Tag Archives: start

Fastnet Race Start in the 90s

We recently had the 40th anniversary of the Fastnet race that ended up with a significant loss of life and boats.  Weather forecasting technology and the methods of communicating were very different forty years ago and some of the boats were ill-suited to open water racing of that nature.  Growing up in Cowes, the Fastnet race was always a big deal.  It was every other year as part of the Admiral’s Cup.  Some of my school friends got to crew on it.  I watched the start of one of the races when we still lived in the UK and I scanned in some of the shots I got that day.  The start was always frantic.  Boats are jockeying for position, often very close to shore.  Lots of shouting goes on.  With a good wind, big sailing boats look so cool to me.

Crewing a Recce Jet

I was on the wrong tower at Hyakuri when the crews came out on the recce ramp to crew up.  Rather than get down and move around and potentially miss it, I accepted that shooting through the trees would have to do.  The ground crew did their work efficiently and the flightcrew walked around the jet before jumping in.  Soon they were powered up and coming towards us.  This was early in the day and the beginning of a fun day out!