Team SEB has another port starboard incident in Volvo race

by Rodney Ardern Watch captain - SEB on 17 Mar 2002 I am often asked what is toughest part of sailing round the world. Most
think tough means cold, wet and hungry but personally I find these
Atlantic legs the toughest. It may sound pleasant to be sailing along in
the trade winds dodging clouds but you must imagine that this too can
become boring. The monotony of sailing with our Code 0 for the last five
days came to an end yesterday as the breeze finally freed up and we were
able to fly some spinnakers.

Today we have been peeling (changing)
spinnakers regularly as the wind has picked up and we bear away around the
northeastern corner of Brazil. This has given the troops something else to
focus on rather than be worried about our boat speed.

We have had the good fortune to have djuice, Amer Sports One and Amer
Sports Too beside us to make us realize we are actually back in this race.
It is always a difficult balance when you have boats so close. Your
natural reaction is to race only them and you fall into the trap of
getting tied up in the battle and not concentrating on the war.

In the last 24 hours we have had a few close encounters with the locals.
During the night we had to avoid a poorly lit cruising catamaran that was
idling along on port with not a care in the world only to be rudely
disrupted but six screaming yachties politely explaining the intricacies
of the right of way rules. Is that the pot calling the kettle black?

We were stunned to see the state of the local sailing canoes out today -
very low freeboard, simple main and jib and a very versatile rig - heavily
raked going upwind and over the bow downwind. Either these guys are
closely following the Americas Cup trends in Auckland or we have 100 years
of sailing lessons to be learnt from the locals.