Volvo Ocean Race - Team Vestas Wind ready to race

by Brian Carlin, Team Vestas Wind on 19 Nov 2014 It’s the day before departure for Leg 2 of the Volvo Ocean Race and we are much better prepared than the Leg 1 start in Alicante. We all have our small list of jobs to complete today but all being well; we will be out of the team base mid afternoon to take some personal time. Personal time is not something we have had the privilege of enjoying over the past couple of months. In fact, we had our first three days off since last August when we got to Cape Town. Luckily, Coxy our shore manager called in some help to allow us have this time off!

Boats are a never ending mess of jobs and things to do, constantly demanding attention. I was even using power tools, however after my mis-use of said tools; I have now been banned from anything to do with fixing. Ah, come on its not a big deal to us a carbon blade to cut plastic and it turns out instead of cutting it you actually melt it....

So the general feeling is positive in the team base today. Nico has even been cracking jokes in team meetings! We didn’t have the time to joke in Alicante so it’s a great feeling.

Tomorrow is going to be another big day for our team, it’s possibly the longest leg of the race in terms of time. We are ready in personal areas but as a sailing team we need to continue learning this boat, we learned lots on Leg 1 and we will continue to learn this boat, I do feel as a group we grow stronger each day. I like to talk about Nico’s reasoning on his selection of this team and it becomes more and more evident each day why he got the guys he got. The team works so well and I think it’s the most developed over any other which says a lot about our leadership, even if Nico doesn’t like me writing about him in this way. He’s rather modest and plays a lot down. We know who he is though.

So to conclude, the boat is ready, the team is ready, we will learn more each day of leg 2 and the hunger is really here. Let's hope we can convert our learning outcomes into a real outcome, i.e. a podium for Team Vestas Wind website