Impi Shield - thar she blows (chunks)...

Heavy seas, freezing cold rain and fog - exactly what you'd expect for a summery jaunt to France and back. The Impi shield, a new race (for money - not sure what we think about that yet), was to the Roches Douvres and back - and coincided with some pretty rotten weather.

Here's a pic just after the start, before I had to hunker down and try to keep warm and relatively dry!

Alice leading - followed by Moojo

Suffice to say, a pretty glum time was had on the long reach into the wind, huge swells of St Martin's point took their toll on one member of our crew, who spent the remainder of the race looking a very pale green.

Downwind was more fun, as we made the most of good winds and big waves to surf our way to 11.2 knots!

Third over the line, 4th overall as a Sadler 25, finishing 3 hours behind us (and 4 behind the leaders) came through on handicap to win the race.

Never again? Depends on the weather...

Update from le Tour

Stage two is complete, and whilst some of us have to work, the Blue J'Ade crew are out tireleslly showing the frenchies how to sail.

Race update came in this morning from Chilly Snr.

Results

Carteret to Guernsey - 4th place.
Guernsey to Grainville - 1st place.

The J'Ade is currently sitting pretty in 1st overall, out of 108 boats. 106 of which are French.

Chilly Snr also said something about the French plumbing system in Grainville taking a hammering after a crew outing to the curry house, but details are (mercifully) unconfirmed.

More on le Tour des Ports...

Sunset photos

From the Dinard race - thanks very much Richard Evans..

Jersey skippers eh?

This is the Knight Star (from Jersey) after an 'embarrassing misjudgement'.

'Half the fleet had cleared the rocks, but we clearly got too close to them'

Read more here...

KB Island Yacht Challenge

A very slow day of racing!



But, despite the total lack of wind, we did make it back to Guernsey. Starting at 10, it took six-and-a-bit hours to get there, and we were one of only 17 out of 84 boats that finished!

This boded well for the final placings, and we were pretty chuffed to have come in fourth, particularly after getting pushed out at the start by Alice II.

The eventual winner was Tom Bombadil, from Jersey (Boooooo).



All was not lost though, the blue team (French Blue Dream) romped home to take the team trophy for Guernsey (finishing 4th, 5th and 6th!).

The Governors Cup was much less eventful, although if there were honours to be had, Blue J'Ade would have taken them after winning a water balloon fight and catching four mackerel whilst waiting for the wind that never came.

Crab for lunch was lovely as well...

More photos...