We left Ocean Village in Southampton yesterday. At the fuel pontoon in Cowes the skippers hopped off to attend the RORC briefing. Chris Tibbs also gave his view on the weather for the race: sea breeze 8-13 SW knots at the start. He expects no more than force five at any time during the race. Meanwhile Mark and Peter collected the Tracker and decals. Last night we caught some rather poor service in one of Cowes better restaurants. We cast off at 0920 this morning. After all these months we have an hour to go. And are we ready? Well we’ll find out!

This is our team blog for the Fastnet Race 2009. Final preparations are under way. Starting strategy, watch systems, meal times and cooking rotas, selection of clothing, boat and RORC paperwork, emergency kit (cordless angle-grinder, pliers and spanners for a dismasting), medical kit, deciding on how much fuel to take, routing strategy, re-arranging flights from Geneva and friday afternoon off of work, personal kit selection, arrangements for the weekend before the race and the weekend (we hope!) after it, all those batteries for all those hand held GPS, radios & hearing-aids, calibrating wristwatch barometers, calibrating boat instruments, marking up tide tables, choosing charts…there is so much to do.

The menus have been decided and, amongst others, dishes of Moroccan Lamb, Chilli con Chorizo and Red Thai Curry are being cooked and frozen, ready for deployment somewhere off the coast of Dorset, Cornwall or perhaps somewhere in the Irish Sea.

Space Race’s hull will be cleaned and we have decided to add a Number 2 jib to our racing wardrobe, for use in 10 – 18 knots of wind with a reduced hiked out crew. We plan a little last minute practising of starts, manoeuvres and safety procedures.

The Met Office’s revised outlook for the middle of August is not welcome but is not unexpected. The racing season has been consistently mild and somehow we knew it wasn’t going to last. We are keeping a close eye on the forecasts.

This website page has been upgraded so that we can post by email – which we will do during the race whenever we are within range of an adequate mobile phone signal. And you will be able to track our progress, and that of the rest of the 300 strong fleet, on the RORC tracker webpage.