Mike's blog from Cape Town - Wed 23rd Nov 2011
Okay here goes...
As I have written about before it is bloody easy to slip into a mode of feeling sorry for yourself and with what has recently happened to the Puma Ocean Racing team, very quickly I realise how lucky we were that our incident happened where it did and when it did and how much worse it could have been. For sure Puma"s luck has been rotten, to have raced so well for seventeen days and be within striking distance from the leader and have the rig come tumbling down around your ears is just awful . We are all just glad that they are safe and well and that a good plan is in place to get them to Cape Town ASAP.
Okay, back to us, if we had stayed out there much longer there was a real risk that the damage would have extended aft of the water tight door and if that had happened we would have sunk, which wouldn't have been a whole lot of fun, but it didn't, we were safe and got the boat in safely. She is now happily sitting on a ship more then half way to Cape Town and the new piece of boat is coming along extremely well and on track to be sitting poised for when the boat gets here.
The guys reckon that four days after the boat arrives the outside skin of the boat and the new piece will be "married as one", so that the fairing and painting team can swing into action. Who knows how far they will get with the whole techni-coloured paint job before the guys finish the inside skin, but knowing Ian Lovering and his painters, don't bet against her looking as good as new when she hits the water.
So, onwards and upwards from here, the Volvo Ocean Race has thrown everyone a little reminder that get 90% of everything right and you have got a good chance of making it into the chocolates.
We can't wait to get back in the mix, this whole hanging around writing lots of job lists and going training is wearing pretty thin. I threatened the boys with regards to their training intensity that we would, on their arrival into Cape Town in a couple of days, go for a run up Lions head ( 600m of vertical climb over the 16km run). I thought the right thing to do would be to check it out and now my legs are so sore I can hardly walk... Poor me!!
Stand-by for more action when the good ship arrives.
Talk soon
Cheers
Mike
