One of our competitors described leg 5 as a lesson in patience. We had to deal with a large ridge of high pressure right above the Channel, slow moving and without significant change. Under the high the wind is rather difficult to forecast accurately. Given the warm weather the sea breeze effects caused major changes in the wind strength and direction closer to the coast. Grib files were not very usefull. We had to deal with very light airs and periods without any wind at all.
At the anchor right on top of the Channel Tunnel. It was not easy to lift the anchor. We used a winch and put serious tension on the line, like a high E string on a guitar. That wasn't enough so we sailed to boat over the anchor to force it out. Suddendly the anchor came loose and off we went (in only 2 knots of wind) and we could take the anchor in to find out that the cross bar had snapped!
Apparantly we pulled a gap in the ceiling of the tunnel. Oh no, we saild, all the water will now float into the tunnel, the Channel will be empty and we will have to walk to Plymouth.
A very tactical leg. On the one hand you would like to stay near the coast to take advantage of the sea breezes and to be able to anchor in shallow water. On the other hand the general wheater situation showed a (predominantly) westerly breeze that would veer to south-west later. This would justify to sail on the starbord tack away from the shore and to tack after the shift and lay Startpoint. We compromised between those two and when the wind finally settled in SWerly direction we were past Portland Bill, tacked and we could make it to Dartmouth.
Startpoint has proved to be really difficult to negotiate. This cape caused huge local changes in the wind, and closer inshore there was no wind at all. But we finally made it around this last cape before the finishline in Plymouth. A nice evening breeze did not die out in the evening and on 20.46 we crossed the line.
On the balcony of the Royal Western a nice crowed welcomed us in with support for the last meters and applause for us on the finishline. We finished as the 2nd VQ32. We gained significantly on Vandal (1st) in the last leg, but we could not overtake them. The gap with Velocity Girl (3rd) stayed the same. We finished about 18 hours before Jager, who were only 5 miles behind us near Dover. This shows how difficult this leg has been.
This Round Britain started with very good winds and the fleet was a few days ahead of the normal schedule in Lerwick. The second half of the race was really slow in light airs all the way from Lerwick to Plymouth and not once did we pull in a reef.
It has been a very good race for Home of Jazz, with a wide variety of conditions. We were a good team. Again I learned a lot about the boat and about myself.
