Hard earned celebrations after crossing scoring gate

After nearly two weeks of hard core sailing, the best part of which spent beating upwind in very tough conditions, including an early force 9 storm that prompted two boats to retire, we are finally through the scoring gate taking 2nd place. This virtual line on the chart served two purposes, first to provide an intermediate point in the race where boats are awarded extra points based on their position at the time of crossing, second to force the fleet to take a more northerly route from New Zealand to Cape Horn avoiding the worst of an area of known icebergs.

These were hard earned miles, certainly some of the hardest sailing conditions i ever met, when i saw we had some 1400 miles to the gate, all upwind, I thought back at the OSTAR 2009, my first transatlantic race, from Plymouth UK to Newport RI, certainly the mother of all upwind races and it gave me some extra confidence. Sometimes when you sail upwind for several days the morale sinks low and you start thinking that you’ll never make it, that the boat cannot survive the battering, progress is slow and the prospects look bleak. For us, paradoxically trouble came with the first night of following winds when we destroyed our masthead A2 spinnaker following a crash gybe caused by an autopilot malfunction.

We are undoubtedly very proud to have made it so far despite the adversities and our eyes are now set for the ultimate milestone, rounding Cape Horn, just over 2000 miles to the south east and I wish to thank all those who took the time to send us messages of encouragement to the boat. After crossing a virtual line please join us in our virtual celebratory party, if you feel so inclined you can bring a virtual round of beers at www.marconannini.com/help.

Posted by: firstclass