That's all folks!

When I got up on Friday it was clear that the race was not going very well: we were sailing really slowly, our promised comeback had come to nothing and we were still 130 miles from the Isle of Wight. So I was not surprised when later in the day we got the news that the race would end at 18:00 UTC and we would then motor to the final destination.

Since we had not much hopes that our position could really improve we spent all afternoon looking at all the drama that was happening in front of us, with a frantic fight to decide who would be the winner of the global race. We could see some of the boats on the AIS (that's the automatic system that transmits the position of your boat to the surrounding vessels), but not all, so it was all very suspenseful.

Then the time to finish the race arrived and we did a huge celebration on deck with everyone jumping, dancing, shouting and hugging each other. You could specially see the happiness in the faces of the round the worlders, they were ecstatic. They all tied up together using the tethers of the life jackets and tried to move around the boat as a group, passing under the traveller. It was hilarious. All in all it was an awesome celebration, one of my happiest times on board.

We then spent all night motoring at high speed towards the Isle of Wight while down below everyone started to pack and get their things ready while we also did a bit of general cleaning. We also learned that the final winner was Ha Long Bay, so congratulations to its crew and their skipper and first mate.

When we finally arrived, we spent some time with each boat passing near the other boats to congratulate each other for our achievement and also to applaud the race winners. We also spent some time near the spectator boats, listening to their cheering, having fun and chanting with them.

All the boats then formed a line and we all motored together towards the finish line. This is the part that we were supposed to do as a mini race but which was cancelled due to the lack of wind. It is a shame we did not get to do this final race as I think that we would have all enjoyed it, but at the same time this parade was quite relaxed and allowed us to continue in a high spirit.

After officially passing the final line, with the first boat being received with a cannon blast from Suhaili, Sir Robin Knox-Johnston's boat, we spent a little while waiting and then we finally started the final parade of sail. It was awesome, we came into Portsmouth harbour being led by a huge ferry followed by a couple of tugboats using their hoses to create two arcs of water and then the eleven boats in formation. Brilliant!!

There was a huge amount of people cheering from the shore and this included my wife Puri and my son Leo who welcomed us from the top of the Round Tower. It was wonderful to finally be able to see them and wave to them after such a long time being apart.

After the parade and a bit of waiting we were finally able to dock into Portsmouth harbour. The welcome was nice but I have fonder memories of our welcome into Oban. It's probably because at this point what I wanted more than anything was to be able to meet my wife and son and hug them but supporters were not allowed into the pontoon so I had to be satisfied with waving to them from a distance. Participants in other legs of the race were allowed into the pontoon so it was great to see people like Rod, Lisette, Luís or Nanne welcoming us.

After an exasperating wait we finally started our parade to the stage and I was finally able to properly hug my wife and son. We were all incredibly happy to be finally reunited after all this time. We then got on stage and we gave it all: dancing like crazy, speeches, champagne shower, chanting. They had to push us out of the stage!! Punta is surely the winner when celebrating.

We then all went our separate ways to spend some time with friends and family, get our things from the boat and relax a little. A couple of hours later we started to get together in bars and restaurants to celebrate, with our crew split in two or three groups but keeping in touch and celebrating. I was quite tired because I had slept very little in the last 24 hours, so we left early after saying highly emotional goodbyes to all my crew mates.

So now I am home, really happy to finally have been able to live my dream of crossing an ocean and really happy to have been able to share this time with such an amazing group of people, hoping that we'll keep in touch and hoping that some of us will become friends for life.

Are we there yet?

We have just left Ireland and we have entered UK waters. So now that the detour to France has been removed from our route, we just need to sail along the coast of England towards the Isle of Wight. Sailing has been really nice today, nice weather, we even saw a bit of sunshine and we are sailing with the code 2 up and doing 12 knots

But even though this race has been fun and interesting all the crew has a single thing in mind and that is finally getting to Portsmouth and finishing this leg. Some people want to see their family, friends and loved ones, others are looking forward to the final mini race and the welcome in Portsmouth, others are just tired, but we are all eager to see the end of this

So the comments around the boat are all things like "only two days now", "only two night watches left" or "just 200 miles to go", this seems to be our main conversational theme right now.

The only thing that could change this is that in our traditional Punta fashion we seem to be doing a comeback and catching some of the other boats. There's currently a big pack of yachts which are sailing all quite close together within a circle of 10-20 miles so it seems that anything could happen now. Vamos Punta!!

Woolly days

We are currently sailing along the west of Ireland, on our way to the South. The wind has picked up a lot and we are now sailing upwind, doing 12 knots. We were very close to Dare to Lead, we can see them 200m on our port side and trying to overtake them. It's been a great sailing day, exciting and fun.

If you ask any of the crew what is their least favourite task, most of them would say "wooling". And you may ask yourself, what's that? Our larger sails are the spinnakers, we have three of them, from the lightest and biggest code 1 to the heaviest and smallest code 3. And these sails are so big that if you tried to hoist them while the wind is filling them it would not be possible, they'd just be too heavy. So what we do is that we tie them up with a lot of pieces of wool. These are strong enough to keep the sail from inflating while you hoist it. Once hoisted you pull on the sheets of the sail and the pieces of wool will start breaking and the sail will inflate.

