Back to t' mill

I always get tense at the end of races, and this was no exception. Our progress up the Cornish coast was mainly under spinnaker, but we had to work hard for every mile. The "emergency meal" of chili con carne was long eaten and the crew were looking at each other as if weighing up each other's calorific value. In the event, we turned the corner into Plymouth Sound without mishap and finished the race under spinnaker, dropping it in a neat handbrake turn behind the breakwater. We were lucky to be given a berth in Sutton Harbour, so really enjoyed the party atmosphere - needless to say, a few beers were drunk on our arrival.
And the winners of the mileage competition?? Actually, I had two bottles - one for each watch, which we drank almost as soon as we tied up. There are no losers on Flying Formula!!
Four of us took the boat back to Southampton on Saturday afternoon, arriving on Sunday afternoon, all set for work on Monday. I confess - I'm not sure my employer got their full money's worth today..
Nick has posted the results. It was a very close field and, looking at the tracker, I'm not sure we made any gross errors - especially given that we essentially raced only with a compass and a GPS.
I'd like to say a big thank you to the crew for being such a great bunch - I couldn't have wished for a more dedicated and easy-going crew. And to Nick for publishing all my reports on the blog.
And to you, dear readers, for all your nice comments, both within the blogs and to me personally.
We're contemplating doing the RORC Cherbourg on the first weekend of September. Not all the Fastnet crew can make it, so if you're interested in sailing with us, please contact Nick at the CSORC Crew Bureau.
Cheers Trev

Final results

Flying Formula finished 192nd in IRC overall, out of 277 entrants, 275 starters and 266 finishers. She was 41st out of 56 in IRC3.

Finished

In case you haven't seen on the Tracker, Flying Formula finished at 00:28 (not sure if that is GMT or BST) this morning. Well done guys!

Nick B

Some more photos from the start ...

The watch mileage competition hots up

Gawd, what have I done? The mood on the boat has changed. The crew have become fixated by the bottle of Heidsieck Cordon Bleu I waved about and are doing everything they can to generate the biggest mileage. There were mutterings of "s'easy - we'll just sail off the wind" and various attempts at sabotaging the other crew. On a recent spinnaker drop/jib hoist, it seemed like the last watch had danced around the maypole with the halyards and I've attached a photo of the latest incident above.

That said, our performance over the last 24 hours has been fantastic!
Trev

Homeward bound

We shook out all reefs, put up the number 1 and set a course for Bishop Rock lighthouse. The weather was naff - a "mizzle" as we Cornish describe it. But we made great progress - and the "Rolex Watch Mileage Competition" has added extra spice to the sailing! About halfway across, we launched the No 2 spinnaker on a fine reach and made excellent progress. By early morning, however, it had to come down as the wind strengthened. But the No 1 took us south east in fine fashion, averaging 7 knots over successive watches. We're now skirting underneath the TSZ west of Bishop Rock, again under spinnaker, heading for the Lizard. If the wind stays, we might be in Plymouth by midnight!
Trev

Our culinary goddess

I feel I must publicly sing the praises of Tracey who, as well as leading Wallace watch, has victualled the boat for the race. And she has been a star! We have dined like kings, upon dishes like chicken cassoulet, Loch Rannoch venison and Tagliatelle con Pompodori. All lovingly prepared and frozen, ready to pop into the oven when required. As I type, she is preparing a rhubarb crumble as a little lunchtime treat...this race will add serious weight to the rail..
Trev

Winding the watches

Thurs 1130: Readers of early blogs may remember the two watches on Flying Formula are Wallace, led by Tracey and Grommet, led by Phil. We've not had much inter-watch rivalry on this particular race, apart from who was going to take us round the rock. In the event, the although led by Grommet watch, the several spinnaker gybes required the additional services of George, from Wallace watch. So we'll call that a shared honour.
So, in order to pep things up a bit for the ride home, I'm going to introduce a mileage competition, with a bottle of champers in Plymouth for the winning watch.
Trev

Bunching

FF is still out of mobile contact, but a look at the Tracker site shows that there is an interesting development going on. A lot of boats seem to be stuck SW of the Scillies, while the boats immediately behind are making reasonable progress. FF is in a small group of Sigmas - all this distance travelled only to end up alongside each other. It'll be interesting to see how this all pans out in the morning. Winds are forecast to remain light until daylight at least.

