The youngest competitor in La Solitaire du Figaro, Ireland’s David Kenefick, ‘Full Irish’ arrived in Roscoff in torrential rain at 5.45am today (Sun) to take 36th place. He reports “I got off to a good start: I tacked to clear my air as you do on a normal inshore race, but unfortunately I ended up on the wrong side of the fleet and I stupidly split from it which I have done too many times,” Kenefick admitted upon his arrival. “And the routing that we did beforehand didn’t come into play: It was all the right hand side and I found myself on the right hand side which should have been favoured but that wasn’t the case. After that it was pretty hard to catch up – there were no lanes.”
Kenefick’s race nearly came to an end on the first morning of this leg when his leeward D2 diagonal rigging on his mast came unwound. This required him to go aloft, only he had no climbing gear. He put on a lifejacket and fashioned a make-shift arrangement using a spinnaker halyard on a loop, hauled himself up the rig before shimmying across to the leeward end of the spreader to sort out the piece of rigging. David’s quick minded thinking and successfully getting up the mast kept him in this tough race and he is to be commended for his seamanship and agility in such unexpected circumstances. Can’t have been too nice an experience. Have a good rest David and good luck with the next leg. Your fellow members in RCYC are with you all the way.
Having arrived in Roscoff ahead of schedule will allow the skippers some added time to catch up on their sleep. Little is expected to occur today now they have arrived.
No comments yet.