St Tropez to Cascais

Well the 2nd leg of the race, from St Tropez to Cascais has started(ish).

Although we are only doing the main leg from Portugal to Barbados, there were/are/were feeder races to Cascais. We missed the first leg due to tedious things, such as, not knowing about it and having to go to work.

But, some keener more competitive types have been organised enough and the race from St Tropez to Cascais left yesterday. Early.

I know it's a bit odd to start a race early, but the plan from the race organisers was to miss the poor weather forecast for the Gulf of Lyon, and hope to have the fleet past the Balearics before the gales piled in.

It hasn't worked.

However, in a move that has restored my faith race organising committees for classic yachts, they have diverted the fleet to Barcelona to sit out the poor weather and re-start once the weather improves.

We start from Lisbon (38 N) in the winter. The weather might be nasty. The Canaries are close. They're beautiful. They're cheap. Bad weather and a good race committee could be a good combination.