Category: Places
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Troon to St Mary’s – Isle of Man
It’s Monday mid-day and we have Ailsa Craig ahead on our starboard bow. It is a lovely island. The stone from Ailsa Craig is almost unique in that it does not absorb any water. That is why it is the choice of stone for curling. A set of blue granite curling stones from Ailsa Craig will…
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The Final Leg – Arran to Troon
Poor Sumara was about a day behind the rest of the fleet but we were determined to finish. We had heard that about 13 yachts had retired and three did not start so although we were definitely going to be last at least we were going to finish! We had all booked tickets on the…
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Goat Fell
Sumara was so late arriving at Lamlash on Arran that the organisers had to leave so they asked us to time ourselves in and out. It was a hot day and we were not going to be running in the dark but we stuck to the rules and ran with the full kit including extra…
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The Mull of Kintyre
By now we knew we were the last boat to leave Jura for Arran. Barbara, who was one of the organisers had politely asked if we were still competing. “Of course we are” was Charlotte’s reply. To get to Lamlash on Arran we would have to round the Mull of Kintyre – a notorious headland…
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The Paps of Jura
Having been sailing for 26 hours means you are not necessarily in tip top race condition at the start of the run but somehow the adrenalin kicks in and the energy comes from somewhere. Harris, from the nice yellow yacht in Dunstaffnage, had made us a specially decorated tub of nourishing energy giving food and…
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Rowing Past the Corryvreckan
I confess that we had been a little worried on-board the ship as the runners had taken longer than we expected. We knew one runner from another team had to be air lifted off, and we were much relieved when a text arrived from Charlotte saying they were on the road back. Once the tired,…
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The Mighty Ben More
(Written by Grit Eckert) Our team set off in good spirit to complete the run that out of all of them was the longest. On studying the map we learnt that it’ll be 22 miles.Charlotte, Rick and I were defiantly up for it. Half an hour into the run we bumped into the first team…
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Oban to Salen on the Isle of Mull
Scottish Islands Three Peaks Race We weren’t last in the running race but we were almost the last boat over the sailing start line. We had a fair wind and the tide was with us and it was a lovely day so everyone was very happy. The main fleet were pulling ahead but still in sight,…
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The Start
The Race starts with a run over Pulpit Hill near Oban. It’s about 6 miles I think. Grit and I ran it on Wednesday night as a trial but got lost! That was pathetic really but we just missed one turning. We sailed Sumara down from Dunstaffnage to Oban Bay Marina early on Thursday morning…
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Fell Running and Invertors
You may be wondering what happened to my enthusiastic blog. It all started well with lots of posts and then it stopped just as it was going to get exciting. Well my first excuse was that the ship invertor stopped working – it just tripped the contact breaker. I decided against gaffer taping the breaker…