The Three Peaks Yacht Race
Bustling Barmouth
Rob Howard / 07.06.2014
The Merioneth Yacht Club is in the midst of its busiest weekend of the year as the 3 Peaks Yacht Race crams into its small bar and meeting room in advance of the race. This is the race HQ for the start of the event and they somehow manage to feed everyone and squeeze them into the bar for the briefings (for racers and for support crews).
All that needs to be done gets sorted in the hubbub and as usual there have been teams with equipment missing (DSTL were looking for Spinnaker runners and Interpid Misfits for some oars), teams with members missing or late, and teams who are meeting old friends again, or meeting up for the first time!
All the yachts have to be scrutineered and the runners have their kit checked as well. Paperwork has to be completed (including the ‘blood chit’ which says “its my own fault”), and all the runners going up a peak have to have a mountain card with their photo on.
One team who had to make a last minute change are Mistral, whose bowman Ian Douglas is ill with a virus and decided he could not race. The team found a replacement, Dave Foster, who is travelling from Hull to get here in time for the start. Their runners are Stu Walker and Alex Pilkington, and Alex said he only got the call to race a week ago – so it’s one of those teams which is coming together just in time.
The team from Baloo only arrived late on Friday night – their boat had been in Barmouth for a fortnight, but the crew were still one of the last to arrive.
In amongst all this activity, the race has hosted a couple of classes from local schools and been given 3 bottles from them with messages in, for the teams to throw overboard. This has been done before and one was found on a remote (and uninhabited) northern Hebridean island.
While much is the same as last year, and the year before (it’s a very traditional race) there are always some changes. The race has used Yellowbrick trackers on the yachts for many years, and will do again, but this year the runners will carry the trackers on the three peaks for the first time, so you can follow the whole race.
For the first time the race also has its own Facebook and Twitter pages for news during the race. The links are below and the hashtag to use on both is #3pyr.
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Barmouth-to-Fort-William-Three-Peaks-Yacht-Race/107471789373349
https://twitter.com/3peaksyacht
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