A Three Peaks race that never was

We set off for the Three Peaks Race with the aim of defending the School's title of 'King of the Bens'; however, we were thwarted by the weather and the cancellation of the race.

We arrived in Oban on Thursday evening to join the boat. The weather forecast was already predicting F7-8 winds for the Friday night and the sailing team were looking concerned... the forecasts through the evening were not looking any better but we decided to make a decision in the morning following the race registration meeting. The forecasts had not improved by Friday morning and the wind forecast had actually increased to F8-9. The coastguard was predicting 10m waves around the Mull of Kintyre so the organisers reluctantly decided to shorten the race to just the Mull and Jura legs.

Our sailing team were still not happy and having taken the various forecasts into consideration we decided that we would run the Oban leg and then wait 12 hours in Oban for the worst of the weather to pass before sailing to Mull in a flotilla with the two Glenalmond boats to run the Mull leg. The skipper, quite correctly, was not happy about going on to Jura with the weather forecasted and the boys on board. Alastair H, Chris H and Alex Y ran the short Oban run which traditionally starts the race. Alastair cruised round in an excellent 32 minutes and Alex and Chris were not far behind. We then returned to the boat in order to wait out the storm. The winds strengthened through the afternoon and evening and were registering over 35 knots in the shelter of Oban marina.

The sight of the Oban lifeboat leaving during the evening confirmed our decision to stay put. We received a message at 8.00pm on Friday night that the race had been abandoned due to high winds and runners ending up in the water on Mull whilst trying to transfer from boat to shore.

Having spoken to some very experienced runners and sailors on Saturday morning it seems we were absolutely correct in our decision to stay put. One boat registered winds of 60 knots on Friday night whilst trying to get back to Oban and runners commented that it had been the worst conditions that they had ever experienced on the hill.