The best birthday present ever!!
Visit Malta Puma have only gone and won the Round Ireland Race - what about that!!
How amazing and utterly fantastic!! This has to be one of the most dramatic and tense races that I have ever reported on. Even the windy Fastnet Race 2007 and Madeira Race 2008 have nothing on this race – it has been nail biting right down to the very end.
In the early hours of this morning, Visit Malta Puma crossed the finish line outside Wicklow Harbour after 4 days, 18 hours, 35 minutes and 7 seconds at 0535 am – what a relief for Philippe and the crew who have worked tirelessly since the race began last Sunday. Some fantastic sailing and tricky tactical decision making especially over the last few hours brought Puma home second in class over the line to Fujitsu, but 1st on handicap. Fujitsu seems to gain some distance from Puma when the yachts decided to go their separate ways yesterday morning, after covering each other for over 24 hours. Fujitsu crossed the finish line at 0350 am this morning, at dawn, well done to Skipper Andrew Britton and rest of the Army guys onboard – job very well done! Visit Malta Puma and some of the crew know Fujitsu very well after competing against her in the RORC series of 2008 including the Madeira Race that summer.
Also, Visit Malta Puma have come 3rd overall on handicap in the race behind Tonnerre and Inis Mor. They are also the first British yacht home on handicap too…..just great! We are also pretty sure that they will have won the team prize as well (with Tonnerre and Psipsina), but will let you know in due course.
Meanwhile, back on the race track, things have not let up for Jaguar Logic, who after clawing back some 40 miles yesterday on the leaders drifted into a wind hole opposite Belfast along with Intuition and Galileo overnight, and have gone just 30 miles in 12hours….at least they are not on their own. They have 64 miles to go at 10.30am this morning, which will hopefully bring them home to Wicklow sometime this evening - come on Jaguar!! They are still neck and neck with Intuition, with less than 1 mile separating them now, and just 6 miles behind Galileo….still all to pay for and still tremendously exciting.. We are not sure if Jaguar know how close Intuition are as they are on opposite tacks at the moment too far apart to see each other we think, so when they both decide to tack back again they will converge and the sparring will start again!
In the meantime, Puma’s crew are enjoying the fantastic hospitality of the Wicklow Sailing Club and having their own internal competition about who can drink the most Guinness before falling over – I think they deserve it!!
PS: As the title suggests, it is someone’s birthday…..Happy Birthday Philippe for tomorrow….!!!
Posted by Allie Smith
