Race Start

Finally, after more than 4 years of waiting, the day that I had been waiting for arrived. Race start was finally happening and I wanted to make sure that I was there. My race was not starting yet, as I am doing legs 2 and 3 but I wanted to be able to see my team off, celebrate with them and help in any way that I could.

I arrived in Portsmouth on Friday evening and I spent some time with Gerry, my partner in the Media Team and we talked a little bit about how things were going to work for this team. It was a nice beautiful evening and we walked to the place where the crew party was happening while chatting about this.

The party was held in a kind of warehouse in the Historic Dockyard. The building itself was not very attractive and the music was a bit too loud for my liking but I soon found myself talking to a lot of people, saying hi to all the people that I had met during my training weeks and starting to meet all the members of the Punta del Este team.

I also spent some time talking to the people who had come to represent the Yacht Punta del Este Club, Hector, Jimena... and also to Nano's sister. All of them really nice people and I am sure that we are going to have a wonderful welcome in Punta de Este.

Soon the whole team moved to the dance floor and we had a blast, dancing like crazy and having tonnes of fun. You could see that our team was one of the teams having a better time, all joking and dancing together. A great night!

It's a shame that I was too tired from the trip and I had to leave for my hotel before I could celebrate Angus' birthday, which was on Saturday, but I heard they celebrated it heartily.

Next day I got up early and went to the boat. It was a great opportunity to take some good pictures of the yachts as the crowds had not arrived yet. Soon you could see a lot of movement all around, with people working on the last purchases and the last "to-dos" for the boats. I also used this opportunity to get my crew kit from the race office so that I could use it on Sunday on stage.

Since I am part of the Victualling team I spent some time looking at how they had stowed everything so that we could replicate this in Punta del Este. There was a moment of panic when I could not locate the toilet rolls as they were not in the place that they had told me they had stowed them. I was finally able to find them in the space above Nano's bunk. Uff!

We had a meeting of the victualling team to talk about all the last items that were left to do and the last purchases that needed to be done and I spent the rest of the day running errands and going to a lot of different places to find everything that we needed.

In the meantime the people doing leg 1 were all busy doing their meetings with the race directors and with Nano, trying to get all the information they would need for the race.

Finally around 7:00pm we stowed the last items on board and it was the time to relax a little. I went with Eugenia and her partner to a local pub and we had a great time talking about our expectations about the race.

During the day the Clipper maintenance guys had been working in our generator which did not seem to be working fine. When we left around 7:00pm we were a bit worried because the yacht was a mess, with tools and stuff everywhere, a bit of a smell of gasoline and no clear solution for the generator yet. It really did not look like the yacht could be ready for the crew on Sunday.

Next day I again arrived quite early to the boat and was amazed to discover that all the mess had disappeared and all was dandy and nice. Apparently they had been working late until around 11:30pm and had replaced the faulty generator with one of the generators from the 68s, with the idea of replacing it with a new one in Cádiz. I was impressed with the quality of the work of the Clipper maintenance team.

My last task before race start proper was to prepare the expense sheet for the victualling team and I spent some time trying to squeeze 2 minutes of Nano's time so that he could sign it. I was able to deliver it to the race office and went back to the boat to wait for the ceremony to begin.

It was a great opportunity to have a lot of chats with all the crew members that were starting their race and to wish them good luck. We took a lot of pictures and while we were taking one of them, Sir Robin Knox-Johnston creeped up from behind and photo bombed us! It was really funny to have him appear suddenly as part of our picture!

We finally started walking towards the stage. The first part of the walk was great, with all the teams applauding each other as a show of respect and of recognition of what was going to start. Then a Brazilian bloco started playing on stage and we were soon all dancing and laughing on our way to the stage. We shouted "Vamos Punta!!!" again and again.

It was finally our moment to go up on stage, dance to our team song, take the official photo and be presented to the audience. It was incredibly satisfying to be able to be up there and to be able to share such a great moment with my team. I would not have missed it for anything in the world.

Then we had to say goodbye to the people doing Leg 1 as those of us who were not participating were not allowed to return to the boat. Lots of hugs and good luck wishes, it was quite emotional. I felt really jealous, I would have really loved to be able to sail away with them.

I had been lucky and had been able to secure a spot in one of the 68s that were going to be on the front line for the race start, so after seeing all the yachts slip their lines I boarded my boat. We had to wait until the parade of sail went in front of us before we could depart but even docked we had a great view of the yachts during the parade and was able to exchange a couple of "Vamos Punta" with my mates on board.

We finally departed from the dock and motored to the area of the race start. Even though we were on the front line, we were still quite far from the race start line itself so I was not able to see the start in detail but we could all soon see that Punta del Este was in the lead!

Once the yachts had started the race we were able to get closer to them and had a great time seeing how they were starting this great adventure. The wind was light, so a lot of windseekers were used. Most boats were not able to make the first mark due to the tide and were forced to tack, the only one that managed to make the mark was Perseverance which took a small lead.

We spent a lot more time motoring close to all the yachts and seeing their evolutions. It was great to be able to see all of this from the water and we were even able to exchange a couple of "Vamos Punta!" with them.

Around 6:00pm we started our return to the dock and I used the opportunity to relax a bit on deck, trying to absorb everything that had happened during the weekend.

A really exciting weekend which I loved. Next step is meeting the team in Cádiz and then it will finally be my turn!!

P.S. Punta del Este is in first position as I write this!