Land Ahoy!

Andrew McIrvine, Consultant Vascular Surgeon from King’s College & Darent Valley Hospitals and great supporter of the Circulation Foundation, skippered a team of vascular surgeons from around the country to raise money for us at the NHS regatta.

Cowes, on the Isle of Wight, again played host to the 19th NHS Regatta.   Over sixty teams of medical professionals from around the UK will be competing over the two days of racing.

The single class Regatta, which is the largest of its kind in Europe, consists of four separate races over the weekend.  The regatta culminates in a prize-giving ceremony on the quay side at Portsmouth Harbour Yacht Club, with trophies being awarded by the event Sponsor, B Braun Medical Ltd on Sunday afternoon.

Andrew’s Log

This event goes from strength to strength and yet again a motley crew of vascular surgeons from all corners of the UK got together a team in support of the Circulation Foundation.

As it is the one time we all sail together, we managed to have a practice day on the Friday before the ‘serious’ racing of the weekend.  Over the years we have been competing, it has, unfortunately, become more serious - which may explain our gradual decline from top three to top ten!

This year, as well as the usual old lags, we recruited Mike Salter from Southend. as we had suffered a mutiny from George Evans – our best helmsman – who had decided to enter a boat from his hospital (Eastbourne).   Fortunately we beat him by just one point – and we ended up 9th overall.

Unusually, there was some wind on Saturday, so the racing was a bit more exciting. The prize giving dinner in Cowes was a success despite some very ‘tired’ crews.  As usual on Sunday we woke to a flat calm but, for a change, the wind filled in and we actually completed 2 races.

The rest of the crew consisted of:

Mike Wyatt
Jonathan Beard
Martin Thomas
John Wolfe
James Brown
Ray Dawson

This year there were a record number of boats competing – 62 – but it may be the end of an era as Sunsail are selling their fleet and getting larger, but fewer, boats for next season. The event was generously sponsored by B Braun.  Our team was sponsored, with shirts (large CF logos on the back), and a pre-race dinner, by VNUS.

Finally and most importantly we raised £2100 for the Circulation Foundation.