Big grin on our faces, but let’s go back to the beginning, a bright sunny Sunday morning at Marina di Ragusa.

For a change we managed to convince our much better halves to join us for a race, although I must admit that there was some bribery in the form of fine dining.

Having been cooped up, like every one else, for most of the winter the crew of Time Out were chomping at the bit to get going and this was clear from the start where we showed a clean pair of heels to the rest of the fleet before slowly being overhauled by the larger and faster boats, namely Xpresso & Comanche Raider III. We did hold our own until the first transition where an hour of light winds made progress agonizingly slow for all but Xpresso who managed to slip away and extend.

The next transition brought a welcome change with a fresh North Westerly fluctuating between 8 to 14 kn true. What a challenge – we knew we were in touch with the leaders and worked relentlessly to squeeze the last 0.10 of a knot out of the old girl and she responded magnificently to every little tweak.

As we got to the last couple of miles we were faced with a big lift which meant that to keep up speed we had to over stand as far as Torri/ Exiles and then gybe along the coast down to the finish line – tense moments as we knew that we were eating up precious minutes.

You can imagine our delight this morning when the official results were published showing us leading by less than a minute.

Great time Ragusa, great race RMYC, super Time Out crew ladies first and foremost!