Frustration for John Merricks II as painfully light winds prolong their final charge to the finish 

John Merricks II 50nm off Round Britian and Ireland finish

This time yesterday the British Keelboat Academy’s crew on board John Merricks II thought they might have finished their epic Sevenstar Round Britain and Ireland Race journey by now however, the TP52 has been hampered by painfully light winds over the past 24 hours putting paid to the prospect of finishing the race during daylight hours today. Just short of 50nm off the Royal Yacht Squadron finish line, grinder and crew physical fitness champion, Hamish Macdonald reported today’s crew blog.  

“The last 24 hours have been a bit of a mix really. We were just off the Scilly Isles and it all looked good as we were on the final run into home this time yesterday but as usual the western approaches of the English Channel turned round to bite us and we ended up stuck in absolutely no wind off Lands End for about 12 hours, literally not moving. It was pretty painful to go down off watch and come back three hours later to see we hadn’t moved at all especially when we got the update saying our main competition seemed to be doing 10 Knots at the time!”  

“We weren’t just sitting there watching the sails flap - we were sending people up the rig looking for the next wind shift to tap into. Eventually we hooked into a little bit of wind which developed and developed and we ended up on 10-11 knots. We’ve held ever since really and it’s just been a long beat up The Channel now 50 miles off Bembridge and closing in fairly quick.”  

He continued: “It’s definitely been a massively physically demanding race - I’ve been quite surprised. The first few days were really tough, the spinnaker run out of the Solent we were burning grinders every 15-20 mins and if that had kept up I thought we were going to have quite a lot of issues. As it turned out we did have 30 plus knots for three or four days and I was just really happy with how the guys coped with it – maybe they have been doing my gym programmes after all! We’ve not really had any crew issues due to lack of fitness and I’d like think that’s one of the reason we have done better than people expected us to on this boat because we are quite a fit crew and we’ve been able to muscle our way through where perhaps others haven’t.”  

“I think the highlight of the race for me so far has been when we went on starboard tack for the first time rounding Muckle Flugga and I finally got my water maker running. I’ve been in charge of that and without water we wouldn’t have been able race for very long. Because of the design of the boat and where all the water intakes are I couldn’t make any water for the first few days. Getting that started was just immense relief really as I essentially had the race in my hands and I started to have nightmares about us dropping out because I had made a bit of a mistake in organising that to put it lightly.”  

“We can’t wait to finish – these last 24 hours have been pretty frustrating,” he concluded.  

 To follow the race live visit http://sevenstar.rorc.org/2010-fleet-tracking.html . 

For more information about the Academy visit www.britishkeelboatacademy.org and to follow the event blog click here.