A New Year, Fresh Plans & A Bright Future

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.