The Three Peaks Yacht Race 2015
Wight Rose are Second with Walker and Pilkington Kings of Mountains
Rob Howard / 30.06.2015
Wight Rose finished second in this year’s Three Peaks Yacht Race when Alex Pilkington and Stuart Walker crossed the finish line by Corpach sea lock at 14.23 on a hot, sunny Monday afternoon.
The pair had been with the same boat last year and been on the winning team, but this time had to settle for second place overall behind Team Rio. However, this year the runners did win King of the Mountains with an aggregate running time of 14 hours 2 minutes, taking a title they’d been keen to win after narrowly missing it last year. “It’s a good title to have,” said Walker, “one that has a lot of famous names on it.”
The pair were hot and complained that the finish line beer wasn’t cold, but they did get a shower of champagne from Gary Clayton who won his 6th race finishers medal. (He said he has on display either side of ‘a convenience’ and now the display will be nice and symmetrical!) He has won the race 3 times and is keen to point out to skipper Geoff West that his record is better. (West has won 6 times in 13 races.)
This year they were sailing with Paul Jackson, who runs his own sailing company and is an experienced racer in the UK and Australia, but who was new to the Three Peaks Yacht Race. He said, “I’ve sailed Sydney Hobart lots of times and The Fastnet, but this is a whole different thing! Here you are finding a way between rocks or creeping over sandbanks and I don’t think I’ve ever gone aground quite so many times in a race! Rounding Bardsey Head and shaking hands with the seals flippers while the keel drags through the seaweed was quite an experience too. The Fastnet can be a bit of a cruise where you follow the boat in front in comparison, it’s nothing like this event.
“We’ve no complaints about coming second to Rio. We gave it our all and they were quicker. It took a lot of bottle to fly that big spinnaker in those winds so fair play to them!”
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