It's hard to express the degree of anticlimax we're all feeling at the moment. For the whole summer, we've been focussing on Sunday August 12 - and now it's here, and the start of the race has been postponed for a day.
The Fastnet briefing yesterday was a surreal affair. The sun was beating down on a sparkling Solent. The final races of Cowes Week suffered a long postponement, waiting for enough breeze to start. And we were being warned of the possibility of a storm of 1979 proportions.
In the circumstances, the decision to postpone was the only one the RORC could take. The problem they faced was that the weather pattern was so unstable, it was not clear whether the storm - due to hit the fleet on Tuesday by when we would probably all be in the most potentially hostile part of the Celtic Sea - would become a serious problem or not.
The Met Office had warned the race committee of a 60 per cent chance of a Force Eight, a 10 per cent chance of a Force Nine, and a “significant” chance of something even worse.
Postponing 24 hours means the picture should be much clearer by the start. Racing manager Janet Grosvenor reminded us forcefully of the fundamental principle that “The responsibility for a boat's decision to participate in a race or to continue racing is hers alone.”
Today, with the threat of a repeat of the fatal 1979 storm, the responsible decision would probably have been not to start. Tomorrow we will still have to face the question of whether to put the boat and more importantly the crew at risk, but hopefully by then we will have a better idea of what we are likely to face.
If the storm follows the Met Office's worst fears, the decision will be more or less made for us. But it only has to change track slightly, heading north towards Scotland or south towards Biscay, and things could be altogether more attractive. It looks as if the first part of the race will be sailed in southerlies, and the second half in north westerlies, so the chances are that a lot of it will be off the wind.
There's a huge difference between going upwind and downwind in strong winds and big seas. So we will have another look at the weather picture in the morning, and see whether it looks sensible to start. At the moment it seems the wind will be southerly to start with, so we'll be spared a beat along the English Coast, and the safe havens of Plymouth and Falmouth will be beckoning if we don't like it.
We've been watching the weather all day, thanks to the wonders of marina wi fi, and it does look as if the picture is getting gradually less daunting. We live in hope. Meanwhile, we've put on the bow stickers (a frustrating process worth its own blog!), tied on the backstay flags, attached the tracker, and generally speaking got ready to go.
We went out for a sail this morning, and practised putting on the storm jib and pulling reefs, as well as gibing the spinnaker.
The Solent was full of Open 60s and giant multihulls warming up for the big race. Groupama, fresh from smashing the Transatlantic record, was particularly awesome. Could be that some more records will be broken in the days ahead.
As for me, after listening to that briefing, I'd just be content with a finisher's medal. But I'm waiting, like the rest of the crew, on the skipper's decision about whether it will be sensible even to start.
