Team News Corp reports from the Volvo Ocean Race

by John Gunderson on 24 Nov 2001 Mum's Birthday

The most important thing about today is that it is my mother's birthday
- happy birthday mum. I having been telling the boys that this would be
the event that would turn things around and it has - I just finished my
first watch without having to wear gloves. It is turning into really
nice sailing on deck.

Good time to reflect on the crazy experiences of the last 12 days. The
Southern Ocean served it all up for us - ice, freezing cold, soaking wet
reaching and exhilarating fast running - momentarily holding the 24-hour
VO60 record was a pretty cool feeling. I just hope that my mates back
in Santa Cruz made it to the Palomar to have a Margarita for me that
day!

An emotional roller coaster it was for sure, there were plenty of times
that we went from the Penthouse in the Ritz to the worst toilet in
Scotland (from the movie Trainspotting) and then straight back to the
Ritz again.

Physically the cold was the most grueling part of the whole deal,
getting all the gear on to deal with it and then sitting fully exposed
to the icy water for 4 hours was tough.

The older guys on my watch were awesome - countless trips to the south
between them and an unbelievable amount of experience. Justin
[Slattery] and myself had a lot of help and as a result we have come
through in really good shape and with a good bank of knowledge gained.

One of the most unique things about the Southern Ocean is that it seems
to be totally the domain of birds - there were hundreds of them around
the boat at times, Albatross of all shapes, sizes and colours rule.

The extreme conditions don't even worry them in the least, we would be
smoking down a wave doing 26 knots and they would just come gliding past
going twice the speed!

Anyway that is all behind us now, the survival suits are drying out and
I am about to pack mine away, the sun is shining and we have a fantastic
race on our hands - plenty to keep us busy between here and Sydney.

Justin and I only found out today that Joe Spooner isn't on the boat for
this leg - we thought he was just down crying in his bunk and writing
love letters to his girlfriend, turns out he wimped out and didn't even
come along for this one!

Off to catch some sleep now - our focus has changed and we need to stay
on top of our game to try and be the ones that turn the corner first in
two weeks time and catch sight of the Sydney cityscape before our mates
on the other boats.