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Screwy conditions with someone right on your tail
is never very pleasant!
We were sailing upwind on a direct course to Miami
and all of a sudden a great wall of cloud rolled in.
The upshot of this was a massive wind shift
with no air behind it at all,
which was very stressful.
Fortunately it didn’t last long, about 20 minutes or so,
and now we’re powering along again.
We’re obviously frustrated because we weren’t able
to battle it out for the top spot for three weeks,
which was hard to bear.
Fortunately, the final week proved to be more positive,
when we overtook Abu Dhabi and then Telefonica:
ultimately we did a really good job
and it’s good to put Telefonica astern of you.
We ended this sixth leg on a positive note,
but we got off to such a bad start that we wondered
what on earth we were doing for ten days or so!
It was very hard to bear mentally.
However, we managed to stay calm and focused
on getting the boat to make headway as we waited
for a possible opportunity to come our way.
Initially, we really didn’t have any,
whilst our rivals just extended away
which we couldn’t do anything about, so it was tough.
Mentally it was the hardest leg since the start in Alicante.
What I really like this evening is that I’ve learnt
something different on every leg.
Mentally it was quite an event this past leg,
particularly at the end here!
We were at the back for a large part of the race,
we stupidly let the others get away from us for a number of reasons,
which created a lot of pressure aboard
because we weren’t happy to end up where we were.
Gradually we managed to get back into the fight
thanks to two fine options by Franck and Jean-Luc,
which got us back into the running.
We managed to pull off a blinder and overtake Telefonica,
where it was very important for the overall standing
not to let them get any further ahead of us
as there are increasingly few legs and hence points up for grabs.
All in all, we’re pretty satisfied,
though we’re a little disappointed as we were at the back
for a large part of the leg, which was hard.
It’s not a bad end to the leg though!
After the standing in this leg and the shake-up
in the overall standing with everyone bunched up together,
it’s good for the race and the suspense,
but it’s not quite such good news for Telefonica,
who I’m sure would have liked to have held onto their sizeable lead!
Essentially it means that things will be open right to the end.
Four boats are still in with a chance of outright victory today,
with three legs to go till the finish.
The battle is on then and it will continue.
Anything’s possible and we’ll have to make sure
we sail better than we did at the start of this leg.
I believe we’re capable of that and we mustn’t forget
the positive things we’ve achieved and repeat them.