ROUND ANGLESEY EVENT 2025 Day 1

Mark Rosenthal

Up early to continue with my preparations including adding fuel to the tank. Unfortunately as I poured fuel, from the plastic jerry can, I saw a lump of diesel bug flow into the tank. I had left the tools I needed, to drain the bottom of the tank, at home but fortunately Catharine saved the day by bringing said items up to the club. So having resolved that issue and with the crew onboard we managed to leave the mooring with 10 minutes to spare before our pursuit race start time. As there were light winds as the slower boats started up to an hour and a quarter earlier the pursuit race concept was somewhat compromised as the winds picked up as we rounded the end of the breakwater and we caught up with all the competition, bar Panther, as we sailed round Carmel Head. The winds along the North of Anglesey were dead astern and with the tide race this meant very light apparent winds so we flew the spinnaker without any mainsail. This continued until we came to Puffin Sound when we dropped the spinnaker, raised the mainsail and unfurled the jib to sail upwind along the Menai Strait. During which time we completed 40 tacks! Tess doing remarkable stuff on the winches! On arrival at St. George’s Pier we made fast ensuring sufficient space was left astern for Moonraker to fit on the remainder of the pier, which seemed to be shorter than I remembered. So Moonraker (LOA 44) and Flair IV (LOA 40) moored against the pier and prepared for the other 4 yachts to raft up alongside, 2 on each raft as they all arrived within a short interval. Once we were all settled in place a family of swans came visiting: Tess, Richie and Sean left with Sean due to return in the morning and after clearing things away we walked into Menai Bridge to go and eat. Matt arrived a little later and joined us at the Indian restaurant for dinner. Since we were due to depart at 05:15 - 05:30 in the morning we returned good and early so that I could discuss the arrangements for day 2 with the other skippers. We then worked to free up the mainsheet cam cleat, which had been slipping on our relentless tacking episode. Then we retired to our bunks.