Phew - windy for Island Double

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.