We had a complete disaster at the start, not nearly cautious enough, over the line two minutes early. We spent about thirty minutes trying to re-cross the line, only then reading the rules (a little late maybe!) to discover that there was an automatic 5% penalty and no re-crossing.

With a wasted half hour, and a 5% penalty, under our collective belts we set about trying to catch the fleet, we did quite well on the beat up to the Needles, and were making good progress.

Very considerately, most of the fleet kindly waited for us at Bembridge Ledge which greatly aided our efforts to catch up!

We hugged the Island shore all the way back through the Solent and even managed to find some tide flowing in our favour, this helped claw some time back. We were feeling quite pleased with ourselves as we crossed the line, having made up a lot of our lost ground, at 8:38pm after 11 hours and 38 minutes.

However, our joy was short lived as we learned that due to starting 2 minutes early, we were disqualified! 2 minutes was considered too great an advantage for the 5% penalty to be applied.

Never mind, it was a good day and we did manage to get round, as you say, without hitting anything…although it was close at times.

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