Back on dry land...

What a totally awesome time we had at the Sail the Solent challenge!  33 people rocked up on Friday night to meet their skippers who would be taking them out on the 6 boats for the weekend.  Suzy and Gemma went to meet and greet the teams, some of which had never met each other before and had a great night getting to know everyone and get the banter started...

 

Suzy's highlight of the night was meeting the rather wonderful record breaking sailor Alex Thomson!  Suzy is a massive fan and he came down to the Landers bar in Gosport for a few drinks with his mates before getting accosted by us! 

 

So, after a few get to know you bevvies at the Landers, the teams and their skippers went off to the boats to get used to the motion of the ocean before setting off Saturday morning into the Solent. 

 

The weather on Saturday was fab for learning the ropes, the sun was shining the sea was pretty calm and the skippers showed the teams all they needed to know to get the most out of the sails and the tides while Suzy and Gem bounced around in the rib avoiding the thousand other boats and a sea plane to make sure everyone was having a good time (and blagging cups of tea and jaffa cakes off the lovely team Bail out - Plan B)

 

Lessons over, all our teams moored in Cowes for the night and really got themselves geared up for the big race on Sunday!  some with a few too many pre-celebratory drinks we think... although we were assured on Sunday morning that the vomiting was tactical to reduce the weight of the boat! 

 

So Sunday morning came round sooner than the daylight did and we were all up at 5am to get the most out of the tides for the day's race...  it was hard to tell the weather in the dark at first but once on the boats it was instantly obvious that the calm waves of the day before had gone and we were in for a choppy day at sea.  It was perfect for the race, teams set off and the wind kept everyone moving quickly towards the needles...

 

It was very close at the start with Bail out - Plan B in the lead and Ross' Virgins tailing them with just seconds in it, but a slightly late start meant the tides changed and the race had to be restarted at the needles...

 

again close the whole way round, teams with anchors not stowed had points deducted, boats with handicaps given extra points and the times were recorded as each boat crossed the finish line.  Team Chakana crossed first with Bail out - Plan B a very close second.  Here come the Girls and team Helles Belles were almost neck and neck and all the boats made it through the finish line within 8.5 hours of the race start!! 

 

champagne was flowing and spirits were high all evening as the teams waiting to hear those all important results....

 

In 3rd place; Team Chakana

In 2nd place (with only 45 seconds in it); Team Bail out - Plan B

and in 1st place....

 

Here come the Girls!!

 

Jackie has this to say about the event "Who would have thought it.......certainly not the other five boats....but we actually won!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  We are all very bruised and battered, but it was a fantastic experience for such a good cause.

"Our boat was called Dream Chaser...what a great inspirational name for us, she was very cranky and lots of things went wrong with her, even our oven blew up on the last morning, but she got us over that finish line in one piece!

"The weather on the race day was not good to say the least, the wind was ...well windy! to say the least and some of those waves.  oh my god, I have never been so    frightened,     exhilarated,     exhausted,    **** scared,  emotional  and then incredibly proud in my life!

"My shipmates were fantastic...the two rambos, Kelly and Jo who had incredible strength, Mandy whose skills at steering were beyond compare, Lucy my lovely daughter, was the  good all  rounder, all over the place, had to keep hanging on to her incase she disappeared over the side! Ann and myself ..the senior members .... were the ballast, we both put everything we had into it, the adrenalin and Andy calling us a bunch of Pussies gave us the strength to do our bit.

"Last but by no means least to the Action Medical research Team, for the fantastic organization , and most of all for all the hard work that they themselves do for this fantastic charity.  I would recommend to anyone who needs an extra kick in their lives to go on their website and look at all the fun and challenging fund raising things they do!"

Thank you Jackie!  So in all it was an amazing weekend, already the teams have raised over £20,000 for Action Medical Research and we cannot wait to see more people on this event next year!