no singing yet
TELEFÓNICA WATCH CAPTAIN NEAL McDONALD FOR SAILING ANARCHY
Lisbon, 4th June 2012
As with several other legs of this race, the transatlantic one was far from the “norm”. Warm, reasonably flat seas and no gales (other than the tropical storm most of us got caught up in just days into the race!) made for an unusually quiet crossing.
Having said that it felt to me like the worst leg “Telefónica” have had so far. The end result (4th) would not have been so bad but with “Groupama” being 2nd, our slim but comforting overall points lead has been obliterated – we are no longer top of the leader board – now 2nd to “Groupama” with two boats not far behind things did not appear so good.
Having had the opportunity to make an early break to the east with “Groupama”, we both got pushed back into the cheap seats by the rest of the fleet who made a massive jump to the north from behind –a situation we basically never recovered from.
“Groupama”, however, did a great job of getting back to the front of the fleet- in fact they very nearly got back to “Abu Dhabi” who did such a great job it looked to me like they had a unchallengeable lead from a pretty early stage in the race. It was one of those legs that things never quite fell into place for us. We sailed hard, took all the opportunities we could, but it just never quite happened for us.
But, after a good nights sleep, and a couple of days with my family I look at it now and it is not so bad. In reality it is just like starting again, the points differences between the top boats is small compared to the points on offer for the rest of the race.
What’s more, I’m on a fast, excellently well prepared boat, full of some of the best sailors in the world with a hungry will to win (also incidentally the only boat to keep the same crew in the entire race) and we have the best shore team you could ever wish for, to support us.
Wait for the fat lady to sing!
Cheers!
Neal McDonald
Team Telefónica Watch Captain
