VOR- Team Russia blog by Nick Bubb Watch Leader

by Nick Bubb on 1 Dec 2008 So this will be my last blog of Leg 2, even if we are stuck out here for another week, I can't take it anymore I just can't take it all this sweating onto the keyboard it makes typing a nightmare. No seriously, I've had enough now, as my friend Meg once said, 'Take me home or lose me forever.'

So the last few days have been pretty uneventful, highlights however include managing to swim all the way round the yacht whilst sailing, in the loosest sense of the word, over the equator, and managing a staggeringly poor 34 miles in one 24 hour period whilst battling a 2 knot equatorial current in an average windspeed of 2 knots.

There have been some pretty serious discussions onboard over whether the 'professional' thing to do would be to retire and start motoring towards a rendezvous with a fuel pick up and/or stronger breeze. This has become a consideration due to Volvo's seemingly strange rule that you get the same number of points for finishing last as you do for retiring, right now all I can say is that I'm glad this race is not judged on cumulative time!

Anyway personally I've been very anti this idea and thankfully that this was the decision the crew came to as a team too. Of course we may have to reconsider if we park up for another 5 days. We are hoping and praying that we will get in on the 4th December as we only have a few days food left but in reality we can hold out for another 6 days.

The only issue is that cuts into our preparation time for the next leg, which starts on the Saturday 13th December, and we have quite a long job list for Cochin! Anyway right now we are sailing at 10 knots in a decent breeze, which looks something like the forecast, the first time in a looooooong time! We expect further tricky conditions on the final stretch along the Indian coast, which are currently holding up the bulk of the fleet but I'm confident we are out of the worst times.

With just over 400 miles to go spirits are cautiously rising, that is until Beno reminds me about Saturdays rugby result against NZ which then kicks off our South African clan about the weekend before, currently we are 'doing an England' so I can't be too harsh on the boys.

Drifting around this past week has brought memories of the Oryx Quest 2005 flooding back to me. We had raced non stop around the world, something like 25,000 miles in just over 60 days and were heading up the Indian Ocean to Qatar when we fell into similar conditions to those we are experiencing now. In the end it took us nearly 2 weeks to finish off the last 1000 miles. There is a reason why most yacht races don't come up here……..

This thought leads me to reflect on how we've ended up in this situation and my role within the team. This leg was always going to be a huge challenge, trying to at least partially fill the boots of the great Guillermo Altadill whilst at the same time continue by duties as boat captain and general Mr Fix-it. In a funny way it has been tough but not how I imagined it would be.

Mikey Joubert who has been my watch buddy for this leg is widely acknowledged as one of the best bowman in the world but I have to say he certainly knows how the back end works too. Mike has shared in all the decisions to be made on deck and between us, I'm very happy that we did a fast and safe job in the first few weeks of the race. When it comes to keeping Kosatka in one piece, Beno and Cam have been part of the task force we put into operation to keep our heads above water, whilst Mikey takes care of the rig.

This side of life has obviously got a lot easier in the current conditions whilst the role of watch captain has become a little confusing to say the least, no longer do I have to worry about keeping everyone in good physical shape, sleep is now easy, no longer are there tricky sail calls to make, it is pretty much just CO-C all the way. As for the often stressful safety considerations to deal with, as much as we try to 'push' the boat, right now even we are struggling to break her!

As far as the fallout from the tactical choices of the last week, I can say hand on heart that there have not been any onboard at least! I was certainly not against the route we took, it was not hugely extreme and was based on solid facts but Mother Nature doesn't always play by the same rules. I'd like to say you live and learn but I like to make bold choices in life and they can't always be right, sure we've learnt a lot this leg but our style of ocean racing won't change.

Leg 3 is going to be more of the same no doubt with additional challenges. We are all focused on getting this tough situation dealt with as painlessly as possible then recuperating and hitting the line running a week or so later. Some of the guys are rushing home for a few days with family whilst most of the younger guys are planning on a few days sightseeing before getting back into race mode and ensuring we are as ready as can be. We had several milestones yesterday, as well as crossing the equator, my seventh visit to Neptune, we also clocked up over 20,000 miles on Kosatka's log, it seems amazing we've only been sailing her a few months!

Well good night all, we seem to have slowed down again so I better prepare for the change back to the CO-C.

Cheers, Nick

PS Just a short note to the crew, sorry for bring 'that' cold onboard that I think we've all suffered from it at some point, interesting to note that for some people it was catagorised as life threatening flu and for others just a mild cold! Sorry boys, maxing out on the Vitamin C from now on. Oh and Mark sorry about the hair cut I gave you today, I just hope it 'grows in' a little before you see yourself in a mirror!