A few days at sea? I do not count any more. The days follow themselves and pile up like the pearls on a necklace.
I've been thinking about my last navigation offshore - the Barcelona World Race. The sensation is still the same but the Ocean is no longer Indian but Atlantic and my fellow crew are not one but ten. "il mostro" our boat carries her name well; power is her first characteristic, she crosses the waves with ease and with her I have rediscovered the pleasure to swallow the thousands of ocean miles we must cover. Despite several months of work in common this is the first time we are on a big leg together as our preparation has been with two boats but we are connecting well and covering the miles together.
This transatlantic journey for us is the ideal exercise, life-size, bringing with it, its batch of surprises and of uncertainties but also of apprenticeship of our race machine. One of the discoveries is this 11th man, this passenger-tourist camera at the sharp point of the race. In our case Rick Deppe is the "media man", the person that the rule of the Volvo Ocean Race places on each boat. It is still strange to see Rick there during a maneuver but not being be allowed [by the rules] to come to our help. For him also, this transatlantic race is used as a test and a reference mark before starting the race in October.
Our discovery [across the Atlantic] started on the pontoon of Newport and for some families this is their first experience of an round the world tour. Leaving our shore base was a taste of what it would be like on the first leg of the race. The emotion was particularly notable for the three local members of our team: Ken, Jerry and Casey. Under our first stars in the sky, Casey acknowledged that this departure had been one of the moments hardest of his life, leaving Sophia (his baby of only a few months only) and his partner. It made me remember my departure from Southampton, for my first "Whitbread" [the previous sponsor of this race before Volvo] when Chade, my 10 year old daughter, had not even been born yet but tears still flooded.
Must go now as have to go and relay Nico and Justin in a few minutes, just time to awake Salty and to jump into my sleeping bag. Still 2600 miles of ocean await us before Alicante!!!
- Sidney
