Brightwork's first Fastnet

Brightwork and her crew finished the Fastnet 18minutes short of 120 hours. The smile on Oliver's face when he forced a VO60 to duck us kept us amused until at least the Lizard. Admittedly the three wind holes on the way out were a bit of a pain as Brightwork prefers a bit of a blow to faffing about in light airs. That said we devised a novel sail configuration - no main, just kite and putting the symetric fractional up on the mast head halyard to raise it up a bit extra (yeah, yeah we could have a more complete sail wardrobe but where would be the ingenuity then).
Top speed of 15.6 kts (Oliver driving again) kept us smiling and busy on the return from the Rock, even David managed to surf once.

How to measure the success attached to two years of preparation, many conversations with Simon Rogers & Gerry White, new sails, much boat maintenance and finding crew who'd rather be on Brightwork than a bigger more luxurious boat? Well we're not a big fan of the IRC handicapping system as we rate so badly but even so 139th on handicap isn't too dismal for the smallest boat in the fleet. However the placing can't be said to match the elation of finishing, Bernie's state of inebriation after 3 drinks or the pleasures of a bath and clean underwear.