As usual, everything went down to the wire in terms of getting the boat ready for her first race but we were there on the start line at 6am for the Petit Bateau Solo Round the Isle of Wight race. 

With light winds forecast for the early morning it was a relatively slow start to the day but Katie and "Hot Socks" soon settled into their groove and were trading places with the front runners, including Andy Greenwood on his new Figaro II, all the way round to St Catherines on the South side of the island.

Unfortunately a problem with the autopilot meant that Katie had to hand steer all the way round the island, so she couldn't leave the helm long enough to get the spinnaker up for the run up to Bembridge. After such a promising start this dropped her back to 10th in class, but all in all not a bad first solo race... roll on the next one !

She's here !!!  Katie's boat for the next 5 years has finally arrived in the shape of Sam Davies' ex-Skandia Figaro II. It's now going to be a mad rush to get everything ready for Katie's first race at the end of April - the Petit Bateau RIOW Solo race around the Isle of Wight.