We drove up last night and stayed at the Climbers' Club hut in the Llanberis pass. This let us acclimatise ourselves to the rain and cloud and allowed us a drive by recce of the road sections of the Snowdon leg. There's a lot of road running to do and I'm glad that I've got a nice new pair of bouncy trail shoes to run in.
There was a race briefing at 11am and we made this with minutes to spare. Looking around the room, it's pretty clear that there are some good runners around. We're going to have to run well to get the result we want. I look forward to having a race on our hands.
The day was spent shopping, eating, chatting to other crews and to friends and family. The Three Peaks Yacht Race seems to be the major annual event in Barmouth and there were loads of people at the harbourside to see us off: and a great drum band.
We got out to the yacht about 4pm and then spent an hour manically packing and stowing. All the yachts motored out of the harbour with hundreds of people and the drum band on the breakwater: a great send off for the teams. Best of all, my nieces were there to cheer me off.
The start was all a bit fraught with loads of very expensive yachts passing very close by at speed. They all seem to have this etiquette, knowing who should be tacking out of the way and whether they'll hit or not. I just try to keep out of the way when all this bacchanal is going on around me.
We got a good start and were in the top 5 on the line. We're now sailing along nicely. I think we're either in the lead or pretty close. The sailors are all switched on and we don't seem to have put a foot wrong yet. From up on deck, I can hear discussion of Journeymaker's progress. I think we're doing well. We're going to get our first really good idea about how the race is shaping up for us when we get to Caernarfon: maybe in 8 hours time.....
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