Jealousy is a terrible thing but I will admit to being a little envious
of Ken (Read) and Iker (Martinez) right now.
Jealousy is a terrible thing but I will admit to being a little envious
of Ken (Read) and Iker (Martinez) right now.
I am sat in a hotel room
in Chile waiting for a ship to arrive and collect Azzam whilst those
guys are conducted a great match race over the last few miles into
Itajai.
They earned this right after sailing an excellent leg
from Auckland in - for the most part - horrific conditions. Here in
Puerto Montt, a quite beautiful place by the way, we have now finished
packing up Azzam and we have the cradle assembled and ready to go.
Since
breaking the boat our decision making and planning has focussed solely
on getting to Itajai in time and being as ready as we can be for the
start of the next leg.
Everything is going to plan except for
one important ingredient - the ship to take Azzam to Brazil! The ship
was due in yesterday but bad weather has held up its arrival. Every day
that we have to wait puts more and more pressure on us to get the
repair work carried out in Itajai before the leg start.
We
cannot start the work here in Chile so all we can do is work on any
other servicing and worklist jobs to save time in Brazil.
To
move this along we are also sending two of our shore team to travel on
the ship. Most of the sailors are currently flying home for a
well-deserved break.
We have sailed pretty much solidly since
leaving Sanya nearly two months ago. I am sure the lads will benefit
from seeing their families and some home cooking so that they come back
ready and raring to go.
Leg 5 has wreaked havoc on the fleet
but that is part and parcel of the Volvo Ocean Race. The main thing is
that all the crew are safe as boats can be repaired but the same is not
always true of their crew.
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