The VHF finally broke its month long silence just before 6pm, Josh Hall on the committee boat is calling. “Financial Crisis, we have you in sight, we are coming towards you, well done, you are in Wellington!”.

The rib came along driving in circles several times with the camera rolling under a gray sky, I finally see Ella and i emotionally carry on steering the boat towards the finish line. The finale of leg 2 of the Global Ocean Race was nothing short of a challenge in itself, battered by 35 knots of wind in Tasman bay we had to find shelter by the north island shore before the final attack beating down Cook Strait against the foul tide which made progress slow an painful, a squall came through and for half an hour we hang on wet, miserable and cold but with a smile on our faces and a glow given by the knowledge that we’d soon be hitting a hot shower and a first nice meal ashore.

As we approached Wellington harbour, on perfect cue, a pod of 4 happy dolphins came to ride our bow wave, our new friends came zooming under the bowsprit and often jumped clean out the water among our cheers.

The committee rib followed us all the way to the finish line a few miles up the harbour, then they fired a gun and blew a horn, minutes later Ollie, Clive and Sylvie climbed on board, the engine seal was checked as well as other seals to the anchor and liferaft then Ollie and Clive proceeded to filming a short interview…

Once we finally got closer to the marina we dropped the mainsail only to find out that the engine would start but would not engage gear, or we may have lost the propellor, who knows, but we needed to be towed all the way to our berth by Queen’s Wharf where now Financial Crisis sits with the GPS reading 0.0 knots, on the other side of the world in relation to the start in Europe, we are half way!

Immigration boarded the boat and quickly and efficiently stamped our passports and checked for fresh food products or any other contaminants and, rather kindly, they took away all our rubbish as a potential threat to New Zealand.

I came ashore met by Ella’s hugs and kisses before Hugo and I were handed a bottle of Champagne each which we sprayed against each other, we did it, we sailed some 7000 miles from Cape Town to Weallington in some of the roughest seas in the world, we were battered by force 9 and force 10 storms, we damaged sails and materials, but we are here ready to rest and regroup before preparations for next leg can begin.

We took fourth place but finished within 24 hours of BSL of Ross and Campell Field and were only 30 miles from the finish line when Halvard and Miranda finished with Campagne de France, their vigourous handshakes and generous congratulations were the icing on the cake, we knew we sailed a good leg and their aknoledgement meant a lot to us.

Now the unpleasant task of preparing a job list and assessing the likely cost of repairs will start, we have already received tremendous support from many friends and passionate followers and if you wish to assist us with the stopover costs, to ensure we can go further with the race, you can do so online at www.marconannini.com/help

We had been doing great all night shaving mile after mile from Halvard
Mabire and Miranda Merron’s lead over us, we were flying the smallest
spinnaker, a bullet proof job called the A5, a sail that can be used even
if 40 knots of wind, which is not far from what we had, sustained 30-35,
the usual treatment down here… until disaster struck, the halyard parted
and the sail went down into the water.

Halvard and Miranda were 750 miles ahead of us just a few days back, and
with a bit of luck but also by pushing very hard we brought down the gap
to under 240 miles, a 510 miles catch up! I doubt we’d have ever had the
chance to overtake them but our goal is to finish within 24 hours of them.
They have a brand new boat and tons of experience and we feel that would
be a very honorable placement for us.

As you can imagine trailing a spinnaker in the water in 30-35 knots of
wind is likely to cause a few headaches, we masterminded a way to bring it
inside the boat with lines lead to winches via hatches and whatnot, it
took us a good hour but unfortunately the damage is severe, at some stage
the sail wrapped around the rudder and tore for many meters and we dont
know if it can be saved. We aslo bent one of the stanchions in the process
which will need removing and rewelding.

Hopefully this is the last bit of damage for 2011 and 2012 will not bring
just yet any more repairs with a hefty bill to foot.

It is a rather serious blow to the racing budget, if the sail needs
replacing we are looking at 2000 pounds and even a repair will cost 500 at
the very least but i doubt that’s enough… it’s part of the game, part of
finding that balance between speed and wear of material, you walk on the
edge and sometimes you slip, the important is to get up again and keep
going.

Now more than ever i wish to thank all those that donated funds through
www.marconannini.com/sms every penny helps in these situations.

Meanwhile, the time approaches to wish you all fun celebrations for the
new year to come.

We are sailing in a lovely sunshine, broad reaching towards the northern
tip of South island, New Zealand of course, some 500 miles to the North
East of us. From there we’ll have a final stretch of just over 100 miles
of tricky sailing in the infamous Tasman Bay and Cook Strait, often
battered by some of the strongest winds on the planet, it looks from the
forecast that Ross and Cambell on BSL may be in for a real pasting, with
forecast 40-60 knots headwinds, all depends on their timing to the entrance
of the strait.

All well on board, as usual anticipation makes time expand, the thought of
of being on land, celebrating this amazing voyage, means clocks seem to
have stopped, but in reality the miles are ticking by, first we broke the
1000 miles to go barrier, now we’re looking at the 500 miles mark, land is
to our starboard a few hundred miles away and yesterday for the first time
since Cape Town, after 30 days, we saw a ship, genuinely this was the
first sign that the human race exists at all having shared day after day
with albatrosses and pestrels, which kinda start looking sexy after a
while (just kidding).

We wont make it in time for New Year’s celebrations which we’ll spend at
sea, we may paradoxically be close enough to land by then to see the
fireworks, lets hope we dont need to use our flares at that time as i
guess they would not be noticed!!!

I am very grateful to Ventana Group, one of my sponsors, who helped us
sorting out the flights for my girlfriend Ella who i will be able to meet
on arrival in Wellington. No wonder we sped up so much in the past few
days taking more than 600 miles off the leaders, i really have something
to look forward to!