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So the first night was a long beat around the back of Belle ile where I seemed slow and lost a few places. In the early hours I spotted the wind-clocking round and hoisted the zero before the boats around me. Up to this point the pilot had been ok but not great, it finally gave up and stopped AGAIN.

I had a challenging peel to the big kite with no auto helm but when I was set it worked well. I got into a line of boats mainly the series all plodding one behind the other not really fighting for position but just soaking to the mark, after a while I got frustrated and heated up hard and headed away from the pack miles offshore, and gybed back in, late in the afternoon, a bit worried about the gamble. It paid off and I had made back all the positions I had lost over the night. It felt good.

We rounded at the south point of the course and started the long beat up north around Ile D’Yeu and into the second night. I was holding my position well and pointing higher than the boats around me. I made the decision to tack over early and a big group came with me and went offshore. It was a bad call. I should have followed the coast and then the island for as long as possible and rounded tight like the local guys.

I finally had to get some sleep, and its easiest to balance the boat to self steer up wind. When I woke up I couldn't see any other boats at all. I had seen lots going inshore and it crossed my mind that everyone else had heard there was a shortened course at the bottom mark (as was disgust at the briefing if the wind report didn't improve) and they had caught a tidal gate while I was asleep and gone home. It was dawn so I kept going on my course and waited for morning.

As soon as the sun rose the wind shut off completely. More drifting in zero wind and with the extra stress that I was the only one still out. At lunch time I was going crazy thinking I was either dead last or on my own out in no wind. I had a good talking to myself and decided I had 2 choices, head in or go all the way in little breeze on my own. I decided to give it my all and keep working hard to keep the boat moving and if it meant days of extra sailing on my own then that fine, it would be great training. I also had time to go below and have a good go at repairing the much simple back up pilot that also hadn't worked. Success, I had a Baxter (the pilot) back again. I got some more sleep on deck now the boat could steer and waited for the breeze to fill in. Around 1600 I felt the breeze and was up like a shot. I had a great evening beating round Belle Ile, then reaching to Goix. At both islands we were to report to the light house to relay our positions and that we were okay. I asked if they had any news about the shortened course and cheekily if many boats had passed. They explained there had been a lot of confusion about the course but we were still racing and that I was doing well and up in the first half of the fleet. It was a huge boost and I sailed as hard as I could for the rest of the night to catch anyone I could on the way back down to Pornichet. By morning I could see lots of boats again and started to pick them off as we beat back home in light wind and big swell, painful but Night Fever is fast in the light stuff, so I guess its good for me. Then around 30 miles from home it happened again, as the heat rose the breeze died. I concentrated as hard as I could to keep the boat going while others had stopped, and chased any little puff I could see. It work, I overtook the group I had found, the wind clocked again and allowed us to put code 5's up, it was a really tight angle so the boat started moving fast in such little breeze. Coming to the finish with only a few miles the breeze dropped completely and the windex was doing the horrible thing where it swings round and round as there is no apparent wind but I kept the code 5 up and used it as a wind seeker, I had a horrible last couple of mile where I could see the finish but couldn't soak to it for fear of losing any momentum and stopping. I crossed just ahead of the group, but still had no real idea of position.

I as towed into the marina to not find many boat. Great maybe 20 ahead of me so well in top half of the fleet. I reported straight to the office to find out I was being protested. I ended up with a time penalty for having poorly visible nav lights, very disappointing as I lost some place in the results (especially because they had a nav light check and I passed but they were poor when I was having power problem with the pilot the 2nd night). So on the up side I was happy to not be thrown out of the race and keep my qualifying miles. And still ended up in the top half of the fleet.