Pesky Birds and Round the Island Race 2013

I have been spoiled for sailing over the past few weeks. Firstly the month of May finally heralded Spring (better late than never) and presented me with two amazing bank holidays to take the yawl out on some adventures around the Exe. Our first Yawl race of the season was wet and windy which gave us the opportunity to really test the boat in challenging conditions, we were glad to see that nothing broke and the Yawl survived unscathed, less can be said for my poor Dad :  )

In other 'thrilling' yawl related news, the bird scaring bunting seems to be doing the trick and saving the cover from the majority of bird attack. It would however appear that a small minority of hardy birds still can't resist a go at making our poor boat a mess.

Outside of Yawl sailing, this weekend I had a break from the Exe and headed to the solent for an early start and some champagne sailing on the round the Island Race. 20kts of wind at times and almost continuous sunshine was an unexpected treat, I hope to see some more days like it this summer. Our team didn't get round the island in the sub 3hrs that Ben Ainsley managed but in a nevertheless respectable 8 and a half hours.

I snapped these photos on my iphone as we rounded St Catherines lighthouse

Happy sailing,

Rich