No surprises – not a good year for getting round the island in daylight. Due to the late start (we were given a start time of 0810 instead of the usual 0630 or so) and light/non-existent winds less than a quarter of all boats finished and in our group 85% of boats had to retire, us included. Saffron Star is a 20 year old safe, seaworthy boat but is not a racer so perhaps we should not feel too bad.

I am sure Jerry was watching and I hope he wasn’t taking the Mickey too much. We did our best Jerry. I’m sure if you could have joined us in person, it would have made all the difference.

We still wouldn’t have finished, but we’d have had a laugh.

After two hours of sitting going nowhere one by one all the competitors are putting on their engines and going home. After seeing Ellen McCarthy’s cancer charity boat give up on the lack of wind we checked again the forecast (no wind) and it is clear we cannot get to the finish line by 22.30 when the race closes. After that time a competitor is classed as DNF and sadly we have concluded that we are DNF.

We are heading back to Gosport. We had some great moments along with the frustration but we have raised a lot of money for Pancreatic Cancer research. I will post the final tally next week but it is likely to be over £5k.

And one last thought. We decided unanimously that what Jerry would have done was say ‘Sod this. Let’s go for a beer.’

We are stuck in irons as they stay, becalmed. We are moving at least than two knots (2 mph). The forecast is for no wind until tomorrow so crew morale is a bit low. Buy, they, the Met gets things wrong just waiting for a Michael Fish moment.

Past St Catherine’s Point. We have a good wind for the return. At the moment.

When you sit for hours drifting with the tide you think what’s the point of the Needles?

Heading for the start line.

The crew has arrived and we are ready to go. But with light easterlies forecast we are worried about getting round in a decent time. Fingers crossed.

You will be able to follow our progress tomorrow here:

http://ngtrack2.ngresults.co.uk/webviewer/