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It's Friday, and some serious preparations have begun for the race tomorrow. Like stopping for a pub lunch at Ranworth staithe. Very important. Quote of the day: 'Your boom's in the water'.

Chris gets practicing on the most important aspect of the race - sleeping on the boat.

Race day, and the crew of Jayann are getting seriously psyched. Clearly.

Alan, too, is clearly over excited by the prospect of it all. Horning sailing clubhouse in the background. Note how many boats are moored up - 138 participated this year.

We've had the briefing, it's nearly 11, it's still 20 minutes until our start time, so it's time to stuff the boat into the windward bank and get some food down our necks. Last opportunity any of us will get for a while.

The brothers Boughton huddle around some tactics pre-race.

Chris has some nosh. Note the pro sailing gear and pose. Nearly ready to start now.

There's a bit of a time gap between this photo and the previous one. Of about 8 hours. The reason for that was we were furiously racing for all of that time. But now Jayann is heading back from Acle, the wind has slowed, the evening is drawing in, Vicki had fallen in, and it's time for some more food. Incidentally the last 8 hours were AWESOME. Shame I've no photos of it.

Vicki looking slightly more normal. I really don't know what was going on in the previous picture.

See, that's the photo I was trying for originally. Note that Chris is still eating. Good man.

Fast forward to 5am. Again, a lot happened in the intervening space, which was generally too busy for photos. After quite a long night, the finish line is finally in sight. At this point the only reason we were moving was the very very slow tide.

It's been a long, hard, hot, cold, wet, muddy, road, er... river, but we're still in good spirits. I think.

Crossing the finish line at Horning, 5:30am. Our result? We placed 58th out of 138, and 2nd in our class of nine boats (we think - the published results weren't terribly clear). An excellent race all round, we're doing it again next year, same boat, same crew, more cushions.