The story so far

N.B written on Tuesday…

We are rolling around in a very light breeze, inching towards the Mull of Kintyre, with no other yachts in sight. We may be in about 5th place but we’ve not checked the tracking web site for a while, and our tracker is on the blink anyway, only sending our position occasionally.  The calm conditions mean a) I can write this, and b) Stewart is feeling fine, with not a bucket in sight. Here’s Stewart and Ben yesterday evening after the wind had dropped.

Back to Saturday… the jostling for the start was quite tense, though apparently quite relaxed and polite compared to an out-and-out sailing race, wheeling around checking watches and trying to hit the start line as the horn sounded (too soon means 1 hour penalty).

We got a flyer, crossing the start line in about 2nd place, and feeling the elation of the race being under way at last. Great to be flying along with the really fast boats.

And then we flew straight into a hole in the wind, that seemed to be about the size and shape of Autonomy… boats ahead and to the left of us were heeled over doing 6 knots, we were standing still feeling despondent for 20 minutes. Damon texted and asked if we had remembered to lift the anchor.

But soon we found wind again, and began a really lumpy ride out to Bardsey Sound, very rapidly establishing that Stewart had left his sea legs at home. I saw the sailors exchanging some “here we go again” looks, remembering the Scottish Islands Peaks Race 2008… But once he’d made friends with the “bucket of shame”, Stewart kept it together and worked out how to cope – in bed. I felt really bad as well, and almost chucked a few times.

Great sailing pulled us back through the fleet, and we reached Bardsey in perhaps 10th place.

Sometime in the night, we started getting messages from support crew Mike and Sally and others wondering if we were wrecked and clinging to a rock… our tracker had stuck, and it was only hours later we managed to get messages back to them that actually we were coming in to Carnarfon nicely.

We had no delays crossing the Carnarfon Bar, and so Stewart and I jumped off for our first run at 03:50 on Sunday – a lovely time for a run, especially a 24 mile one up Snowdon. The first challenge was finding our way through the lanes of Carnarfon, and negotiating safe passage with the pissed up locals who had fun chasing us and offering us White Lightning etc etc. On the 8 mile road out to the Ranger path we quickly overhauled Krishna’s runners (Israeli) who were perhaps used to running in the Negev, because they were wearing several layers head to toe, and running very slowly. Madam Wen’s runners (“Marvin” and Tobi Staines) were just behind us until we started the climb, when they dropped back fast. Were we over-stretching ourselves…? We felt good so just got on with it.

After grabbing food and bottles from Mike and Sally we hit the hill, climbing into cloud, until we detected that there was sunshine above. The summit stretch was stunning, with views of clouds and crags all around.

The summit was reached in about 2 hours 20. We were told we were now 9th, and the only team to run the summit stretch!

  I immediately turned my ankle while faffing with the camera, and Stewart hurtled off into the distance. Luckily I found my ankle again quickly, and caught up about half way down, passing two other teams (Sea Fever? and Moby J, whose runners looked absolutely shot).

The road back was a struggle, and my un-recce’d “shortcut” in Carnarfon turned out to have a 40 degree hill, but we made it to the boat, where Naomi and kids were watching. The kids seemed visibly dismayed – “Daddy you hardly look tired at all”! I was hiding it well.

Must just get some food – feeling a bit faint…

Mmm much better; rice pudding and a tin of fruit. Anyway, after Carnarfon comes the Menai Straits and the infamous Swellies. Light wind eased us to the first bridge where the fun starts, with Moby J and Sea Fever for company.

Then as we picked our line through the right-hand span, we saw that White Cloud was lying on her side on rocks just beyond the bridge. That was her race over.

Then a few minutes later, Sea Fever also grounded gently, showing us where not to go; she got off at the next tide and is now ahead of us again. A very nervy couple of hours saw us out into open sea past Puffin Island.

The sail to Whitehaven was much smoother, to Stewart’s relief, and we got some rest in preparation for the big Scafell Pike leg.

At Whitehaven harbour, we caught the leaders waiting to get into the harbour through the sea lock – a bit of lucky timing in our favour. They let EADS Innovation Works in first because she was the shallowest, giving us a 20 minute wait or so. Then we went into the lock with Kishinoor, Moby J and Torbellino.

 

Mike and Sally had our bikes at the kit check, and we set off a few minutes behind the Moby J runners, at 04:15, to cycle the 16 miles to Gillerthwaite YHA in Ennerdale. The pressure was on – the sailors had worked out that we needed to be back before about 11:45 to get out of the sea lock before low tide, giving us 7.5 hours to complete the leg. From past results I knew most teams take well over 8 hours, and although I knew Stewart and I were capable of the required time, I was not confident we could achieve it now. I took it gently on the bike, though Stewart had to try a bit harder as he was on a mountain bike frame wile I was on a roady. We eased off stiff legs, and arrived just behind the Moby J pair. After the 5 minute time-out, where Stewart made comprehensive use of the facilities, we started the run to Black Sail pass. After a quick chat, we left the Moby J’s behind and got into a great rhythm. Mike and Sally were at Wasdale Head as planned, with pots of custard and fruit – much appreciated. We knew EADS were 30 mins ahead at the start, so it was nice to hear the gap had not increased.

The Scafell climb is a real slog, made harder by literally hundreds of Three Peaks walkers coming down the same path.

We gained the summit in 1:10 from Wasdale, which was inside my targets, but the crux of this leg would be whether we could keep speed climbing back over Black Sail pass.

We flew down nicely, passing lots of following teams – oddly none of them had seen the leaders EADS’s Martin Beale and Indge – they must have taken a different descent route away from the main path, because Mike and Sally confirmed they returned 30 mins ahead still.

We slogged back over Black Sail and down the long forest track to the YHA, conquered the brutal hills out of Ennerdale on the bikes, and then started really motoring on the cycle track.

I led on the faster bike, Stewart draughting on my back wheel. After 40 minutes of this, and negotiating the twists and turns back into Whitehaven, I was genuinely as knackered as I’ve ever been, and just fell onto the boat after giving my Mum a very sweaty hug. We were back in time, at 11:30, after completing the leg in 7 hours 15 or so.

Our jubilation was short-lived… just outside the sea lock we ran aground somehow, and frantic bouncing on the boom, thrashing the engine, pulling with the anchor winch, etc wouldn’t shift us an inch. As the tide departed, the sailors hung their heads in shame…

… until they realised they could blame us – if we had run a bit faster the water wouldn’t have been so shallow!

Anyway, when the tide lifted us off we were still in 2nd, though we now had a chasing fleet of faster boats who overhauled us in the light evening winds. We are now lying 7th.

We’ve just checked the race web site, which has us in the lead after Whitehaven somehow, showing that we were 2nd on the Scafell Pike leg, only 1 minute behind the EADS pair in 7:10. Very chuffed, and if Stewart hadn’t needed to wash his hair four times in streams we might have nicked it!

Looking forward to the Ben.