An exciting ride to Lerwick

We crossed the Lerwick finish line at  1538 yesterday, Thursday. Another long leg in under 3 days. A great relief to arrive safely and be towed by ribs to our berth. Our engine wouldn’t start when we needed to leave Barra so we left our mooring there under sail and with no means of charging batteries to power our instruments, self steering , radar etc. Next we couldn’t fill our water ballast tanks – probably an obstinate airlock- and QII doesn’t sail at her proper speed without it. Yesterday morning we narrowly avoided being rammed by a fishing boat which altered course at us increasing its speed to about 9 knots. Sailing hard on the wind for the 60 miles from the northernmost point of the British Isles, Muckle Flugga, without water ballast was painful. So we were surprised and pleased to finish ahead of Bluqube, even though they will now be ahead of us on handicap.