Myth of Malham retirement and Fastnet withdrawal
Tom was joined by Tori Davies for the Myth of Malham Race around the Eddystone and back at the end of May, racing double handed with the intention of using the race to get most of the qualifying racing miles for the required 50% of the prospective Fastnet crew. Tori took a few photos along the way.
The outcome was not as expected, but valuable in that it showed that Tom’s shoulder is not yet fully recovered from his cycling accident earlier in the year and Tori’s historic ankle injury was likely – since confirmed – to require a more serious operation than she was hoping and will leave her on crutches through July and off-games for much longer. So no Fastnet this year, but Tom has 18 Irish Sea crossings under his belt and Tori has clocked up quite a few as a veteran of Fastnet, Round Britain and Ireland and Round Ireland races so both have already got the tee shirt several times over.
We started the race well and, as the bottom rated boat in Class 3, could see we were leading our class on handicap for much of the run down the Solent and were in good shape across Christchurch Bay. In a failing wind, we stuck closer inshore than most of the fleet as we headed out towards Portland during the evening but then made a poor tactical call, speculating on the wind dying completely across the whole course and failing to appreciate that boats out to sea had sufficient wind to continue to make progress against the tide. The wind filled in during the morning and built to Force 5/6 approaching Start Point and around Bolt Head, peaking at 28 knots off Salcombe. Rounding the Eddystone, we found ourselves beating into a very lumpy sea and realised that the injuries in the crew meant that it would not be smart to carry on and that the Fastnet would not be possible this year. So we turned left for Plymouth, also abandoning our plans to do the Morgan Cup a fortnight later.
Playing with dolphins while Morgan Cup competitors drifted westward
Two weeks later, while the rest of the RORC fleet was heading west in light airs to Dartmouth for the Morgan Cup, we left Mayflower Marina at 0600 to deliver Mostly Harmless east back to the Hamble. With little wind forecast and what there was likely to come directly from behind, we had topped up the fuel tank and brought along spare fuel in jerry cans so we could motor the whole way home. We saw plenty of the RORC fleet coming the other way (and were happy not to be sharing the drifting conditions with them). We were also joined by a school of dolphins (we can’t be sure whether there were two, or a single pod who chose to come back and play a second time). These encounters never stop being very special!
