Day2 RAE 2025

Mark Rosenthal

After waking at 04:45, tidying up my cabin, and the arrival of our other crew member, Sean, we assisted the 3 yacht crews, rafted up alongside Flair IV, to set off and start their passage motoring through the swellies under the two historic bridges across the Menai Strait. There was just about sufficient light at 05:30 to see and navigate safely but we all had our nav lights on. The tidal stream through the swellies, on neaps, was not overpowering and we all arrived on the western side of Britannia Bridge without incident. Shortly after passing Plas Newydd thick cloud and heavy rain restricted visibility most of the way down the Strait finally clearing for a while as we approached Caernafon Bar in some short exciting swell. The individual start timing commenced after rounding C2 mark as we headed north towards Rhoscolyn Head on a great beam reach. The weather conditions were much more favourable once we had passed Ynys Llanddwyn and as usual our line, to gain the benefits of the eddies in each bay, took us quite close to Rhoscolyn Headland and then to Maen Piscar where we could see the white water swirling around the drying rocks. As we sailed further north the wind veered more to the West requiring us to go close hauled until our two short tacks approaching Porth Dafarch. Once clear of this headland, with a clear view of South Stack, we tacked again until we were opposite the RSPB centre at Tŵr Elin when we made our final tack to clear South and North Stacks. By now we should have flown the spinnaker for the last leg to the end of the breakwater but we were so far ahead that we didn’t think it worth it so we continued with the jib and mainsail watching carefully as the Stena Adventurer was sailing to the entrance to the Ferry Port. We had a conversation with Stena Adventurer to make her aware of our intentions and the radio operator kindly said that they would keep clear of our passage. Once round the end of the breakwater we only had to make one more short tack to clear the inner distance mark on the finish line. Once attached to our mooring we organised the cockpit table and had lunch, finishing up most of the uneaten food from the weekend, a fine way to finish the event.