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Vlad Comes and Goes

Rob Howard / 25.06.2007

Vlad the Impaler just made it in through the Whitehaven lock gate before low tide arriving in the harbour at 11 minutes past midnight on Monday morning. As they approached port the lock keeper said there was not enough water to come in, but when they reached the gate he estimated they had about 8 inches to spare and in they came! (Although they may not have been quite truthful about just how deep their keel was ...)

It was the second time they’d made it past a key point in the race with literally inches to spare. The first was in the Menai Strait, pushing a way through against the tide and skipper Greg Marsh described what had happened when he came ashore. “We thought at times we would not make it,� he said, “and there were several periods when we almost stopped in the water, but we somehow kept inching forward.�

They had stayed close to shore to keep out of the tide where possible. “I thought I was close last year, but Ric (Searle) took us much closer. As it’s my boat I’m a bit more conservative, so the fact it’s not Ric’s boat probably helped! When we were catching trees with the boom we knew it was as close as we could get and it was tense as we were watching for rocks all the time as well.�

He said the story they’d run aground off The Isle of Man wasn’t true and that they’d made good progress in a good north westerly-wind when leaving the Strait, but then the wind died. They struggled to find patches of wind during the afternoon before it picked up again after dark, enabling them to get to Whitehaven just in time.

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