News

As night falls, the Coast Girls are dragging both anchors, just 300 yards off the Kent coast.

With Charlene Ayres still suffering from sea sickness, her rowing partner Sally Kettle is currently trying to re-set the anchors to prevent their boat Pendovey Swift being swept onto the shore north of Ramsgate. The anchors are failing to take a hold on the sandy sea bottom.

 Three hundred miles away, at the Lizard in Cornwall, Team Hallin, in second place, fear they may have missed the tide window to get to Land’s End during the night, Race Director Chris Usborne reports tonight from Penzance.

 Their boat, Hallin Marine II, skippered by David Hosking is 17 miles from the most southerly point in Britain.

 Race leaders The Islanders caught the tide just right and as the sun sets on day five of GBRow 2013, the team of four young men in their boat, the Black Oyster have five miles to go to Land’s End.

 If  Team Hallin do miss the tide and have to wait until morning before reaching Land’s End, they could be caught by Oarsome Adventures, currently in third place, 13 miles behind Team Hallin.

 Keep a weather eye on the race tracker to find out how the drama plays out in the short mid-summer night…

The race start was good fun, plenty of tide rushing through the Thames, we managed to catch and pass Pure Gym fairly early on. We held the position for a while but inevitably after us both being on the oars non-stop for seven and a half hours we had to start breaking into a routine where he have one person on at a time whilst the other eats, recovers and rests, Pure Gym took back their place not too long after that 🙂

We had a little play with a lee shore on the last bend of the Thames, the rudder got stuck a few times in the soft mud but we managed to free it each time by rowing backwards into the wind (with a stuck rudder that’s exhausting). It was slow progress but we found the wind eased off and the first night on the oars was quite nice! I hit a few crab pot flags with the oars (with no warning), made me jump! We also had a seal following the boat for 45 mins. The following morning we made use of the AIS, we got an alert, looked around and could see a big freight ship “Dresden” heading more or less for us!! We could see the shipping lane markers and stayed just inside them. The ship continued past, it’s wake was about 4ft or so and shook us around!

Around Margate was nice, we had people coming over on boats asking about what we’re doing and tempting us with cups of tea! We didn’t have anything…We cruised down towards Dover, asked the Dover Port Control for permission to cross the gates, they were really friendly and let us through after a MASSIVE ferry left not too far in front of us.

Making the best of the tide we pushed on until we couldn’t fight it anymore and anchored at Folkestone to get ready for Dungeoness headland up ahead. As the tide turned we went for it, cleared the headland and powered on through to Beachy Head, where we had a building swell and strong winds roughly in our direction!

Beachy Head was tricky, the wind and swell wanted to push us into the headland so we needed to go almost beam onto the wave (some starting to break) and steer with the breakers in order to get far enough out that we could then change bearing and cruise past the headland with the waves 🙂 as we passed the headland we saw a lone yachtsman throwing his yacht around as if he was out of control in the big waves! Turns out it was a friend of ours that we met in Plymouth when doing a first aid course! A few words exchanged, he set off and is following us online now!

We also saw a small dark dolphin, I’m still yet to know what type it was?

On to the Isle of Wight! We didn’t quite make it in time with the tide, so slowly pushed to get into Sandown for some shelter before the tide changed.

 Tide changed and we set off for a long night. We got past St Katherine’s (headland of IOW) and set bearing for Start Point (home).

We’re settled into shifts, one and a half hours on and off. On our course, I noticed two boats on the GPS and managed to head dead between them, pointing into our course as if waiting to ambush! As we crossed, an alert came up warning of a collision but by that time I could see where they were and roughly where they were headed.. Safe!

 A little disconcerting when you can only see nav lights. There’s very little to tell you distance or scale of the boat.

 Shift change and Jason’s turn to find some boats. He found more than I did! I poked my head out after another alert from the AIS. Jason said, “it’s like the M25”. Looking all around us there were boats, then we noticed one heading straight for us, fairly quiet and eerie.

