Bloody Hell!!
We retired in Yarmouth having experienced 25 to 32kts on the nose for four hours - during which time we did battle with the other yachts, one of which landed on top of us! That was enough for me me, and we turned back to Yarmouth. Zephyr has gelcoat from the underside of some 40 footer along the port rubbing strip!
A good deal of damage occurred to the fleets before the start. The holding areas were witness to carnage - boats dis masted and even capsized! We sailed out of the river with 8 mins to go, found the line, sheeted in and set off.
I have to take my hat off to anyone who braved it beyond The Needles, let alone in a 19' gaffer. I spoke to the 'Escape' team today at Bucklers Hard, and they had a crew of four. They said they wouldn't have made it without the extra weight. I'm not sure how many Mike had, and didn't see him to speak to. We saw Moonstruck arrive in Cowes on Friday, but failed to locate them in the beer tent. We didn't see them on race day at all.
Tom and I sat it out in Yarmouth for a couple of hours listening in to Ch16. It was obvious from that point that we'd made the right decision. I lost count of the number of Mayday and PanPan calls we heard in that time. There were MOB all over, broken rudders, broken masts, sinking boats, inversions, etc, - the Coastguard and RNLI did a fabulous job.
The atmosphere in Cowes was excellent - but it would have been much better to have had some more CC19 entries and therefore people to talk to. I've heard it won't be as windy next year, so how about it?