VOR: PUMA LEG SIX DAY 12 QFB: received 22.04.09 2007 GMT

by Kenny Read

A few days back I was ‘complaining’ about being next to the two Ericsson boats all the time. Well, I should have known better. Be careful what you wish for as they utilised their western position and buzzed off and put a pretty good licking on us over the last 48 hours.

But, and there is a big ‘but’ here, I think we have some racetrack left to work some magic. At least I hope we do. A lot of effort is going into sailing this craft. Positive energy on board leads to good things typically. And we have a bunch of positive guys.

The next land mass in our proximity is Bermuda. Fantastic place Bermuda. One of my favourite races is the Newport to Bermuda Race. I used to think that was a long race - 630 odd miles I believe. Just about the same as the Sydney Hobart Race.
It is a constant running debate as to what race in the world is the ‘Great Race’.

And as you might imagine, those from the northeast US say Bermuda Race. Those from those islands south of the equator say Hobart. The English will tell you the Fastnet Race is the world’s ‘Great Race’. And, believe it or not, a west coast US sailor would tell you it’s the Transpac Race. Capey (Andrew Cape) has the last say on this boat by using the Hobart Race as our measuring stick.

Every position report gets copied into his own Excel spreadsheet which automatically calculates exactly how many Hobart races we have remaining on the leg. For example- the last leg from China to Rio was something like 16.5 Sidney Hobart races in total. I believe this leg was something like 7.9 Hobarts.

Well, we have 1.9 Hobarts left according to the latest sched. And I think my favourite race when this is over (for a while anyway) will most likely be some Tuesday night beer can series out of Newport Harbour.

As the wind starts to build a bit and bend to the right we will be dealing with a few different weather systems before we get into Boston. Not to mention the Gulf Stream, some cold water on the other side, and some air temperatures that we haven't had to deal with since Cape Horn. Break out the vacuum bagged cold weather PUMA gear. Somebody is about to turn on the freezer.

As the fleet has split into three groups we find ourselves in the middle. Do we cover the guys behind, do we attack the three ahead. Do we get an opportunity to make something happen or do the Wind Gods force us to follow the leader back to home?

All answered in due time. And the key word in that sentence is ‘home’. No matter what, my guess is there is a warm greeting waiting for the crew of il mostro back in our ‘home’ port. That is something the entire crew can't wait to see and be a part of.

Channel fever, catch it.

Volvo Ocean Race