road show
A look ahead from Team Sanya‘s Moose Sanderson…
Okay, It’s time to get this show back on the road. Its been a month since we limped into Madagascar and what a month it has been. A lot has been said about all the good work that happened to get the boat back sailing again, since then the guys had a slow but good trip up to Malé in the Maldives (AKA the secret location which we are now allowed to name), it was always going to be tight from the minute we realised that we had to replace all the side rigging on the mast to make it back to meet the fleet in time for this re-start.
The reality is that we have had one day here in the Maldives to do any jobs that were required on the boat before taking it for a quick test sail today followed by a thorough wash and repack this afternoon. A little scary that’s for sure. Distance wise it will mean that our boat basically has to do two legs without getting a full strip down and thorough check that would normally happen at every stopover, but we have gone to every effort that is possible to make sure she is 100% and today on the water it all worked very nicely and felt great.
So what do I think we have ahead of us for this leg? Well it is broken up into three main parts: From where we are it should be four odd days to the top of Sumatera which is where we then turn right into Malacca straights. This will then involve a busy few days navigating fishing boats, nets, fish traps, tugs with barges – let alone one of the busiest shipping channels in the world. Oh yes… fun,fun,fun…. but the good news for us is that it opens up plenty of opportunity for the race to not turn into a drag race.
Once down the Malacca straights on reaching Singapore, we start working North for the last stint of five odd days through to Sanya. This will be mainly upwind against the North eastern Monsoon winds. From all the historical forecasting that we have been going through, there are waves of quite strong breezes which come South every five to six days, fingers crossed we get lucky with the timing of that and we don’t cop a full pasting like the boats did in the last race – no, we aren’t quite in the same part of the world but the potential is still right up there.
I don’t think I have ever been so amped up to get back out and go racing. We owe it to you all that are reading this and we owe it to ourselves to go and have a decent leg and get this show back on the right track. The boat is great and the Team is one of the most wonderful group that I have been involved with, I really can’t say enough good things about them. Through thick and thin they have just dug it in and done what needs to be done and some. Often when I was asked to speak publicly after winning the 05 / 06 race I would talk about the difference between a good team and an average team was what percentage over and above 100% they were prepared to commit to the cause. I am sure we will have a nice leg and gain some momentum from there, so all the efforts can finally reap some rewards.
I have a great feeling about this leg coming up, wish us luck and cross your fingers for us..
Sanya here we come!!
Cheers,
Mike
