{"id":313,"date":"2012-05-02T07:50:49","date_gmt":"2012-05-02T07:50:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.firstclasssailing.com\/blog\/?p=313"},"modified":"2012-05-02T07:51:37","modified_gmt":"2012-05-02T07:51:37","slug":"marco-second-into-charleston","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.firstclasssailing.com\/blog\/marco-second-into-charleston\/","title":{"rendered":"Marco second into Charleston"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Marco - tales second place into Charleston<\/p><\/div>\n

Finally here we are, Sergio and I literally just crossed the finish line in
\nfront of Charleston Harbour, it’s the middle of the night, just after
\nmidnight local time, the race officials are about to board the boat to check
\nthe engine seals and then we’ll be able to drop the sails and motor towards
\nthe marina. Hopefully we’re still in time to get our first beer in the
\nUnited States but we may have to wait for immigration officials before we’re
\nallowed to get off the boat, they are pretty strict over here with this
\nstuff…<\/p>\n

It took us just under 30 days to sail from Punta del Este to take second
\nplace in Charleston, three days faster than we had anticipated, finishing
\nwithin 24 hours of race leader Cessna Citation. We are very pleased with
\nour performance on this leg, we are again first of the vintage boats, it
\nmay have been the mildest of all legs from a weather perspective but it
\nwas quite tactical and required relentless attention to boat speed and
\nsail trim.<\/p>\n

We took an early lead over our direct competitors on Phesheya and
\nSec.Hayai and managed to build an advantage of nearly 200 miles in the run
\nup to the Caribbean Islands. From then onwards the winds were always
\nstronger, relatively speaking, at the back of the fleet allowing us to
\nclose the gap to the leading boat, Cessna Citation, from 400 miles ahead
\nto just 160 but simultaneusly allowing Phesheya to close in from behind
\nfrom 185 miles to as little as 40 miles a couple of days ago.<\/p>\n

In many respects it was a rather boring leg, I will remember the heat and
\nthe endless amount of time spent under big spinnaker on the same tack with
\nlittle more to do than regularly check for sail trim and weed in the
\nrudders.<\/p>\n

The easier weather conditions luckily meant that we have no damage to
\nreport. We stupidly lost a spinnaker sheet during a manouvre and the only
\nthing that needs attending is the main alternator that has stopped working
\na few weeks ago, let’s hope it does not require and expensive replacement.<\/p>\n

We are looking forward to the time off in Charleston before the final
\nsprint back to Europe, I can’t believe I really made it this far, the
\nstart in Palma seems a world away and now Europe is just a transatlantic
\ncrossing away…<\/p>\n

As always, very humbly and openly I thank anyone wishing to help with the
\nstopover costs or simply wishing to offer a celebratory beer, you can do
\nso online at www.marconannini.com\/help<\/a><\/p>\n

Also, don’t forget the boat is up for urgent sale and offers are invited
\nas soon as we’re back in Europe. For further information please email Ella
\nat connolly_ella@yahoo.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Finally here we are, Sergio and I literally just crossed the finish line in front of Charleston Harbour, it’s the middle of the night, just after midnight local time, the race officials are about to board the boat to check the engine seals and then we’ll be able to drop the sails and motor towards […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-313","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-global-ocean-race"],"views":3084,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.firstclasssailing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/313","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.firstclasssailing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.firstclasssailing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.firstclasssailing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.firstclasssailing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=313"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.firstclasssailing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/313\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":316,"href":"https:\/\/www.firstclasssailing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/313\/revisions\/316"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.firstclasssailing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=313"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.firstclasssailing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=313"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.firstclasssailing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=313"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}