The Three Peaks Yacht Race 2016
Into and Out of Caernarfon
Rob Howard / 12.06.2016
It was a very busy Sunday morning on Caernarfon pier as the race boats arrived from just before midnight and through the early hours of the morning. Around 6am this morning the last runners were setting off for Snowdon and the leaders had just returned from the mountain, with more teams hot on their heels. By 7am 8 sails could be seen in the Strait as teams set of on leg 2, fighting the tide to make progress.
SUOTC maintained their lead in Caernarfon and set their runners off first, but they were passed by quicker athletes on Snowdon and it was Pavel Paloncy and Alex Pilkington from Wight Rose who were first back from the mountain. They’d set a quick time, but the runners from Moby J were only a few minutes slower and within an hour of the leaders arriving half of the race fleet were back on the water, going nowhere slowly against the strong Menai tide. This is shaping up to be the best contested race for many years!
There were some minor dramas in the night. Team ‘If not now then when’ who were last to arrive said they’d snagged a fishing pot which was hard to disentangle and GoApe have lost their motor, making pulling alongside the pier in the strong tide a tricky business. Among the runners Jo Jackson from Aparito struggled with a bad back and Lowrie Morgan had to encourage her through and carry her pack for a while, and Olivier Vidal from Rho could hardly stand when he got back. “It was just too much, “ he gasped before being hauled onto the boat and collapsing on the deck.
For all their efforts so far the leaders are now bunched right up again, held by the tide in the Strait, rowing again and trying to steadily make their below the 2 Menai Bridges and through The Swellies to be the first to catch the tide out.
SleepMonsters
