Mojito arrives in Southampton and Jackknife prepares for Transatlantic.

While many boats are out of the water for winter storage, some of our racing crews are still at it!

Mojito has arrived in Southampton after an icy cold sail from Pwllheli, leaving snow on the hills behind, and is now waiting for the ship to the Caribbean. 

 It seemed like our young crew, accompanied by Sammo, had fun as they sent regular photos along the way.  

 Chloe Fahey said ‘The journey from Pwllheli to Southampton was beautiful, filled with varied weather conditions and lots of laughter and snacks.  A highlight for me was seeing the west coast as we travelled and arriving in the Solent with sun on us instead of snow. The trip strengthened friendships and provided a refreshing and educational experience for everyone involved. I think I can speak for us all, saying we had a brilliant delivery and cant wait to get sailing again.’

Heather Griffiths gave this account of the trip:

We set off on Sunday morning to a gorgeous sunrise, however it was a very cold morning so all of the crew were wrapped up warm.

Once we got past the St. Tudwall islands, we put the sails up and shortly after went onto watches with me and Chloe on watch together 2 hours on, 4 off. There was a bit of a swell as we got out past the islands with the wind direction at 300 we had the wind pushing us from behind making it a quick trip down to St David’s where we had our first dolphin sighting with many more throughout the trip.

Once we got around 35 miles north of Lands End the wind really picked up with gusts of 34.9 knots. Gareth and Chloe shared two watches as I felt very ill after previously being unwell earlier on, however I still came up to help put a reef in the main. Gareth and Chloe got us through the rough patch of weather and as we got to Lands End Sammo came up for his watch where him and Gareth got us around the corner where the sea started to flatten.

We then headed towards Falmouth to have a couple hours to warm up and some food but just as we approached the entrance, Sammo spotted a border force ship in the distance then noticed that they’d launched a rib which is when he shouted down to us that we were about to get boarded. Everyone’s face turned to panic and as the rib got along side me and Chloe popped our heads out to see Sammo talking to the crew, they then came onboard and had a little chat with some of us up on deck. Once they’d left we headed into Falmouth where we checked over the boat and got some food.

We then headed out of Falmouth around 6:30pm where me and Chloe were on first watch, it was a very dark and cold night so we wrapped up and were on the look out for fishing vessels and marks. Tuesday morning me, Chloe, Gareth and Ella all watched the sunrise together while having hot croissants and juice.

Sammo got us through the needles and as we got into the Solent everyone was awake and on deck ready to finally head into Southampton. Chloe made us all lasagna which we had while coming past Cowes just to keep us going for the final stretch.

Gareth then navigated us though Southampton waters and Sammo took the wheel as we got to Ocean village where we packed the boat up then got ourselves warm showers and finished the trip off with a meal and drink in true Mojito Style 🍋‍🟩

 Meanwhile, the Jackknife crew have made their way to Lanzarote for the start of the transatlantic race which starts on Sunday and have been out for a practice today. 

Follow them on the YellowBrick tracker (More info here). We wish them the best of luck, fair winds and a safe passage and look forward to many more updates from them.