Its a running joke in the mini transat fleet that “transat”, in French, not only means a transatlantic journey - but also translates into English as a deckchair (or beachchair).

I couldn’t let this pass by - so while launching my new sailing shop (selling sunglasses and sailing watches) - you can now buy yourself a nice deckchair too! (Visit the deckchair shop)

There is a serious point to all of this - each time someone buys a watch via this website one of my sponsors, IRT, will donate money directly towards my sailing. As we have most sailing watches that you would ever want - please do support me - hopefully you consider this a better cause than giving the profit to a chandlery! (You will save 10-15% on high street prices too - so we all win!)

With Christmas coming - why not buy a sailing watch - they make a perfect Christmas present for a sailor!

Alex’s sailing watch & sunglasses shop

Took part in double handed round the Island race (Isle of Wight) and didn’t the wind blow! With a force 8 forecast the race officer decided that we were to sail around the Solent rather than go the “normal” route - and this, as it turned out, was probably a wise decision - as up the 2nd beat we were hitting 35 knots of wind (true) (just after we finished we hit 38 knots in the gusts)

I wasn’t sailing Yellowfin - but was sailing with Jerry Freeman on Fluffy, a Figaro 1. Very nice boat - with water ballast that can be moved from side to side - although racing in the solent isn’t ideal for a water ballasted boat - because we were tacking far too often and on each tack we had to move 200kg of water. Downwind was fairly fast until we blew a spinnaker. Anyway, we finished - which was great - as many of the fleet didn’t.

UPDATE: Bramblemet - the live weather reporting system that reports from the Bramble Bank (in the middle of the Solent) (and found at www.bramblemet.co.uk ) recorded a 42 knot gust at 4 pm on the Saturday.

This year was always going to be about preparation and learning a little more about these boats. In early July I made the decision (following a bit of arm twisting by the UK class association) to enter the first UK mini fastnet race in mid August - leaving from Plymouth to Fastnet Rock and back to Plymouth (about 500 miles) - organised by the Royal Western Yacht Club. This gave me a deadline to get the boat ready - and with the help of a credit card - all the safety gear was soon on the boat.

4 boats started - not many - but enough to be safe - and enough to have a bit of a race. I was sailing with Kev from Cardiff - his first mini experience - and my first time offshore in Yellowfin since launch.

As it happens the other 3 didn’t finish - but we didn’t know that at the time as with just VHF communication, you don’t really know where the other boats are. We did know that Will Claxton (Man of all seasons - 194) retired as we were involved in the mayday / pan pan following his unfortunate running into a submerged object just following the Fastnet rock. At the time we were hitting sustained speeds of 14-16 knots (with max of 16 on the GPS) - we could have gone back to 194 - but they were upwind - we had no engine - and the Irish coastguard RIB was going to be there in 20 minutes (it would have taken us 2 hours). We can leave the Pete Goss moment for another day.

…misty Ireland…

Following this downwind moment - the wind backed to South Easterly…. so again we had to beat. I guess we spent 85% of our time beating. The waves in the Irish sea were generally OK - but there was a 3 hour period where I describe it as “doll in a dog” type sailing - you know when a dog has a doll or something in their mouth - and they just move their heads from side to side frantically. The waves were a bit like that - and it was a struggle to sit in the cockpit without being flung around. Needless to say we had some problems with chafe on the halyards…. and some wear from the spreaders on the mainsail.

New course record: 4 days, 2 hours, 54 minutes and 20 seconds. I very much expect this to be beaten next year by both proto and series boats!

…just to show the sun did come out a couple of times…

Hardest part of the 2 weeks was sailing back from Plymouth to Southampton (150 miles) with Halina - but without the autohelm working. As we were storming along (hitting 13 knots at times - downwind with the solent up) - Halina didn’t want to take the helm - and the self steering isn’t doing what it should be - so I had to steer non-stop for 24 hours - in 20-25 knots of wind. With my current level of fitness I now know that I can do 24 hours including physical effort - but probably not much more. It will be interesting to see if I can push this up a little more! (and I may move to an NKE system as they seem to be what everyone is using)