Artemis Transat Event
“The oldest solo race in history, The Artemis Transat is a 2,800 mile race across the North Atlantic alone… Held every four years since 1960, the 2008 edition of the race starts from Plymouth, UK on Sunday, 11th May.”
And that is what this post is all about. I was out today to Sutton Harbour armed with my wide-angle lens, a Tokina 17mm ONLY. Feeling lazy to get my bulky Tamrac 5X out, I filtered down the needs to shoot to only a single lens, while abandoning everything else at home.
The walk to the harbour is not that long, takes only 10 minutes. When I arrived there were already many visitors thronging around the parade square populating all open air cafe’s, parlours and restaurants. Before the event the square was only a plain parking lot and I was surprised to see it has transformed itself t a Transat Village with makeshift office as event administration with crews all out and about doing their thing. The atmosphere was carnival like with crews representing each teams having their own booth spreading informations. From pamphlets, souvenir, merchandise and slide shows, all readily available in makeshift booths all along Sutton harbour.
I took the opportunity to get on board of Earl of Pembroke, which was a replica of the actual Mayflower that sailed to America around 300 years ago. According to the news, there were plans to rebuild the full-size actual Mayflower under the banner of a multi-million project known as the Spirit of Mayflower Project for the 400th commemoration in 2020. The project was aimed to bring tourism to Plymouth and as well as paying homage to the Pilgrim Father’s voyage.
Just right behind the docking replica, there were sailing boats in arrays from all competing teams. I took the opportunity to shoot, and my wide-angle does come handy as the sails are mostly wide that will be impossible for kit lens to shoot.
The event/race starts on Sunday, and I bet this is going to be an awesome event. Time to service my photographic tool to get armed this Sunday!
I leave you all for some snappies below for your viewing pleasure.
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Further readings;