The PowerBar Three Peaks Yacht Race
Decision Day
Rob Howard / 26.06.2007
That’s still more than 4 days to race, but any teams leaving Whitehaven late on Tuesday know they may be hard pressed to make it to Ben Nevis. The forecast is still for northerly winds, and anyone watching the trackers will see the leaders, Vlad the Impaler, making very slow progress overnight and this morning.
At breakfast time on Tuesday only 14 of the fleet had left Whitehaven, 2 or 3 more had retired and a couple of the boats in harbour need repairs. Two were still on their way to Whitehaven.
Freedom called the Race Director this morning and said they were ‘thinking of retiring’ as someone had a Golden Wedding to go to. Ellen McArthur Trust have retired in Fleetwood, where they took shelter and so have Pastimes, who went into Holyhead with engine problems. Beach Fox are still in the race, but have already had the lifeboat out standing by twice, once when aground and on another occasion with a rope around their prop.
Two teams who did press in the early hours of the morning were Confusion and Kilva. Both took long rests on arrival at Whitehaven yesterday evening, then their runners set off for Scafell in the small hours of the morning. Confusion still needs new sail sliders, and AF Switchgear also need some sail repairs.
On the mountain Flapjack’s runners continue to set the pace. They were the only pair to complete the run in under 8 hours (7.58), but this is still an hour short of the impressive race record. They have a good lead in the King of the Mountains race now and will be hoping Flapjack, which is only 29’ long, can make it to Ben Nevis.
SleepMonsters
