Nobody expected Azzam to go through nine legs and 11 ports, across all the oceans of the world, journey 38,739 nautical miles and not have a period where everything that could go wrong does go wrong.
It had to happen because neither this race nor Mother Nature work that way.
Essentially that is what has happened to Azzam in the seventh leg of this Volvo Ocean Race, from Newport to Lisbon.
Barring a truly unexpected turn of events, on Wednesday they will finish outside the podium for the first time in this edition.
To make it worse for Azzam, Dongfeng Race Team will finish on the podium and if the Chinese-backed team wins the leg, it cuts Azzam’s overall race lead to two points.
In other words, with just two legs to go, it blows the race wide open.
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On Tuesday, the best Ian Walker and his crew could hope for was for Dongfeng to finish third, keeping the lead to four points.
Partly it is just the way of this race, though Azzam and Dongfeng have pulled away gradually over the rest of the fleet, the gulf between the top five boats has been small.
Deep into most legs, the possibility has persisted that any of those five boats could win the leg.
That is the nature of one-design racing, so for Azzam not to finish on the podium is merely the natural order of the race.
But Azzam have had misfortune compounded by tactical errors.
Barely a day and a half into this leg, for instance, they effectively lost the services of a full crew after Luke Parkinson and Adil Khalid both went down with illnesses.
In particular, Parkinson, who seemed to have flu-like symptoms, was a big loss, given how critical his physical presence has been.
According to Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing (ADOR), Khalid had a mild stomach bug, though not a reoccurrence of the illness that kept him out of two legs.
That had a direct effect on the boat and came at the worst possible moment, with Azzam less than a mile behind leaders Dongfeng. Then, three nights later, just as they had passed Mapfre into second place, they hit a wooden pallet.
Though it caused no lasting damage, the situation required the boat to slow and stop. Walker said he believed they lost four miles in that time, which caused them to slip to the back of the pack.
Until a couple of days ago, they still had a sniff of making it right.
They made a bold decision in choosing to go north around the outside of the Azores High, a difficult-to-navigate weather system that influences weather and climatic patterns of vast areas of Africa, Europe and North America.
It looked a bold and good decision, but it emerged quickly that it was not.
Had they been in a better position going into the system, these are the kind of decisions that would not have been so damaging. Instead it has consigned them to a non-podium finish.
Matt Knighton’s on-board blog from Azzam captured the downbeat mood after it became clear they had lost more distance.
“We are having a tough time on Azzam right now as we have to accept the losses from being becalmed for three hours when the high pressure expanded over us,” Walker said.
“We have had very few tough periods in this race so far and you have to expect a few when sailing round the world. Right now it is our turn.”
Race organisers will not mind, although they would never concede that a better scenario for the race overall could not have been scripted.
The tightly contested nature of the race is its unique selling point: it is not about the boat, it is about the sailors.
They have had close finishes in almost all legs, but just a few weeks ago it seemed as if Azzam might turn this into a foregone conclusion.
That is no longer the case and it is clear that this is going to be closer than anyone thought.
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