 Turns out it was one of the Volvo Ocean race fleet flying through with the spinnaker up. We shone our flashlight at them to get their attention, we heard a voice and they immediately changed course, phew! Right after that, the rest of the fleet flew through!! It was pretty quiet after that.

Today, we continue to push onto start point, as we’ve only got one on the oars at a time we can’t fight the tide so we’re using the six-hour tidal windows to make progress – 24 miles in our first window, hopefully a similar amount at 10pm tonight until 4am.

 We were surprised to find out from friends and family we were quicker than some of the fours and we’re also surprised to not be so far from Pure Gym, I’m sure they’ll continue to pull away but we’re very happy with our progress so far!

We’ve been in touch with the Coast Girls and already planning a beer at the end 🙂 hopefully things will get easier and best of luck to them as the only other pair!!

Race leaders The Islanders have begun the long journey north in GBRow2013, the world’s toughest rowing race.

Skippered by Josh Taylor, 24, the four-man team rounded the Lizard at the southern tip of Cornwall just after 1800 hours.

They began the 20-mile row across Mount Bay, passing St Michael’s Mount and Penzance to Land’s End, where they will turn, right into the Celtic Sea and then onto the Irish Sea.

Will the Islanders for the east coast of Ireland, home of crew member Gavin Sheehan?

Or, with easterly winds forecast until Monday, will kipper Taylor, from Mersea Island, Essex, keep the Islander’s boat, the Black Oyster close to the north coast of Cornwall and Devon until those south-westerlies arrive next week, to help drive them up the Irish Sea and into Scottish waters?

Nearest rival David Hosking, and his Team Hallin crew, appeared to be on a course that would take their boat, Hallin Marine II, further out from shore but just before 7pm they turned towards Land’s End, 11 miles behind the Islanders.

Oarsome Adventures in third place – also well ahead of World Record pace – may also pass Land’s End before dawn tomorrow.

The other team of four in the race, Pure Gym, currently in 4th place 90 miles behind the leaders, are tonight heading towards Start Point, near Plymouth.

Jason McKinlay and Josh Tarr, the men’s pair in Savoir Fair, have dropped anchor five miles from Portland Bill, waiting for the tide to turn in their favour. Jason is sleeping, while Josh has just posted a new blog.

Talking of blogs, check out the emotional voice blog sent by Sally Kettle of the Coast Girls, expressing her relief that after four tortuous days they have finally escaped the Thames estuary and are now in the Dover Strait, looking forwards to a tail wind to propel them along the South Coast.

 

 

We are 55.7 miles from Start Point. We’ll have to stop in a few hours (5-6ish) because of the tides but we’ll be underway again around9-10pm…Physically tough day but good progress made…We’re pleased but wonder how much longer we can sustain this level of effort…No idea what time we might be around Salcombe or when. Jase

With a favourable tail wind in exactly the right direction, the leading teams are now well on their way to Portland Bill and on to cross Lyme Bay. Race leaders the Islanders are now nudging ahead of the 2005 World Record pace.

Remaining well out at sea, they have avoided the treacherous waters around Portland which stalled one of the 2010 teams for over 12 hours. In his Captain’s Blog, David Hosking of second placed Team Hallin reports that yesterday’s waters around the South of the Isle of Wight proved challenging, but the team were able to maintain a good rhythm. Hallin are also close to matching the 2005 world record pace.

So far no team has chosen to go through the busy waters of the Solent, where four tides a day can either give rowers a major boost or a serious handicap, depending on timing. It looks as if fourth placed Pure Gym considered it, but they are now heading down the southwestern coast of the Isle of Wight.

Fourth placed mens pair Savoir Faire are now off the Sussex coast and will be approaching the Isle of Wight and that ‘Solent or southside’ decision later this morning, while womens pair The Coast Girls are still battling along the top of Kent against a wind that will be in their favour just as soon as they can turn the corner at Margate. Come on girls, you’re almost there! Check out Sally’s voice blog telling of their gritted determination to get to the next stage.

Today is going to be an exciting day with favourable conditions and race leaders close to each other and to the World Record time.