THE RALEIGH ALL-STEEL BICYCLE

Hugh Clay

(Again I'm breaking my own guidelines, but I don't think you'll have much trouble understanding why I couldn't resist this piece).

Before leaving Tasmania for our passage back to England Aratapu took part in the Inaugural Australian Three Peaks Yacht Race and came a distant last. This year I entered the British Three Peaks Race with the expectation of repeating her last place...

The Three Peaks Yacht Race was inspired by HW Tilman, who combined mountaineering and sailing in notable expeditions to high latitudes until his death at sea just after the first race in 1977. The race consists of sailing to and climbing the highest mountains in England, Wales and Scotland. From the start in Barmouth, crews sail to Caernarvon and land two runners to run up Snowdon (twenty-four miles round trip). When they return, the crews sail inside or outside Anglesey and across the Irish Sea to the drying estuary at Ravenglass. Runners run thirty-two miles to the summit of Scafell Pike and back. The final leg takes competitors round the Mulls of Galloway and Kintyre, past Corryvreckan and up to Fort William for the ascent of Ben Nevis. The finish marks the end of 389 miles of sailing, seventy-three miles of running and 11,000 feet of ascent and descent.

The race is unhandicapped, so that fast multihulls and lightweight monohulls (some with lifting keels to get into Ravenglass) race together with less competitive cruising boats. Aratapu is the least competitive of cruising boats, a traditional long-keel `Koonya' design built in multi-chine steel and displacing 12 tons; her performance is best described as comfortable, but with all the virtues of bulletproof construction and seakindliness. So none of us was under any illusion as to our chances (especially as the British race has got more serious since I last did it, when I got extra points for stopping for a drink at the Wasdale Head Inn on the way up Scafell Pike). But I was lucky enough to have a strong crew combining sailing and fell-running expertise, including Laurence Ormerod OCC who must have been the only runner in the race to have sailed in both Caribbean and Antarctic waters. So we had entered the Tilman Trophy for sailor/runners, to show off their versatility, on the clear understanding that I was not going to climb any mountains.

As the fleet gathered in Barmouth on 18 June, the forecast was for strong reaching breezes followed by light to moderate tail winds. This would suit us nicely, as long as the lightweight flyers couldn't get up on the plane and disappear over the horizon. Barmouth bar was looking impressively white as the lifeboat led the fleet out of the harbour. Well reefed down and still a bit overcanvassed, we got a good start but were soon overhauled by Backlash, (an Everitt 43 Class I ocean racer and the big boat of the fleet), under reefed mainsail alone, and by a brace of Beneteaus. The multihulls started half an hour after us and soon overhauled the whole monohull fleet, except for the unlucky Firefly, a 26ft tri dismasted twenty minutes after the start. As we approached Bardsey Sound Gaivota, a splendid 43ft 1927 gaff yawl, stormed past looking splendid and we began to feel we were on track for that last place. With a broken sugar jar soaking up the water on the cabin sole and half the crew feeling distinctly seasick, food was off the agenda until we were through the Bardsey Sound Race and on to a comfortable run with goosewinged jib.

The race is a unique navigational challenge with a series of crucial tidal gates, any of which can lose you the race, or even your boat if you get it wrong. The first is Caernarvon Bar, which is a wicked place in a strong south-westerly and normally impassable at low water. It soon became clear that most of the fleet were slowing up to avoid arriving at the bar too soon. But with a little local knowledge reinforced by careful reconnaissance I was confident there was enough water for us, and we ran slowly over the bar an hour after a neapy low water with a minimum depth of 3.5 metres; the only problem was spotting the small light buoys in the swell and spray. As we motorsailed into Caernarvon to drop our runners, we were surprised only to see a couple of trimarans -- Shockwave, the leading tri, had already been and gone, well on her way to a record-breaking victory, but we were the first monohull in. Elation was soon tempered by concern as one of the Beneteaus sent out a Mayday after she hit the bar and bounced over, fracturing her keel.

Our runners were off up Snowdon in the dark, well ahead of our support party who still tucked up in bed and not expecting us to arrive until dawn. Nic and Simon did an impressive run, only forty minutes slower than the fastest on Snowdon, but we still had only forty minutes lead over Mr Shifter, a Beneteau First Class 8, as we sailed up the Menai Straits to the Swellies. This narrow rockbound channel is notorious, with ferocious tides and the Swelly Rock sitting four-square in the middle of the channel, but the real problem is lack of wind between the two bridges. We had little hope of getting through against a strong tide, and fully expected to wait two hours until low water slack, while the rest of the fleet caught us up. Miraculously we held a light tailwind, with an occasional gust to push us through, and soon found ourselves running past Menai Bridge to raucous applause from our shore party.