So whenever you drop one of these sails you need to prepare it for the next hoist by carefully tying it up with these little pieces of wool. And this is what we call "wooling" and that is the task that everyone hates.

And why do we hate it? It is a lengthy and boring task, it can take a couple of people almost an hour. It is an uncomfortable task, you do it down below in cramped spaces, with the boat jumping around you, possibly with a lot of heat. It is a thankless task, nobody is going to congratulate you on a well done wooling. It is a never ending task, you'll wool a sail only for it to be hoisted and dropped, needing to wool it again in a couple of hours. This is something no-one is going to miss.

Sailing all together

During our Atlantic crossing we were far from any other boats most of the time but in this race we have been all quite close together most of the time. And I enjoy when we can sail with other boats within sight. It allows you to see how well you are doing by comparing your advance against other boats. And at night it is specially nice as you can see all the lights of the yachts surrounding you.

Yesterday we ended up very close to Zhuhai, less than 50 metres and I used the opportunity to take some really nice pictures. We were going faster than them and we first tried to overtake them on the windwards side but they maneuvered upwind and closed our way, we then went down in the wind and passed them on the leeward side, quickly leaving them behind. Hope that we can repeat that with some other boats!!

Another sailing Monday

We are back to sailing and back to all our boat routines. But this outstanding week in Scotland has left us all a bit rusty, so all these little things that had become second nature for us now again seem a little strange and we need to relearn them. We are all feeling a bit clumsy and it will take a couple of days until we all feel confident around the boat again.

We have now left Scotland and we are closer to the Northern part of Ireland, we just sailed past a couple of beautiful Irish islands. Or race start was not very good but we have now overtaken some boats and we are all still quite close together, so anything can happen. Wind has been pretty scarce, so we have been using the wind seeker a lot, alternating with Yankee and staysail when it increased a bit. So far the boat is quite flat and quiet, so life on board has been pretty easy. Hoping that we can get a bit more wind and things get a bit more exciting in the next few days.

See you in Portsmouth!

After our amazing Oban stopover, now it's the time to start racing again and, for our supporters, time for race viewer addiction 😂

This race looks really interesting, with different weather every day so I'm guessing we will be doing a lot of evolutions and sail changes, so it will probably be more active than the last one. 

And though I'm looking forward to this race, I'm even more eager to finally get to Portsmouth and to be able to hug my wife, celebrate with all friends and then go home to a well earned rest.

The send off today has been really awesome. A big parade led by a band with bagpipes, lots of people waving and cheering, lots of "Vamos Punta!!", and the best supporters in the world, including our youngest hero Elliot waving the flag.

Our start has not been the best ever, I think we are currently in last position, but there's plenty of time to catch up and hopefully we will be soon in the leading pack of this race

Scottish stopover

We have been having a really good time here at Oban, doing some race activities but also a lot of sightseeing. 

My friends Paula and Seb came to Oban to welcome me, so I spent the afternoons and evenings of the first three days with them, we did a lot of nice walks, including one to the crazy amphitheater at the top of the town, really good views from there. We also had some nice dinners and lunches, including going to the green shack, a local highlight where you can have really fresh seafood cooked for you on the spot and which was literally finger licking good. 

On the day after our arrival we also did a really deep boat clean. I worked with Cleo to do the food inventory, we found we really had too much stuff. We were able to get rid of a lot of it by sharing with other boats and preparing some bags for local charities.

The next day I participated in boat maintenance and I learned how to take apart the jammers and clean them.

Next day I took a walk around the Kerrera island which is just in front of Oban. I went there really early and for the first couple of hours I was walking alone. The walk was really nice, took me around 5 hours including a visit to the small castle at the South end of the island. I almost screwed up, I thought that prize giving was at 6, so I had booked my ferry back for 4pm. Fortunately Will asked about the venue for the event, I looked it up and realised that it was at 4! Fortunately I was able to change my booking to the 2pm ferry (I was lucky, there was only one spot left) 

At prize giving I was really pissed off. I had created a really good video of our race which everyone agreed was awesome and I had submitted it for the media prize and had high hopes for it. But the prize went to another video which everyone agreed was much worse than mine. The concept was good but the execution was really poor. 

After the prize giving we had a really great time at the Ceilidh, they taught us how to do some Scottish dances and the result was a disaster but a lot of fun 😊 

Next day I drove to the Isle of Skye to do some sightseeing and get away from Clipper for a while. We had an amazing time, Skye is really amazing and the landscapes are incredible. Tall mountains, ridged peaks, high cliffs, waterfalls everywhere... It was also quite tiring as I drove for 7 hours each day.

The father of my friend Gary from Dare to Lead had recommended to visit the Coruisk Loch, so my second day in Skye we went to Elgol to take a boat to the loch. The place was really amazing with really steep hills full of waterfalls surrounding the loch. It's a shame that the weather was horrendous and I got really drenched. I met a really nice Australian guy, David, he was a musician on tour and he played some songs for us on the boat.

Then these last days I have been mainly chilling, we did all the shopping for the victualling, it was really easy as we only needed to buy some fresh items, and today we had our crew brief for our last race.

So we are now all ready to depart tomorrow and to arrive in Portsmouth where all our friends and family will be waiting and where I'm sure there will be an amazing welcome.