Just back from Scotland, where I’ve been sailing these last four days around the cluster of inner western isles; The Cumbrae’s, Bute, Kintyre and Inchmarnock. We spent Wednesday driving up from Gloucestershire; a change from our previous flight between Lulsgate and Prestwick airports. In fact, although the home run was fraught with Sunday night traffic holdups, the northern run was faster than flying, and with three in the car I dare say far more environmentally friendly too!
Sailing out of Largs on passage and circular courses aboard a Sunsail 37′, we spent nights in Tarbert and Largs ‘enjoying’ far cooler and occasionally wetter weather than we’d left in Gloucestershire. In fact, the weather change was not that bad, as it halted, for a while at least, the rampage of hay fever across my tired sinuses. Unfortunately though, the cooler weather was accompanied for the most part by a singular lack of winds. On the last day we fought the second place boat for about an hour and a half over the final hundred yards of a shortened race, finally making it over the line despite a nearby lightning strike to the sea shocking our helm through the wheel! Over the four days racing we covered 85 miles (aren’t GPS chart loggers wonderful?!).
And we won! Our four race positions were 1st, 2nd, 4th and 1st out of a fleet of seven boats, giving us a win by one point over the nearest competing boat. That produced a bottle of Champagne each, and a free Sunsail weekend boat charter out of UK waters, to be arranged. 🙂 Getting out of the air conditioned car as we arrived home it was plain we had had the worse weather – it felt more like going on holiday than returning! And so to work…
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