The competitive spirit was beginning to infect the crew as we ran out of the Straits under cruising chute and replaced it with the old spinnaker (purchased secondhand for œ100 in Melbourne). When the breeze began to show signs of dropping, my brother Henry had the brilliant idea of replacing the mainsail with the cruising chute (no problems in this race with rated sail area). This unusual spinnaker/cruising chute rig kept us ahead of the two First Class 8s we could see behind us, and even Backlash took a while to overtake us to seawards. Meanwhile the combined navigational brains of the whole crew were calculating tidal heights and speed/distance sums.

The drying estuary at Ravenglass with its unmarked winding entrance channel is the real wildcard in the race -- arrive after half tide and you have to wait outside for the next tide, but arrive up to 1 1/2 hours either side of high water and you should get straight in. I had done a recce at Easter and found we'd probably run aground in the channel inside about 2 1/2 hours after high water, just about when we were now likely to arrive. With spurious decisiveness, we set ourselves a time limit at 2145 to reach the Selker Rocks buoy, and made it with a minute to spare. With dusk falling and poor visibility (the sailing directions are based on a hill top which is invariably hidden by low cloud) I was relieved to pick up a few familiar landmarks on the dunes and the green light (occas) on the range blockhouse. It was all crew to action stations, with me on the helm, Nic clearing anchor and dinghy, Simon on the echo sounder, Henry on handbearing compass and lookout and Laurence coordinating all the navigational data and double-checking back to chart and radar. Backlash was ahead of us, but had missed the channel soon after crossing the bar and was already hard aground. We found 3.5 metres on the bar and exactly the depth we'd predicted all the way up the channel, reducing steadily to 2.2 metres as we approached the race buoy which had to be passed before we could land our runners. After one last panic almost grounding on a shallow spot (we usually ground at 1.8 metres), we cleared the vital buoy to loud whoops of relief.

The small crowd of spectators ashore (including Henry's children well after their bed-time) were mystified by half an hour of inactivity aboard -- Henry and Laurence had been far too busy to get changed for running any earlier (or were they just superstitious?). We looked anxiously behind us as Mr Shifter and Highwayman, both First Class 8s with lifting keels, crept up the channel after us in the gloom. Our runners eventually checked in ashore at 2320 just as we grounded, and it was soon obvious that the other boats had also gone aground in the channel outside, giving us a lead of eight hours or so. In fact our second leg time was faster than one of the trimarans! Conditions on the mountain were unpleasant -- dark, windy and wet -- and one tri crew bivouacked on the summit until first light. Our runners were welcomed back by Henry's children (breakfasting in pyjamas and raincoats standing in Ravenglass High Street) and by the rest of the fleet, just arriving on the flood tide. As the runners enjoyed a wash and some hot porridge we motored out down the channel, passing Backlash (finally floated at the top of the tide with slightly reshaped keel) following Gaivota, a splendid contrast.

The last leg of the race is the longest at 235 miles, and has its fair share of tidal gates. Our luck held, with wind and tide conspiring to shut out the rest of the fleet every time. We had a storming reach to catch the tide round the Mull of Galloway, stemmed a tide in the North Channel, and caught the next tide round the Mull of Kintyre before the breeze died early on Tuesday morning. We were all scanning the horizon astern, expecting the lightweight flyers to be overhauling us by now. In fact they were all becalmed in the North Channel while we ran gently northwards under Henry's patent downwind rig. We caught the first of the tide through the Sound of Luing (our gybes caught on film by an enthusiastic spectator boat out of Craobh Haven) and just got past Lismore before the tide turned. Loch Linnhe gets longer every time I sail up it, and with a dying breeze and foul tide progress got slower and slower. The last nine miles from Corran up to Corpach gave Nic and Simon plenty of time to psych themselves up for yet another night run. We arrived to a great welcome at the Corpach lock as darkness fell and it started blowing.

Ben Nevis was pretty unpleasant that night, and the sailors spent the night badgering the marshals for news of the runners. But they were on schedule at the summit and back at the finish line by 0400 on Wednesday 22 June, muddied but unbowed by the pouring rain and ferocious squalls. We were not only first monohull overall, but had also won the Tilman Trophy (for sailor/runners) and were first monohull on each sailing leg, a ridiculous total of five prizes.

Waking from a well-earned sleep later that morning, we saw Backlash just arriving, followed after a couple of hours by Mr Shifter, and by the rest of the fleet in a bunch two hours after that. There was some close competition on the Ben (with 4th place won on the mountain) and good salty tales of the wild run up Loch Linnhe from most of the crews in the lock basin. There was more excitement at the back of the fleet, where Tanera II stood by Kudu Nsanga until she was towed into shelter on Jura, while the doughty firemen on Parergon were still toiling up Loch Linnhe next morning, to win the Last Inn Cup half an hour inside the time limit.

News of our win has prompted varying degrees of disbelief and hilarity, but the comment I enjoyed most came from Nic's boss, who had firmly predicted our success but `hadn't quite realised it was like backing a Raleigh All-Steel Bicycle to win the Tour de France'.