Hello to all from the good ship Jt'aime a J109

We are a multinational crew of Finnish (once invaded by its neighbor to the right)' more on this later, a young French chap who has not yet mentioned garlic, galloise or Napoleon, an American and as he is skipper and owner we have not mention the old tea party, a Scottish chap from the blue half of Glasgow so we have not mentioned the boys yet, a few northerns from Doncaster (Kevin Keegan country) and me someone once said that you needed someone with good looks on board so Tipperary Joe (me) came on board.

We an all male crew (sorry ladies) and we hope to finish sometime Thursday evening.

We gave most of yesterday finalizing minor items and getting the food on board. The food is my domain. Sweet and sour chicken tonight with rice, apple pie for desert.

The team are

Chris - skipper and helm

Bob our router

Ian - helm

Simon - trimmer

David - main sail trimmer

Tempo - helm

Joe - halyards and galley

Ronan - bow

We will update our blog later today.

Love to all.

Joe Sutton

Preparations for the start

The start day has arrived! The yacht is a hubbub of excitement as crew busy themselves stowing gear and doing last minute checks. The yacht qualified by doing the Caribbean 600 race last February and so the crew are really happy to be back together. They are an international bunch and we have worked out that there are ten different nationalities on board including English, Welsh, German, Austrian, Hungarian, Turkish, Argentinian, Canadian, American, French and Greek but since most met in New York so there is no problem with communication. All of them are looking forward to this iconic race.

1 hour to go and the wind is picking up, the sun is out and the multi hulls have just taken off. Lunch has fuelled the crew ready for the big start, with 79 in our class this is going to be a busy start line. Everyone is alert and ready traffic in the Solent is increasing and we are counting down to the big race start!

Bonjour RORC,

From T Bear the racing Bear, here, just to let you know that I am going to try and write a Blog for you and put posts on My Facebook page:

http://www.facebook.com/tbearrace

For those who don't know me I am the mascot for Neil Kipling's Joopster and I have raced with Uncle McIrvine on Larry Ponse.

This is my first Fastnet, but I did the Commodores Cup with Joopster and the Cherbourg Race Uncle McIrvine.

For this race I am with my Friend Tris with a lovely French crew. Everyone is running around doing the final preparations while I 'manage' everything.

I hope to send regular blogs to you when I can steal Tris' phone and get a signal.

Looking forward to seeing you all in Plymouth.

TBear

Sent from my iPhone

Here we go....in the sunshine...for the moment!