We’ll be slipping our lines at 09:30 to head out of Ocean Marina in Portsmouth towards the start line in the James River. There are 41 boats taking part, and although this is more of a rally cruise than a race, with four lifelong yacht racers on board, of course we are competing!
The boats range in size and stature, from an ex Americas cup boat, Falcon, through a racing catamaran, Lucky Strike, to some very leisurely ocean cruisers, which make up the majority of our fleet. If you are following the fleet on Yellow Brick, we will all be watching how quickly some of the racing boats make it to Tortola.
So now, our water tanks and fuel are topped up, and we’ve had our last hot showers. We have our watch schedule posted up in the navigation station along with all the other information we need to hand on radio frequencies, weather forecasting , emergency mayday calls, the ship’s log and of course our charts.
We’re off!