Having gotten over the disappointment to how my first leg of La Solitaire has gone, I am now already starting to look forward to next Sunday’s start...

The first 24 hours went generally badly for me, every decision I seemed to make turned out to be the wrong one. Nothing that wasn’t recoverable however, and while at the back of the pack, I was still confident I could recover some time and get back in the mix, especially with the high pressure and trough still to cross in Biscay.

However, whether it be from my wild youth, inexperience or just a continued theme of my poor decision making, I choose to split from the fleet and go looking for breeze on the eastern edge of the high, a generally bad move as North East was the direction it was heading, and so while it looked good originally, the centre of the high moved back over me, so I sat and watched everyone sail away from me to a 30 mile lead until I could sneak out. Probably some of the most painful and frustrating hours I have experienced sailing in my life. Ouch.

That being said, as sails go, I actually had a great time and loved it, I love the longer periods at sea, getting into your routine, and I had some of the best and most memorably enjoyable times on the water of all this year on this leg. A bit of catching up on sleep required over the next few days then time to get stuck into Leg 2, a fire’s brewing in my belly, a point to prove.

Allez,

H