To all WAFL followers , Many thanks for your support in securing the blog prize for us – it makes Chris’s achievement in coming 4th in the double handed even more impressive as I was down below ( in the warm and dry , tee hee) blogging away whilst he did a one and a […]
Did I say that the finish team would have problems as 50 boats came to the line? Surely that was the understatement of the year. Team WAFL had their hearts in their mouths. Our met information suggested zero wind by midnight and we fully expected to have to spend the night at anchor but some […]
Did we have fun at the Lizard! We took our NW wind most of the way to Mullion Cove and tacked up the back eddy whilst a line of boats parked up offshore. There was a light Southerly (team WAFL think it was a local sea breeze) at the Lizard itself and it was the […]
Anybody looking at the tracker over the last few hours will have seen us make a radical move over to the North of the fleet, our course dictated by what would give us any speed at all in the chop rather than heading for any point. You then would have seen us take off like […]
We are no longer beating. Actually we are no longer doing very much apart from being thrown around by the left over waves which are coming direct from the Lizard and intent on destroying any forward motion we manage to generate. The latest theory that has come from team WAFL ( With Alacrity/Festina Lente – […]
Our 4th dawn at sea brought the Scillies in to view as we rounded the Bishop light and set off for the Lizard. The wind is NE and due to back N or even NW, but as ever the time is unspecified. Neptune and Mr Grib have thus set us these nice little problems : […]
Usually when I see the Fastnet light, its iconic shape on the horizon like a two fingered red Indian salute -( How!) – brings a lump to the throat. “How” indeed! Or why? Why some folk got round and others got left behind is a bit of a mystery. This time we were just too […]
The small piece of water between Cape Clear and the Rock got pretty crowded this morning as more and more boats joined the parking lot. Somehow we didn’t get out of it too badly – but at the last minute who should appear but Vitesse who rounded alongside Rapscallion just inside us. Poor old Persephone […]
Its 0200 Wednesday morning and we are parked up off Cape Clear with no wind and the fair tide about to turn. The depth sounder reads 70 metres so please somebody send us a bit of wind to take us round the rock! Rapscallion is just a few boat lengths away and Jamie is logged […]
Our eagerly anticipated veer came in on the dot at 1300 hrs allowing us to tack through 60 degrees and thrash along at 6.6 knots just 10 degrees short of the layline – perfect textbook management of a beat allowing for a further veer and avoiding the trap of overstanding. Hmmm! Feeling dangerously pleased with […]
Well , we had our blow. Nothing to boast about in the great scheme of things –but a solid 25 knots for 7 hours and a period of steady 30 will always test you at night. Luckily for us we had moved away from the disturbed seas around Lands End and to begin with at […]
Much excitement as we all converge on the corner, racing along on a tight reach. Rapscallion is inshore of us and despite tacking off earlier, seems to have been slowed up by the Lizard so perhaps we didn’t lose out after all. Its getting quite blowy and we have the typical Lands End confused sea […]
The whole fleet spent this morning heading SW in anticipation of a backing wind. When it came it wasn’t enough to clear the Lizard so we hung on but the next shift was far more than we were expecting so I fear we have overstood. The early tackers were risking being trapped for a tide […]
Well , we got our shift! The NW wind came in right on schedule and we scooted down the inside of Portland Bill to run slap bang into the enormous tide running down its west side. I Its always a bit of a gamble doing this at Springs , as the tide takes 6 or […]
It’s a relief to be on our way , albeit with the wind acting off script ( the mother of all sea breezes giving us 25 knots thro the Needles Channel) and a missed tidal gate at Portland. Our furling headsail is fine up to 20 knots because we can keep it open – but […]