Nick B

No wind off the Scillies

No word from our intrepid crew but according to the Tracker at 14.00 Jangada was wallowing around at 0.6 knots west of the Scillies while FF was doing over 4 knots a hundred miles behind. This could result in a bit of compression of the fleet, if the back half reaches the Scillies just as the wind picks up! It could be interesting.

Nick B

Romp to Pantaenius.

Thurs 0730: The leg from the Fastnet to the Pantaenius buoy is a short one, being designed to separate the outbound and returning boats. But we had fun! It was still foggy, we still had the spinnaker up and spotted another boat ahead, making its way to the mark. We were going well, not quite in the right direction, and when we were about 100m from the boat, a J109 [probably Aquaholix - a J105. Ed.], they spotted us. There was a flurry of activity as they launched their asymmetric and shot off parallel to us. We were flying the spinny at a ludicrous angle, collapsing and cavorting down the ocean. The French boat (for it was they), watched "les Anglais perfide" whizz past them as they snuffed their sail, hoisted their genoa and go off in the right direction. Needless to say, they rounded the mark before us, but it gave a nice lift to a grey day.
Trev

We're round!

Phew! the strong westerly that we had beaten against, all the way from Land's End, finally decided to leave us to our fates, dumping us 6 miles from the rock, we spun for a little while, before the weather gods decided to have a bit more fun and blanketed us in fog. And, just to add a little spice, the water gods decided to join in and threw a in tidal current, carrying us straight for the rock. After about an hour, at 4-ish in the morning, by which time Grommit watch had taken over, we noticed a gentle breeze - from the east! It was hardly enough to flutter the Rolex pennant on the forestay but we soon had the main and jib pinned out. The old girl was game, but hardly moving. We hauled out and launched the No 1 spinnaker and were slowly on our way. We passed quite a few boats on our journey past the rock - none seemed to have detected or thought of the spinny and, of course, in the thick fog, had little notice of our presence.We finally rounded the rock at 05:17. Pantaenius and home!!
Trev

The frustration continues ...

Thurs 0220: The wind has finally left us. We never saw anything of the forecast sou'westerly and now sit, totally becalmed, 9 miles east of the Fastnet rock, which blinks at us, just to let us know it's there. Seems like a good time to charge the batteries - the boat's and our own. I feel a bacon fry-up coming on...

What a difference a day makes ...

Wed 2135 We had a pretty good day on Tuesday after clearing the separation zone off Lands End, and some dolphins came to cheer us up even further. We tried our best to make some westing but a windshift made our northerly route significantly favoured, so up we went. Wednesday morning gave us a nasty surprise. A routine check of the batteries revealed 8 volts! We paid out the mainsheet as we were heeled hard over, and managed to start the engine and recharge them, but it has meant lost time as we cannot run the engine whilst heeled. After a few experiments, it looks like we have a short in the circuit to the tricolour. So we'll have to use deck nav lights from now on and keep fingers crossed. Also increasing the number of charging sessions - so likely no chocolates for the race.
Trev

Tracker update at 14.00

Looking at Flying Formula on the Tracker at 14.00 they have 45 Nm to go and are doing just over 5 knots. So it looks like they will round the rock tonight around midnight. I'm not sure Trevor's Blackberry will be up to taking a night time photo fit for the cover of CS Sailing, but I'm sure he'll have a go.

Jangada Too are probably rounding about now.

Nick B

Out of phone range?

Flying Formula is now over halfway across the Celtic Sea to the rock and has improved her position in IRC 3 to 28th (from 35th yesterday). Trevor has been sending emails from on board to the dedicated team of communications experts on shore to update this blog, but the team (oh alright, me) hasn't heard anything since yesterday so they are probably well out of phone range. Either that or they've decided to enjoy the peace and quiet, and who can blame them. Winds look like being 15 knots or so at the Marathon Gas Platform (you can see the winds on xcweather.co.uk) from the SW or WSW, so they will be on the wind.

Meanwhile Jangada Too is putting up an excellent showing in IRC 2 and particularly in the two-handed class. You can follow them on www.jangada-too.blogspot.com, though they haven't updated since yesterday either.

Meanwhile ICAP Leopard have spent the night in Plymouth in nice comfortable beds (probably).

Nick B

The Flying Formula Track

A shot from the RORC tracker:

The boys take a well-earned rest

Making our way up the west coast of Cornwall, just ahead of Challenger!
Trev

Oooo, nice picture ...

This is Puma Logic, a Reflex 38.

