The PowerBar Three Peaks Yacht Race
Vlad Wins Again
Rob Howard / 26.06.2007
This is the second time Vlad the Impaler has won the race. In 2005 Greg Marsh, the Skipper and owner of Vlad, won the race at the first attempt. Next year he came second, and now he’s a winner again, as is Keith Read, who competed with him in all 3 events.
Ric Searle and Will Appleby have also both raced for the last 2 years (on Abbeydale Moonshine), and this is their first win. “It’s a relief to win it!� said Appleby. “We’ve put so much training and preparation into this race, and now we’ve won it we don’t have to do it again!� But that’s what Greg Marsh said in 2005 …
He explained the crew had been out sailing and training together, and that the runners had completed recce’s on all the mountains, which Read knows well in any case. “Our practise raising the Spinnaker paid off going round Bardsey Head,� he said, “and we took the lead then. Then our runners did a good time on Snowdon and that helped us to just beat the tide in the Menai Strait. It was like that all the way – a real team effort.�
“Then we pushed hard all the way to Whitehaven. It was just a matter of keeping concentration and not letting our concentration dip. When the wind dropped we could see our estimated arrival time on the GPS getting later and later. It was horrible knowing we could miss the tide and might get stuck outside the lock gate, but we kept going and just got in. As we went into the lock it was absolutely silent on board as we listened for the keel to scrape the bottom.�
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