Home At Last

Sitting writing this while looking out of the window at a vista of greenery the last few days seem a little surreal. This being Britain it should be no surprise that in a few days we'd experience everything from a perfect force 4 to a sleigh ride through waves big enough to catch one very surprised garfish unawares, when it was flung bodily into the cockpit in the early hours of Tuesday morning. And then back again to end up drifting in a flat calm with the rays of the setting sun over the headland at Plymouth.

It was very frustrating having the relatively small but significant technical problems that put us out of the race after weathering the storm rather literally, but such is sailing. Shortly after we arrived at Plymouth on Thursday evening something like a third of the fleet arrived in a very short space of time. They'd been becalmed for hours not far offshore and then the wind arrived and swept them up all together, giving the race officers a very busy night. You can read all about it on the RORC site http://fastnet.rorc.org/.

We spent some time recovering and "rehydrating" courtesy of the 24 hour beer tent (it'd be mean to close it to those arriving after last orders), then spent Friday sorting out various things, eating and wandering around Plymouth, which was looking fantastic in the summer sun, particularly the view from the Hoe.

The prize giving was held in the Citadel up on the Hoe in the evening. Blue Juice is going back to Southampton today, with a stop en route as no water pump equals no engine equals no battery charge and hence no lights! The crew, meanwhile have scattered onto trains, into cars and some even onto other boats.

So, a mixed and eventful experience, some of which I'd prefer not to repeat (but probably will), and much of which was great fun at the time and can only get better with hindsight. Once thing is certain - it was a lot better than watching Big Brother.

We will try and put together a more organised report in the fullness of time, so watch the CSORC web site www.csorc.org for that and news of the club in general.

A final big thanks to Trev and all the crew.

Nick