As you have all seen ‘Welcome to Yorkshire’ finished in 6th place at the end of Race 1. It was a quiet mood for a while as we made our way into the Quinta De Lorda Marina. It had truly been a race of ‘cat and mouse’, and the fleet was hampered slightly by the light conditions. None of us envisaged the need to ‘anchor’ during a race…for which most of the fleet ended up doing at Aldaney.
We arrived at 5am and were welcomed by some of the familiar faces of Clipper. Justin Taylor congratulated us on a ‘close run’ race and passed over a case of beer, which was duly enjoyed by the crew, and helped us to forget how tired we were all feeling. Some of us opted for a few hours’ sleep prior to starting the ‘deep clean’. It felt like I’d only blinked my eyes and it was time to get up again to start the long list of jobs! Thankfully we all worked hard and got ‘Welcome to Yorkshire’ looking very shiny. The next job was to clean ourselves! Off to the showers, where a number of us found only cold water! Despite this it was great to be clean, and have a shave! Most of the guys
were in the running for the David Bellamy/Brian Blessed award so a shave was definitely needed. When the crew returned to the boat it was hard to recognise we were the same group of people that had set off from Southampton 10 days earlier!
The crew dinner was fantastic, and thanks to Andy’s wife (Debs) we had booked up a very nice restaurant that catered for all our culinary desires! For me it was a peppercorn steak. Awesome! Needless to say this was accompanied by a few beers, and it was a good time for the crew to blow off a bit of steam. The warm climate was a far cry from the storms in Biscay!
After a very ‘fuzzy’ start to Thursday, we all went to the main Marina complex for the crew briefing. Apart from confirming details of our passage to Rio, we also viewed some of the media photos that had been taken of the fleet leaving Southampton. They were amazing, and seeing HMS Illustrious steaming along behind the fleet in perfect formation was incredible.
We were one of the more fortunate boats out of the fleet in that we had sustained very little damage or equipment failure (other than our comms) compared to some of the others. One crew had spent every hour of the two day stopover sewing back together one of their Spinnaker sails!
With our free time some opted for a stint at the local beach, but myself and a few others opted for a guided tour of Funchal, which included some ‘wine tasting’! It was a great afternoon and felt like we’d had a good opportunity to see some of the Island. We also visited one of the many high peaks overlooking the island and tried some of the local ‘poncha’ (which was a mix of fruit and Andy ‘firewater’! It certainly assured a very quiet coach on the way back to the marina!
That evening was the prize giving. ‘Welcome to Yorkshire’ crew turned up in full pink uniform, and sporting the local head gear we indulged in the free bar and snacks that had been laid on by the kind people of Madeira. The President of Madeira himself arrived to give the prizes. The crew clapped and cheered for our friends as they collected their winner’s pennants. For me I made a promise that we would do everything possible to ensure we are on the podium in Rio! This was a thought shared by all on ‘Welcome to Yorkshire’. So at race start on Friday, we felt very excited at the prospect of redressing the results of Race 1.
A brass band played as we slipped our mooring lines once again. We were the 5th boat out of the marina and received a great send off from everyone. The adrenaline really kicked in and I could see everyone on CV3 had their game faces on ready for action!
Out on the water it was a very different sight to the one we had been greeted with in Southampton. You could count the amount of spectator craft on one hand, but that did not detract from the electric atmosphere! As sails went up we looked around at the sail plan everyone else had up. Some had gone very conservative with a ‘reefed’ main sail. ‘Welcome to Yorkshire’ braved the strong blow with full main and Yankee 2 headsail.
As we counted down to race start, we found ourselves in close proximity to ‘Derry-Londonderry’, and ‘New York’. We were close enough to see the ‘whites of their eyes’! We crossed the line in 4th position, and worked hard to secure a great angle on the wind.
As the race continued to the next marker, we were greeted by a huge tug that shot water cannons high into the clear blue skies, and its deep fog horn sounded in salute for each yacht that passed. We were then off! A number of boats opted for an inshore route, which eventually saw them ‘parked up’ in the wind hole formed by the Islands shadow. Luckily CV3 opted for a broader angle and we launched our heavy weight ‘kite’ (Spinnaker sail) and trucked on out into the Atlantic hot on the heels of ‘Gold Coast Australia’.
We have now been racing for over 24 hours and find ourselves in 2nd place! We are hunting ‘Gold Coast’ like a boat possessed. As I write this we have just been told that we have eaten away 1.5 miles from ‘Gold Coast’s’ lead and gaining. We are trimming and helming well. As long as we can hold this we should be in a good position for the ‘scoring gate’, which is just off of Cape Verde Islands!
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