I had been planning to write updates from out on the race course as we sailed our first doule handed race of the season from Charleston to Newport via NY.  I had not planned to be writing a blog from my hotel room whilst everyone else raced up the eastern seaboard.  'Such is life', 'it could have been worse', 'at least it happened there and not out in the middle of the ocean'....all these phrases have been spilling out of my mouth as the immediate reaction to the shock of seeing the rig and sails dangling helplessly where they once stood proud.  At some point that knee jerk positivity had to come to an end.  After spending yesterday cutting down the top section of the rig with the help of the wonderful Phesheya Racing team (x), we loaded the broken bits onto the deck this morning and motored around to the boatyard.  The very yard that had waved me off wishing me luck just days before.  This got to me.  In fact it sucked, really very badly.  I repeated the upbeat phrases to myself as we left the yard but the {-} symbol was lacking its cross.  Suddenly the reality struck. We were no longer in the Atlantic Cup, no longer sailing the Newport - Bermuda and not able to confirm the Quebec-St Malo.  

Sometimes I wonder if I am done with being cold wet and tired.  Do I really want to keep racing offshore and across oceans?  By virtue of the fact that I would swap the comfy bed I am in right now for crappy sleep on a bean bag, the juicy steak I ate last night for bland freeze dried and the fact that my stomach ties itself in an uncomfortable knot each time I look at the race viewer confirms to me that yes I do want to do this and of course I am gutted at not being a part of the action.

But this is the world of sports - the highs are huge and the lows equally so.  We are just faced with a different sort of a challenge.  Rather than work out our tactical strategy for getting to NY the quickest we must work out how to build and re step a new rig the quickest so that we make the start of the Quebec-St Malo race.  Tears will not help resolve the problem but tonight I have shed a few...I guess that just shows how much I care about this project.

Tomorrow is a new day, the working week will wake up again and we can start to get things done. Ultimately we are in one piece, the hull is in one piece and the sails are undamaged.  

"It could have been a lot worse..."

I write this from my comfy sofa back home in the UK as I try to convince my brain and body to switch back to BST.  I had to wait until 2am this morning before finally going to sleep, ah well good training for shorthanded sailing I guess.  As anyone who has ever been on a yacht delivery before will know, banking on arriving at the right port at the original ETA is a total waste of time.  Every once in a while things work out just so, that was predictably not the case as we set off from Antigua bound for Miami. With Peter (owner) and Sammie (one half of Team Beaudacious) on board the first 3-4 days of the trip were pretty good.  Warm breeze, one squally night but some quality training miles for both the Atlantic Cup and the Quebec St Malo.  Then the wind died and the engine which had been losing power at an inctreasing rate over the previos week packed up.  Not a massive deal just a totally clogged racor filter.  I had prepared for this purchasing a new one in Antigua.  Despite the exact same product code etc etc the thread size in the top of the filter was incorrect so I had to remove the racor from the equation and we carried on with just one filter.  A sweaty horrible job that infused my skin with the delightful aroma of diesel.  With a forecast that continued to get lighter we diverted to Nassau and arranged for 4th crew member Daf to fly from Miami to meet us there.  Probably a good job we never made Miami in the end as it was only well into our delivery that the marina in Miami (despite being repeatedly reminded of our 3 m draft, decided to point out that we would only be able to get in twice a day bang on high water due to a hump at the entrance.  Arrive at the wrong time and you get a 12 hour wait..ever heard of a dredger?)  From there the plan kind of fell apart.  I arrived with a monster migraine which knocked me out, the forecast went to the opposite end of the scale and Peter and Sammie had flight deadlines to meet.  In the end we stayed in Nassau for 4 days rather than the proposed 36hours and Daf and I set off double handed.  I can certainly think of places I would rather get stuck in but at least we found a good steak.

So 40 Degrees is now sitting in Charleston City Marina ready and waiting for the Atlantic Cup which begins on 11th May.  If you visit the race website www.atlanticcup.org there is a section where you can vote for your favourite team.  British based 40 Degrees is up against some strong competition both on the water and in the favourite team ranking so next time you get a free moment check out the Atlantic Cup web page and vote for us, thanks!!

