Boat Captain on Roger Sturgeon's STP 65, Rosebud sums up the Rolex Fastnet Race so far...
Fourteen boats were on our start line and we started the race at the leeward end of the line in good position with the rest our fleet. We were pulling bearing on Luna Rossa (who started at the weather end of our line) for the first 5 minutes after the start when we decided to gybe away to what we thought we be better pressure and let us escape the power boat wake from the boats chasing RAN.
What a mistake that gybe was. We found ourselves caught between the two different breeze directions and our competition sailing away from us. The run out the Solent turned into a beat for the last 2 miles to the Needles and our rhythm did not improve. In short, we were terrible getting out of the Solent.