Marco Nannini - Ocean Racing

Dead on beat all the way back, short tacking a class 40 solo makes for a lot of hard work... Far from perfect start I sailed to the finish with the leading group taking fifth on SunGard Front Arena, but oh boy was I knackered when I crossed the line... Too little space to use ballast I had to reef down to keep the boat pointing high and was a little overpowered in the Solent beat with some messy tacks that didn't help me gaining ground...

Tomorrow morning at 8:30 I'm due to race single handed from the Solent to Poole in the first race of the Coastal series organised by the Solo Offshore Racing Club.

I will be sailing in the open class for boats up to 40 ft aboard the class 40 SunGard Front Arena, named after my sponsor leading up to the Round Britain and Ireland race starting on June the 6th. Some 30 boats are expecte to be on the start line.

Conditions are set to be quite good for racing with gentle north easterly breeze that should make for a fast spinnakers run to the needles channel and on to Poole.

Italian Skipper Marco Nannini and British racing partner Paul Peggs completed the Cherbourg double handed race at 08:12 BST taking 5th place overall on elapsed time.
After a night spent battling for the lead neck and neck with a J125 the arrival at Cherbourg was a tough battle, the duo fought agaist the tide towards the entrance of the harbour whilst some of the competitor which had managed to gain to windward during the night sneaked in to to fill the podim places.