I am not sure if the customs guy who cleared us in will ever read this but thanks for being so cheery even at 1am and that breakfast place you recommended...its closed down!!!  I am also elated at arriving somewhere that is functioning on efficient time rather than island time, I love the caribbean but trying to get stuff done is more than a little mildly tedious.

I will be adding some new links to my site over the coming days so it will be a piece of cake for you all to track us as we race up the eastern seaboard to Newport, then out to Bermuda and finally back across the Atlantic from Quebec to St Malo in the summer.

Thanks for reading and don't forget to vote for us #AtlanticCup

It has been hard work trying to convince friends recently that my life is not one big holiday!  Honestly there is quite a lot of work involved in running a race boat and campaign although I do have to admit that having the luxury of hot sunshine does help.  Since a brief trip back to the UK it has been full on with 40 Degrees on charter to the brilliant Chance crew from San Fransisco.  We sailed both the ST Thomas and BVI Spring regattas.  Not being an around the cans machine it was hard work and at times a little frustrating struggling to beat much smaller boats who were able to cruise dead downwind whilst we darted all over the place sailing our angles.  Still the lack of results was made up for with meeting new mates and generally absorbing the amazingness of the BVI's.

We arrived back in Antigua on Tuesday afternoon after a slow delivery to find that some kind of a hungry bug with a rubber fetish had eaten its way through all our dry bags in storage.  Feraing infestation from said bug we had a serious deep clean of kit before re stowing the boat ready for the off this Friday. So that is it for our Caribbean season 2012, we are off up to Charleston via Fort Lauderdale ready to begin double handed racing again.  Bring on the Atlantic Cup.

Better still my Team Beaudacious co-skipper Sammie is here and we have begun training for WOW, with 40 Degrees occupying day time working hours, a quick SUP session and campaign planning for WOW taking place in the evening there is barely enough time for a cold beer.

Oh and did I mention the ride on Paradox?  I LOVE multihulls.  The acceleration is insane and the ease with which you get speed is just awesome, it may have been my first ride on a bug multihull but I really hope its not my last :)

More from the USA, enjoy the snow England :)

Hello everyone and apologies for my absence from the world of blogging.  My internet connection in Antigua was more than a little frustratingly slow and kept dropping out.  After losing a few blogs to cyberspace I admit I quit and decided to save all the news for now.  So I am back in the UK for just 2 weeks, well not quite.  On wednesday I head out to Denmark to sail a lovely shiny new X-55 back to Hamble.  I dread to think how freezing the north sea is going to be but I could probably do with a bit of hardening up after so much lovely sun. 

Being in Antigua was a ridiculous amount of fun, of course the climate helps but its the characters that really make the place.  Take the trip to the airport to fly home.  We had hired a jeep for a couple of days and were told that we could either leave it at the airport with the keys under the seat or have a driver FOC.  Sweet, a chaufer driven trip to the airport, done.  So before departure we relaxed with some cocktails on Pigeon Beach followed by beers with new mates.  Then Rasta Man George rocked up (accompanied by Carlos - local homeless guy and 'The Roof Specialist' - random dude trying to afix the rather basic soft top roof back on our jeep).  A small guy with au natural dreadlocks, no teeth and slightly crossed eyes.  Giggling he introduced himself as 'Rasta Man George' before climbing in the back seat. Interesting, I thought drivers usually located themselves behind the wheel.  "Nah man, I drive BACK from the airport, you get me?"  OH.  Brilliant, so I drove the crazy Antiguan roads fuelled by Lime Margeritas (don't try this at home kids!!).  Credit to our man George, despite the back road route and our initial scepticism that he even knew where the place was, George was all over it.  Nice one George.

