A few minutes later, we were traveling along, not a soul in sight apart from a fellow racer a few miles to our portside. We finally came upon a lonesome fisherman. He must have just been sitting there thinking what a peaceful Saturday afternoon he was having all on his own when we shot by him about 10 metres away, however we had a course to keep with no land bearings so it was the only way to run! Probably woke him up a bit!
At one point the only bearing I had to rely on were the clouds which would explain why on occasion I was drifting over to the right!!!!! But it did work if not that accurately, it gave me something to focus on as I really would have rather finished the race before ending up in France or worse!
We came back along the coast, then across Poole Bay and at this point found one of our rivals with a broken engine (I really did try to feel disappointed for him!). We then continued past Hengistbury head then into the Solent. At one point we had a real test of Mike’s navigational skills when we could not see a buoy to pass anywhere and seemed to be heading for the beach! Suddenly, as we were about half a mile from the buoy a boat moved and there was the green buoy right where it should be, what a relief!
We rounded the turn past Hurst Castle and came into the main part of the Solent and were greeted with the usual chopped up, messy sea and flotilla of yachts of all shapes and sizes which totally threw me! We weaved in and out of these for a few seconds and I am not sure who was most shocked, us or the yachts, I think some of the skippers are still suffering from shock now!!
We now had three laps to do in the Solent and we were both very tired. Trying to spot the marker buoys in the Solent with loads of other markers and boats about was certainly a challenge and I had to totally rely on Mike’s confident navigation as frequently I could not see the correct buoys until upon them.
We continued along, completed another lap and then a second warning light came on the monitors showing an oil can…….. As we came around the far corner on the second lap one of the engines lost all power and the monitor started to look like something out of a sci fi movie! So on one engine we were now traveling at 50mph (I have to admit I was impressed with this!). We limped around the second lap and kept an eye out for any of the boats who would possibly pass us and nothing came up. We were now on the final lap and about 500 metres from the finish when the other engine stopped as well! We were now doing 5 mph on two engines…….we were not impressed! To make matters worse one of our fellow competitors was just coming up behind us, so desperate were we that Mike got the paddles out! But to no avail and we were pipped to the post by two boats giving us a 4th place finish….but that’s racing for you……………onto Round the Island…….