The Three Peaks Yacht Race
Everyone Completes The Race As The Final Two Arrive
Rob Howard / 14.06.2014
The final two boats in the race made it to the finish line on Saturday at Corpach.
Intrepid Misfits were the first to arrive after a stop/start race. “We made good speed when we were sailing,” said skipper Jonathan Hart, “but when we had no wind we were literally going nowhere!”
They were stalled in Loch Linnhe for a while and Catrin Egerton took the chance to go swimming! The yacht was literally stationary so she was swimming around the boat and said swimming out in the sea like that was one of the highlights of the race for her.
After getting lost on the way to the race party on Thursday night and having to be rescued, they set off on the more adventurous trip up Ben Nevis. Jamie Sanches had to get a train to the airport, but the other 4 set off together until the skipper decided to head back, he already had blisters before reaching the foot of Ben Nevis, so it would have been a painful walk.
So three went up and down to finish off the race, and they even claimed 3 trophies. There is one for the first Scottish based boat (they were the only one), the won the Kaminga Clogs, given to the slowest runners, and also took the The Last Inn trophy for the final finisher.
This was because DSTL ran out of time and decided they had to motor up to the finish, so in the end were unclassified. They said they’d rowed for many hours, but had no choice as had to return the charter boat on Sunday to Ireland.
Still, they were determined to finish the course off, and arrived just before 21.00 on Friday and their two runners, Jem Bersin and Andy Palmer, completed Ben Nevis in the dark to make the finish line just before 03.00 on Saturday.
Their finish meant that all the boats who set off had completed the race. It has been one of the most successful and fun events for many years and in a break with tradition entries were opened straight away for next year (with a £50 discount for early entry) ... so hopefully they’ll all come back and do it again!