Tussle off Land's End

Tues 11:25 An interesting development approaching the Runnel Stone - we crossed the path of Vitesse - another Sigma 38. We are travelling west, towards Wolf Rock while she has stood on north, towards the mainland. It will be interesting to see who wins out!
Trev

Off Penzance

Tues 07:15 - the new dawn finds us in Marazion Bay, in a benign sea with a hint of ocean swell remaining. The wind is light and, nor'westerly, bucking the trend of coming exactly the direction we want to go. Most of us had a good night and ready for the daylight rounding of Land's End. Unfortunately, the current wind will force a beat to the Fastnet rock, but we have hopes for a swing to the SW which will be a big boost.
Trev

Cold stew and cous-cous

Tues 0200; Keith and George enjoy a hearty meal after a cold night watch off the Lizard. The ride frn Plymouth was rock'n roll, with strong winds and a confused sea. But we're making good progress, morale is high and the dawn is coming.

It's a sea horse.

Gromit's track from Sunday night.

A Breathless Night

Mon 0730 Well, we made it past Portland and are romping along at over 7 knots (SOG). Just crossed "Inspiration of Boss" But it was a hard night. The early night watch fought with a fickle wind, making reasonable VMG with the friendly tide. We had a meeting with Torbellino but lost them as night fell. But hardly had Grommet watch taken over when the wind died and we were left in 40m of water and the beginnings of a foul tide. We zig-zagged through the night and, as the tide finally turned again, we were only about a mile back from our original position - could have been a lot worse!
Trev

Towards Portland

The wind is dying with the sun as we make our way slowly towards Portland Bill. The IRC1 fleet are slowly moving up the fleet, which seems to have largely opted for the offshore route. That said, there are boats spread all the way from our position, about 6 miles off St Albans Head, to the coast.

Some photos

Our new mainsail

Narrows squeak

We're now through Hurst narrows ! The wind dumped us just before it and we span around a couple of times, but th new wind - the forecast SW - finally kicked in and we're now tacking down the Needles channel to clear shingles and then westwards!
T

Fastnet is go!

We left Ocean Village for Cowes at about 0900 to pick up George from Cowes, where he'd been partying with his Cowes Week crew.We went through the Registration gate without problems. The IMOCA 60s clustered on the ODM ignoring the possible advantage offered by the Gurnard countercurrent. This set the scene for us in IRC3 and we took up a position at the inner end of the outer cluster.It was soon obvious that the island-side boats had the advantage so we hekd our port tack to join them. But we decided that there was little advantage in going too far in. We're now off Hamstead. Pointing at Yarmouth, towards the front of the pack.
Trev

Flying Formula now on Tracker Site

Flying Formula is now on the RORC Tracker site. She can be found under IRC 3. Just click on the name to see where she is. The race starts in a couple of hours (at midday today).

Nick

Tracker site - update

Unfortunately, RORC still haven't updated the competitor list on their Tracker site from 23/7 (date at top of the list). So Flying Formula isn't on it yet. Until they do, you won't be able to track us. When I spoke to them about it last weekend, they said they'd be doing it last Monday ....
Going down to Cowes now, to pick up the tracker and remind them again!!!
Trev

RORC tracker site problems - tips

Like me, a few other people have mentioned trouble with loading the "Race Player" in the RORC tracker site. It gets to the point of "loading data..." phase, then freezes. I've found that if you go back one page, delete your browsing history and then re-enter, it solves the problem. :-)

Wind in the Wallows????

Well, there were mutterings from our RORC Commodore that the qualifying races may not have given crews sufficient practice of what might be thrown at them in the big race. In the event, looking at the GRIBs, it looks like we've practiced exactly what will be needed! The forecasts are telling us its going to be a very light wind race, with a risk of getting becalmed at just about every critical point in the race - Portland, Lizard, Lands End and the Bishop Rock. We're going to have to be particularly careful if the wind turns fickle at Bishop Rock, if the tide's taking us towards it.
Ho hum...better make sure there's plenty of rope for the kedge....
The good news is that those FABULOUS people at MEC Sail have pulled out all the stops and converted our motor boat back into a yacht - a brand new mast, complete with a new mainsail - and a scrubbed bottom to suit - fantastic! Thanks such a lot, Maria and David.
We're now jumped through all the necessary registration hoops for the race - unlike most of the fleet, who are currently listed as "incomplete" - see "entry list .
Trev