of giggles. Totally against the rules however, we decided there was no way Imperator would protest as it was only us in the race and we weren’t gaining any advantage as we only did it for 5 minutes! Myles texted the race committee who were the best race committee I have had in a long time and admitted our infringement – a bottle of jack daniels was our penalty!

Imperator dissappeared to leeward again and ended up crossing in front just as the sun set by about 20 yards. The wind died in the night and shifted behind us so we hoisted the spinnaker we lost Imperator’s lights. When the sun came up we looked around and could just spot Imperator on the horizon behind us. They stayed there all day getting smaller and smaller we estimated about 9 miles behind.

Out ETA became 6pm at Ushant on Friday night – a very slow race and the sea was becoming glassy calm. The grib files looked really bad not even showing feathers on the wind direction. We again texted the race committee and asked if it was possible to shorten course at Ushant and that way we would still get results for the race. There was still 120 miles of the race left and there was no way we would do it before Saturday night when the prizegiving was going to be held. They left a message saying that we should retire and motor to St Peter Port as Imperator was retiring and had had a sense of humor failure and were protesting us for the trapezing! That was a surprise to us seeing as they had not flown a flag and not told us at the time of the incident so the protest was not valid. However, we decided not to float around being the only boat out there and turned on the engine heading for St Peter Port.

It was a 24 hour motor to the finish and the engine started spurting fuel out of the lift pump as the gasket had failed so there was a bit of babying going on – the rpm’s would change as the engine would be starved of fuel every so often. We couldn’t fix it as we didn’t have a new gasket.

Peter Chantres the JOG secretary was standing at the fuel dock with nozzle in hand as they were closing 5 minutes after we pulled up and we filled up with diesal. He had also kindly organised for us to stay on the fuel pontoon for the few hours we stopped there which was very kind of him. I have never come across such a great race committee!

In St Peter Port we ended up with the trophies as they had already been made so it was worth the motor for a nice Pimms jug! We had to sit through the your boat is a bandit conversation with Imperator and then went off for a nice pub dinner before leaving 4 hours later for the Hamble.

IDEC on the left and Santana the Capo 30 on the right with the black mast.

Looking towards Belle Isle low tide with lots of rock pools

The enterance to the gulf of morbihan see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_of_Morbihan it is a beautiful part of Brittany.

Oyster beds in the Gulf of Morbihan

A race report by Myles (my little brother) will be posted next week. I am currently in france having raced to La Trinite with my little brother on Dad’s boat Santana a Capo 30. The sailing was the best I have had in a long time with a sunny downwind ride to Southern Britanny. It is very beautiful here. Prize giving was tonight and we got a beautiful trophy tomorrow we will be racing home.

Have a good week.

At the weekend I joined another Moore 24 crew for a regatta at Huntington Lake. My normal crew was busy so I decided to go as foredeck with Numa Boa 106. It is a long drive to Huntingon especially when you fight friday traffic out of the city so after getting lost going the locals way we finally got there at around 10pm. The rest of the crew had taken friday off and gone up on thursday with the boat. They had the campsite all set up and a delicous meal of potatoes, corn and steaks ready for us when we arrived. They had even caught some trout from the lake and cooked that up on a roaring campfire.

Stupidly I forgot a flashlight – not sure how I did that – however putting up my tent was not that hard as it is pretty simple and I had thankfully left it packed in a way that made it plug and play. The guys continued to party till 2:45 in the morning I decided to hit the hay around midnight. In the morning I woke to find that we were camping right on the lake shore.

On Saturday we had to put the rudder in the boat and attach our ‘borrowed’ tiller as the boats carbon one had gone missing. We launched the boat and went back to the campsite for breakfast. This is a relaxing regatta with 11:30 starts and short races in beautiful mountain scenery. We had three races on Saturday and our guest sailor was Gilles’s (one of the owners) girlfriend Sally who did a great job slithering under the boom vang. Sailing a Moore with 5 people is squashed. Our first race was not stellar but Mark (other owner) pulled off some great starts and race 2 we got the best result they have had in 8 years of a 3rd finishing overlapped with 2nd and 4th. Dinner on Saturday was chicken which had been marinated all day in orange vitamen water (for that citrus flavour) and soy sauce.

As we left the campsite to go to the bar thinking we would find Moore sailors we were slightly blocked in but Gilles managed to sneak the car through the space to which the women blocking said ‘good thing you are small’ which due to Gilles stature and the whole timing led to peels of laughter from within our car. In fact I have to say the Numa Boa crew is the most caveman like crew I have sailed with in a long time with no pretense at being the least bit refined! The jokes were like preschool full of toliet humor and there was a lot of sticking things up orifices if people didn’t shut up! It became a who can shock Ashley the most I think. However, with Sally and Anne Marie there the girls tried valiently to fight back and clean up the conversation – really to no avail.

Sunday we changed the rig tune a little. Gilles and I decided that both of our boats were examples of the cobblers shoes – with plenty of things needing fixing. Gilles has a business rigging in the bay and he is very good at it. Our other crew was Andy who has been on the Moneypenny program for the last few years and just returned to the Bay. It was a great crew to be sailing with as no one had to be coached. Gilles drove on Sunday and we lined up with the top boats for some speed testing before the start bouying our confidence by staying with both of them straight line. On the first race of the day we were in second place for most of the race getting a great start at the boat (shore) and getting every shift, with great height and speed. Downwind the fleet compressed as the wind came in from the back but we held second till right at the mark rounding when we had to let someone inside as they got an overlap on the last surf. From then on it was a reach then a short downwind then a short upwind. Unfortunately there was a little melt down on the boat due to the over excitement of our unusual position of being so far up in the fleet and we lost 3 boats at the end resulting in a 5th. A shame as a second was accessible for us and very possible. The last race saw the boat leading the regatta retire as they had won without sailing the last race and our first start was very good however the rest of the fleet was general recalled. Unfortunately our start wasn’t great and we played catch up from there. Gilles and Andy were staying Sunday night so lucky Mark and I were able to tie the boat to the dock and get on the road home.

A very enjoyable weekend with some really fun competitive sailing, good food and beautiful scenery.