Leg 2, Day 3
14 December 2011
Amory Ross, MCM, PUMA Ocean Racing powered by BERG
What could possibly be next? That’s what we’re all wondering on PUMA’s Mar Mostro. Today has been incredibly busy and varied, but exciting too. I don’t think there’s anything we haven’t done or tried, and the only consistency has been our level of activity: stuck on high.
But what a day, all of it spent within sight of three other boats, and for most of the afternoon we could see everyone but Telefónica.
The goal this morning was to stick to the beach in hopes of utilizing a building sea breeze to lift us around each successive point of land. When that sea breeze was slow to develop we were faced with an early gamble:
- Continue sailing towards land on a header, totally depending on the thermal lift to take us towards sea, but risking it not happening in time and having to tack out towards the others in the header when it does eventually arrive.
- Ignore the potential gains, sail conservatively, and tack out to sea early.
We ended up going somewhere in between, and it worked for much of the day. We’ve been trading places with CAMPER and Groupama all day long, and as we entered the night CAMPER had the slight advantage to our north.
Then came the fishing “rig” of some sort (a floating-city in disguise) that motored by us as we entered the drift-off. Then came the fishing net around the keel. Just a brutal start to the night. And here we sit, becalmed, watching the fleet sail by us from behind on the computer. It’s extremely depressing.
Groupama and Abu Dhabi appear to be on the other side of a completely random line of clouds and they’re moving really fast (déjà vu, Telefónica, Leg 1). Those two could potentially be gone – like, launched. Ugh.
Gut check #683, and we’re only three days into Leg 2. Nothing seems to come easy around here. Well, at least we’re used to a little adversity by now!
And here is a new video compilation of the dismasting. Colonoscopy, indeed.
