We love tactix

We had a good run on ben nevis and have won the three peaks yacht race. We are very happy as team eads innovation works and really happy for tactix. She is a fantastic boat. We all love her. It would be unwise to write more on this blog after the bottle of champagne i've drunk.

Corpach ahoy

Corpach is now just a couple of miles ahead. The runners are ready to go. There are two boats right behind us and we would like to hold them off to corpach as a matter of style. We are aiming for a good sensible run: try to hold off the opposition and don't make any mistakes.
We need to just prepare mentally for the run and in for it.

Farewell lismore

We are now exiting the top of lismore. The seagulls are singing to us and there is the occasional seal supporting beached on an isolated rock.
This blog post was temporarily suspended while the martins were transferred to rowing duties and we pulled a few hugies to get us into a patch of wind. In some ways we are motor sailing fired by the copham 1 cylinder or the martins 2 cylinder. There are eco engines fired by pasta and, soon, porridge. I am on porridge cooking duties once this post is over. Gary has been on the meths and the burner is now ready for us.
The absolute priority at the moment for us is to row. If the boat speed falls below our chosen minimum we row. We are learning how to motor sail eads innovation works on the copham 1 cylinder. They don't teach you how to do this at sailing school.
The next objective is porridge. After that we look to the corran narrows and the finishing straight to corpach. Martin and i then have ben nevis to think about but we are psyched.

We rowed all night

The team have rowed con night. This got us through the sound of luing before the tide turned. Two other boats made it through that tidal gate and the dockers took a great line round the outside. We are now sailing up through the top of lismore and expect to make the next tidal gate: the last one before corpach. Spirits are good on board. I woke up to the sound of singing as gary and piers were rowing above luing. Short post for coverage reasons. Out.

Nice race conditions

The conditions continue to suit us. We have been doing a combination of light winds sailing and rowing. We are watching the islands slowly transit us. At the moment we are passing the north end of gigha and the paps of jura are on our port side (they bring back memories of a long hard tick infested run in the scottish islands peaks race. We had almost no wind in that race either).
Torbellino as visible in the distance. They come in and out of relief as the visibility changes.
We think we are doing quite well at the rowing. I like rowing with piers. We seem to have a rowing rapport. Martin also seems to row stylishly. We all row from time to time. We have an unofficial target speed below which we row. At the moment we are sailing again with a wind direction 180 degrees away from where it was 15 minutes ago. We rowed into this patch of wind. We know when we have hit the wind as the boat starts to heel over. The oarsman on the leeward side then needs to feather their oars: some of us learned to do this years ago, others are learning on the job.
We have little idea when we will arrive in corpach so just keep going. At the moment the conversation centres around how to traverse the sound of luing. Gary has just got up and seems suspicious that he is destined for another night shift. This seems to be his speciality.

Into sound of jura

Since about 5am we have been rowing. The learning experience may say dividends later in the race. We rowed all the way round the mull of kintyre and now have the spinnaker up in a light wind in the sound of jura. Torbellino are just off our starboard side a a couple of miles away. We suspected some boats might catch us up. It looks like we might need to be well rested before ben nevis but may have to decide between focussing on running or on rowing at some stage. Phone coverage is poor here. Buy more base stations!
Out.

Sailing to the mulls

We have passed the mull of galloway and are now somewhere in the firth of clyde sailing towards the mull of kintyre. The wind is a bit fickle but seems to be there. We currently have all the sailors on deck as we have the spinnaker up and need to keep a sharp eye on things when the wind gets up. There are sounds of sail trimming from on deck.
Most of the sailing today has been quite chilled out in the sunshine. We think we are still reasonably ahead of the rest of the fleet but we never know when this might change and we haven't allowed ourselves to raise our hopes too much yet. Things are certainly looking better than they did when we were in the middle of the fleet tacking round bardsey.
The runners have been having a minor inquest on what happened on scafell pike. We felt like we ran well but the cycling let us down. Giving that when i sat on my iron steed at whitehaven it was the first time i had been on a bike since last year's three peaks yacht race there is clear scope for am improvement in my performance here. I need to address this. We do not know for sure wat the scafell pike result was. We know it was close.
We are thinking of our running strategy on ben nevis. Things really depend on how the sailing goes. We suspect that we could do better than last year if we really pushed it but will have to decide what the risk vs reward balance is when we get to corpach.
I am trying to sleep but am finding it hard. The best i seem to be able to do is to relax with the ipod on.