You call this racing?

From the weather forecast I was expecting a re-run of the last time we started a race down the Stour from Wrabness. Then we had drifted across the start line and had to give up an hour later before we got to the Erwarton cardinal as the tide had turned. This time it was a little better. All the boats got moving OK but we missed our customary good start because Drum of Drake got to windward of us and acted like a skyscraper, leaving a huge wind hole. The boats like Reverie, with light wind sails, screamed off down river, leaving us to tussle with Otter, who matches our speed quite closely, despite being a much lighter, very early Cornish Crabber (no 44).

Reverie and her Mark Butler 'special' multi-purpose sail

 Then, near the buoy called Ramsay, the wind went lighter and we were only just stemming the tide. I put this frustrating picture on Facebook.

 It wasn't long before we decided to give up and put the motor on. When we got a little further down river we discovered that the wind had dropped there too, catching My Quest, Rely, Drum of Drake and many other little ships in the tide by Felixstowe. Then we saw Charm heading in to Suffollk Yacht Harbour and worked out she must have finished the course and be heading home, rather than to Walton. We found out later that Robert and Lorna are going to Lil Edwards funeral tomorrow. I'm glad someone from the gaffers is going, I will miss Lil and feel very sorry for Barry, having to manage without her.

We motored out past Harwich breakwater and then the wind filled in again and we had a nice sail into Hamford Water where we anchored again. Lots of crews went over to Stone Point for a drink on the beach but we cooked some dinner and had another quiet evening. We worked out that we needed to get up at 4:30 am to have any chance of getting to West Mersea for the packing shed lunch so we tried to get an early night.