Up bright and early again to catch the last bridge opening for 8 hours at 7:25. It was a beautiful sunny morning with almost no clouds. After leaving Whitby harbour we were able to put up all the sails and broad reached with speeds up to 9 knots. Were able to make more than 5knots over the ground despite strong adverse tide.
Tim decided to get his fishing gear out despite the rest of us pointing out the fish would need to very fast to catch us and the boat. In trying to reach his fishing rod, he tipped over and fell into the locker with only his feet poking out. Dave and I pulled him out, at which point he realised we were going too. The scenery in north Yorkshire was spectular with old classic buildings on the top of crumbling cliffs. Started to see lots of other boats as we came south of Flamborough Head. The AIS was showing over 50 at one time. Our course took us right through several gas fields some before and some after sunset. The wind dropped and changed direction, so we took the chance to make a chicken curry for dinner. As the night wore on we needed to take avoiding action for many ships. This was by far the busiest night of the trip. The wind continued to rise and we reefer down several times but still managed to keep boat speed above 8 knots. It rained slightly over night, as has done for last 2 weeks. Dawn had us 5 miles off the Norfolk coast and entering a narrow sandbank sided channel with the shore on one side and a wind farm on the other. We tacked up this channel past Great Yarmouth and arrived at Lowestoft at 9:40. A total of 170 miles in 26 hours, definitely a record for Javelin. We are now moored right outside the club house of he Royal Norfolk and Suffolk yacht club. This is a really old club with the Duke of Edinburgh as the patron. Off to
Buy some more charts this afternoon to help navigate the sandbanks forth next couple of hundred miles.