After an early breakfast, it was all hands on deck to make the ship ready to depart. The new voyage crew learned to brace the yards. Then we all watched Sedov and Mir getting pulled off the quay by tug boats and leave with all fog horns blazing. Then it was up to us to make the final departure preparations. The gangway was dismantled and hauled aboard and the fenders were pulled in. Then we set sail to the cheers of a supposed million tourists!
As soon as all the ships were out of port we all assembled for the parade of sail, Lord Nelson being tenth in line. The crew lined up on the Port side and saluted the Dar Pomorza with a quick Mexican wave. T hen we waged war on the crews of the other vessels with a handy supply of water bombs which where catapulted from a huge elastic band! A great big fire boat then bid us farewell with a shower of water.
A rather over optimistic start point was set at 22 miles out at sea, giving all the participants just 2 hours to get there for the race to start at 1700 hours, but this was delayed by an hour. All sails were set and the forward watches were very slick indeed! The race start line was in-between a small yacht and a very large naval vessel with a big crowd on it and we started the race in-between Georg Stage and Ale xander von Humboldt. To everyone's surprise Sedov was seen making its way back to the mainland after not starting and she is not competing in this race. Within a few hours all the ships had dispersed and we lost sight of many who were too far behind us to make out.
Late at night on Forward Starboard’s 8 til 12 watch, Georg Stage overtook us but we hope to wake up and find that we are ahead again!
Forward Starboard watch
written by Robert and Sophie
Forward Starboard is: Marion, Sophie, Robert, Ruth, Robin, Kumi, Terry, Jamie, John