I drove down to Portsmouth to catch the 24 hour ferry from the UK to Santander Spain. It seemed funny that I was going from England to Spain but everything on the ferry was French (it was run by Brittany ferries).

My journey did not get off to a good start when just off the Isle of Wight we stopped, looking for a man over board. It was a lovely ferry with a swimming pool and two cinemas, but after six hours when we finally got going, I was really worried. We were meant to arrive in Spain at midday, giving me plenty of time to drive the 370 miles along the north coast then down to Vigo (just north of Porto) before the end of registration at 9pm.

http://www.afloatweymouth.co.uk/_images/misc/blogs/jonemmett/Vigo.jpg

Fortunately overnight the ferry did make up some time but I still arrived in Spain well after 9pm with registration closed. Fortunately this was not a problem as they let me enter the next day. However since it was now raining, I found it rather difficult to put the event sponsorship stickers on, the result being they kept on trying to fall off! Racing was due to start at 1pm but the wind did not arrive until after the rain had finished so in the end we could complete only two races (with the last race finishing around six).

In the first race I won the pin end of the line but I was unable to cross the fleet so I missed the first shift. However I still ended up second at the first mark but I lost a couple of places downwind as the breeze filled in from behind. Working hard I got back to third at the finish, a good start. The next race I started further up the line making it easier to tack but I was crossed by those on the left and rounded the top mark in the teens. From here I worked my way through to the top six. A conservative start to the event but all in all not bad, and with six races left to go…

I had a nice hotel just 150 metres from the club with a double room with complete black out curtains which was great. However unfortunately the noise wasn’t: the Spanish came in at 3:40am and put the telly on! I very nicely asked them if they could be a bit quieter and they turned down their TV but this did not stop their mates calling them every five minutes!

Eventually I got back to sleep and when I woke it was still dark (remember the black out curtains). I glanced at my watch and saw it was 11:00 am. AAAARRRRGGGGHHHH! The race was meant to start at 11:00… It took me 9 minutes to rig, change and launch and luckily I got a tow out with the jury boat.

Needless to say I was not fully awake for the first race. With the wind now coming from the opposite direction it was the right hand side of the race track which paid (keeping out of the adverse current). A poor start meant I could not tack across and I once again rounded the top mark in the teens, but pulled through to sixth by the finish. The next race I made no mistakes: I started by the committee board and worked right, rounding the top mark first. Unfortunately I went too far right on the final beat and just lost the lead which would have moved me up to second overall.

Unfortunately there was no more racing as the wind never arrived on the final day, and after sitting on the water for a couple of hours we returned ashore. So I had to be content with third place overall. However this was enough to move me into the overall lead in the Europa Cup series, with one more event in Hvar (in Croatia) to go. My return journey was pretty uneventful. It turned out the man over board on the way out was a hoax, so all that stress was for nothing. In fact we had a speedy return trip thanks to the strong wind… the waves in the swimming pool were 1metre high, so goodness knows how big they were outside the boat (it is a good job that I do not get seasick).