THE familiar drone of my alarm woke me from my all-too-short sleep.
It was 3am.
There is only one thing that gets me out of bed at such an unruly hour - and that's the Round The Island Race.
Grabbing a quick cup of tea from my crew house, I headed down to Cowes Yacht Haven to meet up with my crew. There were competition winners Yvonne and Andy, Dan from Volvo and Ben from the Volvo Keelboat Squad.
At the helm was Southampton's very own Helena Lucas, right, Britain's top paralympic sailor and one of the country's hottest sailing talents.
Who better to have in charge?
But we were up against stiff competition. On the helms of the other five J80 sportsboats in the Team Volvo fleet were Olympic double gold medallist Shirley Robertson, Olympic silver medallists Nick Rogers and Joe Glanfield, as well as Shirley's two Olympic crew, Lucy McGregor and Annie Lush.
Read more in today's Daily Echo
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