Send Hannah Sailing

 The race start in the Solent was an incredible experience!  Having spent a week building up to the big event, being interviewed by the media and steadily getting more and more apprehensive about what was to come, the send off couldn't have been more impressive.  Following a procession chaperoned by the Illustrious, we started off the Royal Yacht Squadron line off Cowes (the start line for Cowes week and the annual Round the Island Race).  I was in my favourite position on the boat - bow so any photos of the start - I am the one on the very front!

After the excitement of the Solent and the 100s of spectator boats, as soon as we rounded Bembridge everything became a lot quieter and we started to focus on racing the boat. We were fairly competitive across the channel but next faced our first tactical dilemma:  To go down the Alderney races or not?  The Alderney races is a narrow channel by the island of Alderney through which there is a very strong tidal current which would give us some more speed.  However, going North of Alderney is the less risky strategy as we were to discover.  We missed the strong tide by about 15 minutes and found ourselves with no wind, and dropped our anchor to prevent us running back into the English channel on the tide. 6 hours later we were able to lift our anchor (I wish it was as easy as that sounds) and make our way on to the legendary Bay of Biscay.