The Three Peaks Yacht Race 2016
Aparito Digital Health Take Line Honours
Rob Howard / 15.06.2016
At 06.02 on a blustery and rainy morning Team Aparito Digital Health arrived in Corpach to take the line honours in the 2016 3 Peaks Yacht Race and win the Daily Telegraph Cup. Now they must complete the Ben Nevis run and wait for the handicap calculations to see if they have won the race ... it looks like it will be incredibly close!
Lowrie Morgan and Jo Jackson leapt off the J120 at Corpach sea lock to start the final mountain run of the race and are now on Ben Nevis. The summit was visible as they set off, though conditions were cold and wet. They stopped for a 5 minute kit check, told the marshals they expected to take 4.5 hours on the run and ran off along the side of the Caledonian Canal, cheered by their team mates and support crew as they left.
The crew of Pip Hare, Nikki Curwen and Elin Haf Davies were all smiles as they relaxed after a tough sail. “We’ve done our job now.” said the skipper, Pip Hare, “We’ve come together as a team really well, there have been no cross words even when it’s been a bit stressful, and we have laughed and joked all the way. It’s been great.
“We’ve worked really, really hard to get here first and give ourselves a chance and it’s been an interesting last leg. We had some of everything. It was a much harder sail then when I last raced. That time we had the spinnaker up most of the way, this time we were into the wind all the way.”
“The runners have been looking after us on the last sail,” said Nikki Curwen. “They were bringing us drinks and meals and checking we were O.K. They’ve been hard as nails and we think they can do it!”
When the runners return they will be the first all-female team to complete the race since 2009 and will be featured in TV documentaries on the race (in both English and Welsh).
Now the crew must wait to see how their runners get on and when the chasing boats arrive. Rough calculations (based on previous run times) suggest Pure Attitude need to arrive around 8.00am and Wight Rose around 11.45 for it to be a tie. (After their failed attempt to get round Jura Moby J are not out of the reckoning.)
The Aparito team, and everyone else who has followed this quite incredible race, will have to wait until this afternoon to find out the final results.
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