After 8 hours of flying you expect to get off a plane and arrive in some sort of sunshine, otherwise you might as well have stayed at home! On this occasion this is not the case, I have flown all the way to Washington and yes – it is raining. Annapolis, is this week the home of the USA East Coast IRC Championships.
I am over here sailing a Mark Mills designed King 40. The USA based boat is owned by British businessman Mike Williamson. With a mostly pro crew we are out here as the second regatta in a series taking us through to the Caribbean season next year. Today and for the next 2 days we have been training and getting used to the new setup with symmetric spinnakers we are running on this regatta and the real racing starts on Friday – bring it on!
More tomorrow!

On Saturday night Hannah was invited to attend the annual Petit Bateau Prize Giving at the Island Sailing Club in Cowes. Some of the 400 members of Petit Bateau had braved the October weather for the final race in the Solent Series held across the summer.

At the end of the prize giving after at least 15 trophies had been awarded across the fleet, Hannah was presented with the OSTAR trophy for the fastest under 35 footer (eligible to 15 entrants) in the prestigious trans-Atlantic race. On the water Hannah finished over 24 hours ahead of the next competitor and finished just under 6 days ahead of Frenchman, Lionel Regnier who won the trophy 4 years previously.

This trophy represents Hannah’s extraordinary achievement in this notoriously challenging race in not only reaching Newport but in getting there is a remarkable time. This trophy just comes 2 weeks before the official prize giving at the Royal Western Yacht Club, which unfortunately Hannah will not be able to attend.
Hannah’s thanks go to Petit Bateau, and in particular Jerry Freeman, fellow OSTAR competitor and founding member of Petit Bateau who do so much for the sport of Single-handed racing.

He had this to say about Hannah’s achievement:

This year the trophy was won by Hannah White in a fantastic time of 20 days and no hours and 20 minutes,
Pure Solo , a Figaro 2 , was 4th boat on the water after the three 40 footers Hannah came within a whisker of beating Mary Falk’s long standing class record of 19 days 22.hrs 57min
which QII has held since 1996.

The figaro was on charter and this was Hannah’s first race in the boat so to make such a beautiful race was a great achievement.

It was my great pleasure to present the trophy to Hannah at the ISC on Saturday night after she had graciously presented the Solent Solo Series prizes at the PB supper.

After the excitement of the Maxi worlds in Sardinia I had a few days back at home to regroup, attend ladies’ day at the Southampton Boat Show, before repacking and heading out to Newport Rhode Island.
Just over 3 months ago, I sailed into Newport, having made the 3,500 mile solo journey from Plymouth, UK. It was the most extraordinary moment of my life, full of the fondest memories I could dream of. What made it so special were the people involved in the OSTAR and the welcome I received at the Newport Yacht Club.
As I write this I am sitting on an all too familiar sofa in the Newport Yacht Club looking out at the mooring that Pure Solo rested on after such an unbelievable adventure. The feeling of nostalgia from being here is almost overwhelming, and bar the hive of activity from the various competitors and race organisers and friends and family, the club is just the same. I almost feel more at home here than I do in my local yacht club.
I am being so generously hosted by the Commodore of the Newport Yacht Club, Norm Bailey and his partner Dianne. They have become such good friends over the past few months and it is wonderful to be able to return here and spend some time with them. Coincidentally it is the 12 metre worlds here this week so there are many familiar faces in the bars of Newport this week.
I am here for one more night, before heading back down South to another Yacht Club just outside New York, where I am representing Great Britain in the Seawanhaka Cup on behalf of the Royal Thames Yacht Club… but more about this tomorrow!
Hannah

The mistral has continued and once again sorted the men from the boys. 25-30 knot consecutive days have seen masts break, crewmembers go over the side and collisions happen. Racing through the archipelago that scatters the north east coast of Sardinia and then through the straights south of Corsica can cause havoc for these vessels especially when they are generally 100 feet + without taking into consideration the rocks and shoals that we have to zig zag our way through.
Yesterday after a superb cocktail party the evening before which epitomised the purpose and style of the maxi class, we set off to only discover that pushing a predominantly cruising boat in 30 knots, around a race course results in damage. A ripped sail and a broken halyard hampered our race, but did not end it unlike some who sustained ripped mainsails and broken masts.
A steep learning curve earned us a disappointing yet acceptable 6th in fleet, and this morning we went out in force with another heavy airs reachy course. Today was much better and with only a small amount of damage caused to our big genoa, we fired round the racecourse and came 2nd to Velsheda.
In these conditions, my job as downwind trimmer is very wet and whilst the rest of the crew shelter from the waves towards the stern of the boat I am left hanging onto the shrouds calling the trim of the jibs or spinnaker depending on the wind angle. Wet but fun is how I would describe it, although I am just glad we are in Sardinia and not England!
Tonight we have a lovely dinner in store once again before the 3rd day of racing and then a big night tomorrow night as Thursday is a layday…. Lets hope for more wind tomorrow… the pirate ship loves it!

Porto Cervo has been hit by some strong winds over the last couple of days hampering any chance of pre regatta training for the crews. Yesterday saw a steady 30 knots whistle through the islands and despite attempts to train, just leaving the dock was a mission. When you are sandwiched between two superyachts with a combined value of £40 million plus, you start to become a little more wary of your parking abilities! Especially when the yacht on your starboard side had Elton John sitting on the aft deck!
However, the mighty crew on Hetairos finally left the dock at about 3pm, with the intention of finding a sheltered spot to change out furling headsail. We did find this spot a mere 20 miles from the port. Being such a large boat. Any simple manouvre like this, despite the 25 people, takes a considerable amount of time. Once this operation was complete, we were thinking about hoisting some sail to get back to Porto Cervo, but a failure in the hydraulic system resulting in a fire in the engine bay soon put pay to this.
With breathing apparatus donned and fire hoses out, the boats crew set to to tackle the blaze. Thankfully, there was just a lot of smoke and not much in the way of flames, but none the less there was damage to the hydraulic system that had the potential to stall our regatta preparations. Out at anchor the crew set to to try and find a solution to the damage with their spares, and with the owner flying in today we knew there was a significant clean up needed. Thankfully the gods have been looking down on us and we have woken this morning to a pleasant 10 knots, and I believe the engineer has managed to fix the hydraulics.
Fingers crossed that we get out training this afternoon with the owner and all goes smoothly!