No Fear performs fantastically in the Gomera Cup, plus time to focus
Row Across The Pond
Richard Hoyland and Steve Coe
Mon 7 Dec 2009 17:23
|
Apologies for those staying in touch via the blog
but we've been quiet for the last couple of days for good reason. It's been time
for our families and friends to leave the island and for us to focus
on the task ahead. Both Steve and myself have waved our loved ones off at
Tenerife and it's not nice to leave your family in tears because you are going
to be parted for the best part of 2 months. The one consolation is that the
parting is not on race start day where the pressure might have been a little too
much for everyone. No doubt we will both miss wives and families, but
with our satellite phone, email and blog we will never be far away.
Sat here in the bar at the port of Los
Christianos ready to get back to La Gomera on the ferry, this is the start
of the adventure again as on Wednesday we start for real.
On Sunday (the original start day) we held a
short race of 6 nautical miles out to sea and back to port to keep the crews
amused (the Gomera Cup), plus families who had to leave got an idea
of what start day will be like. No Fear rowed like the perfectly balanced
rowing boat that she is and left many carbon fibre boats in her wake. All credit
to Nick and Jon who rowed her in 2007, she's set up fantastically well and with
two rowing is as quick as any boat. Steve was on Tenerife saying goodbye to
his family so a guy called Anton stepped in and I think we came 4th
overall :-) Not bad for a pair that hadn't rowed together before. It
gave a flavour of the journey ahead, although the sea was relatively calm we
still had waves breaking over the boat and managed to get her up to 5.4 knots in
the calm of the waters around the island.
So with two days to go it's now time to get back to
preparing for the race....roll on Wednesday.
|