For any Team 40 Degrees followers out there you will know that we unfortunately had to retire from the Caribbean 600.  We did the 420 version instead.  It is the first offshore race I have not finished and it was gutting to have to pull the plug after all the hard work we put in before that start.  Still these things happen.  The furling gear slipped as we were getting rid of the Solent (headsail) so it unfurled.  In 23 knots of wind it flogged for just a few seconds but it was enough to damage the leach beyond what was repairable on board. Without that sail we would have been severly handicapped so the decision was made to turn around just off the SW corner of Guadeloupe.  What was particularly annoying was that we had just escaped the clutches of the dreaded wind hole down there and the previous night I had spent 2 hours up the rig sorting halyard issues.  At least there were no major dramas and 40 Degrees is sunning herself in Antigua Yacht Club Marina having a 2 week holiday before the next round of action begins.

We will be out on charter for the St Thomas and BVI regattas and may even cram in St Barths just to max out the chamapgne sailing.  Then its off to Charleston to prepare for the Atlantic Cup and the first taste of double handed racing this year.  We are very excited about the Atlantic Cup and the new ports and people we are going to see and meet along the way.  So with a shiny new bottom, new string, new mainsail and lots of TLC 40 Degrees is ready to get racing.

Good luck to all the sailors taking part in the Clas 40 event the Route Du Chocolat which begins on 11th March, hope its a bit less brutal than the TJV.

More soon :)

Twenty two days is not a long time to be at sea but with such full on conditions we finished the Transat Jacques Vabre exhausted and thin.  After just four days in Puerto Limon to fix the boat up and re stock we set sail again on the delivery back to Antigua.  You may imagine turquoise seas, fully loaded i pods and relaxing sunshine sailing akin to something you might find in a holiday brochure.  Unlike the big budget IMOCA 60's, the Class 40 fleet does not generally have large shore crews in tow so as much as we would have liked to get straight on a plane back to our friends/family, beds and the dry land we call home (occasionally!), we had to grunt up and sail the 1,800 miles back to Antigua.  (In a straight line it should only be around 1000).  Disappointment number one came on the day off at the beach in Costa Rica.  Having just fended off the advances of three racoons who clearly had just as much of a craving for the cold beer we had bought with us, we laid down music on, eyes shut enjoying the sunshine.  With the ultimate playlist helping to unwind the tension of the race and the incredible feeling of being dry for the first time in nearly a month adding to the enjoyment you can only imagine the language that ensued when a freak wave engulfed us sweeping away that refreshing beer and silencing the tunes.

1,800 miles with no music and no other source of mental stimulation is not much fun.  Add to that a constant headwind, ridiculous sea state, shortage of food and enough debris to turn the caribbean sea into an obstacle course and you have a very tedious delivery trip.  I think it took us around five days to race from the Mona Passage entrance to the Caribbean Sea to Puerto Limon.  It took over eleven days to go the other way with the wind gods throwing everything at us in their power to make getting there a seemingly never ending task.  All the while the infected thumb on my right hand that had been causing me grief since the first week of the race was increasing in size and pain, good job I whacked it hard by mistake releasing the pressure in a rather gruesome manner (but I will spare you the details).

Anyway we got there.  Finally.  40 Degrees was lifted and I am pleased to report that apart from worn antifoul she was in good shape and quite happy to be getting some downtime.  I got back to London and was the only person on the plane excited to land in the snow at Gatwick.  Its a sad fact of life that after shedding somewhere in the region of 6kg of weight over the course of the race and delivery and having to work my backside off to achieve this (though of course it was not an intentional diet), the festive season has enabled me to gain most of it back with a lot less effort than it took to come off.  Such is life girls!!  

So what's next you ask?  Our season kicks off with the RORC 600 which I will be sailing with the boat's owner Peter Harding followed by some Caribbean training and racing and then onto the Atlantic Cup, Newport-Bermuda, Quebec-St Malo and then the Normandy Channel Race.  Behind the scenes work has begun on a future project which is too new to launch just yet but watch this space...

So 2012 is setting up to be an action packed and fun year.  A lot of lessons have been learned from 2011 which was a tough and at times disappointing year but with the podium position ending it on such a positive note, I intend to build on that high and make this a year to remember.

Thanks to everyone who supported and backed me in so many different ways in 2011 and an even bigger thank you for your continued support.