We quickly filled out all the forms, one of which was for our handicap, and paid the fee so we were committed, what a feeling Double Bruyn and crew we were ready for yet another challenge. It started with a race briefing on Thursday evening, looking around the room there was a mix of people from old sea dogs, race teams with fully kitted out uniforms and fat wallets and of course us but with our spirits high we were not worried. We picked up our race numbers from entry and headed back to pick up some supplies, then retired back to the boat for the night, like serious ocean racing athletes. Friday morning was a gunshot start at 8am between the two piers in Brighton. Being new at this we hung at the back and followed the other boats across the start line and then we off....eta to France 12 hours. After about an hour the non handicap more serious boats had started the race (they were 8:20am start), they were caught up and flew past like we were sitting still. Half an hour later they were disappearing over the horizon and left the more relaxed racers to catch up in France later.
At around 3pm the wind started to die off and then all of a sudden there was not a breath of wind and when one is in a race and on a sail boat that does not look good....the ETA was looking like instead of arriving around 9pm to looking more like 3am. Now there is no fun in that, so we decided to change our handicap to another class in the race ...........vrrrrrmmmmm and we off!!! Passing the more committed ones as they were bobbing in the ocean hoping for that miracle breeze.
We arrived at the marina at Fe’ Camp and discovered we were not the only ones that had made that decision to motor so we knew we had made the right call.... Fe’ Camp is a small little town that is based around the marina with a couple of restaurants and bars along the waterfront and a stony beach not alot to get excited about but all and all still pretty exciting to be in another country for the weekend.
We had dinner at a nice little Italian place and paid a visit to the fellow competitor's at the yacht club for a chinwag before retiring back to the boat for the night ready for the next day’s activities, that night we could hear the diehard racers arriving through to the early hours of the morning.
Saturday morning we woke to a great breakfast on the boat and headed straight to the yacht club for wine and cheese tasting, before getting into the prize giving and getting around meeting people from the race..... Things died down in the early afternoon as people were worn out so we decided we were not finished by any means and in true fashion, spare of the moment as always, we threw the dock line off and started our overnight sail back to England. The sailing was proving to be a little tricky with yet again no wind and so you guessed it .......... vrrrrrrmmmmm...... we chugged through the night and reached Brighton in the early hours of the morning extremely worn out.
Another great weekend adventuring.....
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