Well as predicted we are still in Arklow bouncing up and down on the pontoon - almost! Anyway before all that here are some of the pics we got on Saturday at Wicklow with the start of the Round Ireland race.
Around 45 boats had entered the race, the largest a 100ft racing machine, a couple of Volvo 70s but with many in the 40-50ft range.
The race is all the way round the Island - I guess 600mile +.
The boats were rafted up in two places in Wicklow harbour. These were in the sheltered bit!! When we got there we found that the race had been postponed from the scheduled 4pm Saturday start until 10am the following day due to the F8-9 winds that were forecast. The weathermen were surprised at storms of this magnitude in June.
It poured down with rain as we walked round - good job Dave had brought an umbrella.
This photo shows the inner harbour area. Normally the fishing boats are on the south pier as well.
...and then on to the outer harbour wall. Pam is under the umbrella with Dave. Top left -behind the boats- is the Wicklow yacht clubhouse. This was packed with around 300+ crew and supporters left with 24 hours to fill. The bar was doing brisk businnes so we had to try the Guinness. Going up with Dave was very good as he knew a number of people so very interesting to get some of the inside information.
Due to the high winds on Sunday morning - the forecast F9 did appear - the race was delayed until mid-day sunday and then off they went. We saw them pass Arklow from the end of the pier with Leopard, the big Farr 30M covering at least twice the distance of the rest of the fleet. Good luck to all the racers. It would be bad enough to try and do a 600+ race but in those wind conditions I take my hat off to them. Having done last years North Sea race in a F8, which we knew would take less than 2 days, to do a race which will take the slower boats aroun 5-7 days is hard work.
If you want to keep a track of the race there is a good gps tracker on the internet. Google Round Ireland race and you'll find it.
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