Round Anglesey

We slipped at 1545, 14 Aug,  from the Holyhead fuel pontoon, having taken on 20 litres, to position Pipedreamer for the Round Anglesey race the following day.  We made good time and were rafted up on St Georges pier by 2200, in time for a pint.  The forecast for the race was for fair conditions and f3-5 wind backing from NW to SW and so it turned out.  We made an excellent start and, despite a couple of scares (clearance both above and below) and seeing a number of groundings, we had a good leg through the Strait.  By the time (1308 from the logbook) the wind had backed as far as W and we were well up with the leading boats.  We set the symmetric spinnaker off the Stacks and stayed in close to avoid the worst of the tide.  However, this necessitated a few gybes in a following sea and we managed to push the pole through the kite, which cost us time to repair and allowed Bada Bing (eventual winners) to catch us.  We managed to fly the repaired kite across the north of the Island until Pt Lynas, where a combination of wind and heading change made further progress with the kite counter-productive.  The final leg from Puffin to Menai Bridge saw us short tacking in company with Kerageous and Bada Bing, both of whom ran out of water (albeit briefly) - a fate we only narrowly avoided at Gallows Point.  It was all looking good with 200m to go to the line when we lost the breeze (and possibly the race), resulting in a frustrating hour or so fighting the tide, until a kind puff pushed us over the line at 21:45.

We dropped most of the crew off on St Georges pier before Huw and I took the boat through the Swellies to Port Dinorwic for the night, ready for our delivery to Pwllheli the next day.  The trip south was pleasant enough.  We lost the wind in Bardsey Sound and motored most of the rest of the way, glad we had had the foresight to put the extra fuel onboard.  During the run up the south side of the Lleyn, we were concerned by changes in the engine note, which coincided with RPM gauge failure and a drop in voltage.  We concluded that the voltage regulator on the alternator was playing up and so it proved when we managed to have it repaired a week or so later.