Painful. That is the only way to describe Leg 2.
The give and take that occurred on this leg are like no other race I have ever been a part of. First off, huge credit again to our team for fixing what looked like a very grim situation when our longitudinal frames broke- twice. Sure it cost us miles, but we got ourselves back into the game. We didn't do well in the Doldrums. We keep talking about it and we aren't really sure where we went wrong. We got dealt on by a few clouds that ate up our mileage while others were chugging along. We entered the Doldrums just ahead of the pack that we have been duking it out with since then. The fact is we were within striking distance of E3 for third. We didn't pull it off. We need to get better.
Since the Doldrums it has been like, well the Doldrums. Big black wind sucking clouds have ruled the day all the way across the Indian Ocean. And as this morning unfolded, we were just behind the Dragon and just ahead of Delta Lloyd with T-Black tucked away pretty well, and we sailed really well today. We just snuck by Delta Lloyd right here at the end and put the Dragon away pretty nicely. But, just as our luck has gone this leg, while putting away our nearest competitors, T-Black somehow smoked us right up the beach. We put them over the horizon this morning behind us. This afternoon they are going to cross the line about 5 miles in front of us. Unreal.
Another fact is that we are now very used to having boats right next to us over an entire leg. Literally we just crossed Delta Lloyd by about 100 meters just 20 miles prior to the finish. We see T-Black on the bow and the Dragon off our transom. It has been incredibly close racing- and this is after 4000 miles!
My college coach Skip Whyte used to say "win your side of the race course." We won our side. The two boats that were with us sailed really well and we had to exert more energy than I can remember in the "sail changing world championships" to beat them. We nursed an injured boat into the finish without having to take more drastic measures like stopping for repairs. We sailed really hard. We learned more about ourselves and our boat. We learned that we have to get better, especially in the Doldrums.
All in all we will take this small set back in stride and work like hell to be 100 percent in a couple of weeks when we hit the start line for Singapore. I always knew this was going to be hard work but the competition out here is phenomenal. We simply have to keep getting better.
Congrats to the podium finishers for the leg, as it will be the first time "il mostro" won't be on the podium. We can't make that a trend though.
- Kenny
