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.

I crossed an ocean!

So we finally came in fourth. We gave it all, we sailed flawlessly, we did not have any mistakes but the other teams were just better, congratulations to them on really good sailing. And a fourth place is a really amazing result, so we are really proud of what we achieved

And now I have been able to fulfil my dream and I have crossed an ocean! We had a great reception in Oban, with the local authorities welcoming us with some glasses of whisky and a piper. Mike and Angus were wearing their kilts. And it was all so emotional, I was so happy, embracing everyone, dancing, jumping around. If this was great I can imagine that Portsmouth is going to be even better

So now it is time to rest, have a good sleep, meet some friends, enjoy a nice firm bed and a toilet that flushes and enjoy the beautiful Scottish scenery. And the weather is really nice. What else can you wish for?

One last push

We have gybed, we have tacked, we have been hot, we have been cold, we have surfed waves, we have broached, we have grinded, we have hoisted, we have heeled, we have helmed, we have seen dolphins, we have seen whales, we have laughed, we have danced, we have shouted “Vamos Punta!”, we have trimmed, we have seen the stars.

We have done most of what we came here for. So we are now ready for some rest. Ready for a cold beer, ready for a hot shower, ready for a comfy bed. We are looking forward to seeing and speaking with our loved ones. We are ready for land.

But at this point we cannot relax, we need to give one last push, one final effort to make sure that our team song can be heard at the podium. So let's send it!!

Vamos Punta!!!

Vamos Punta!!!

I'm not a very competitive person. The fact that the Clipper trip is a race, for me has always just been just an excuse to keep the spirits up, I've never been worried about winning at all costs. Also the fact that right now there's no way that Punta can win the round the world race, not even aim for podium, kind of relaxed the pressure.

The first days of this race I think that most of us were not feeling very competitive. The round the worlders had their mind more in finishing the trip and the leggers were concentrated on getting used to the boat and the sailing. We were at the back of the pack and you could not see anyone truly worried by this.

But then we started slowly picking our way through the ranking until yesterday we got the news that we were second and within very close reach of the first boat. And I can tell you that I'M EXCITED!!

And you can tell that it's not only me. Everyone is constantly asking for updates on our position and we are all giving our best: standing on the low side or high side as required, helming to the best of our capabilities, trimming constantly. As Nano says "sending it"!!

I really hope that we can get a podium position, I know that this would mean a lot for all of us, including our skipper and first mate.

Vamos Punta!!!

Mind rest

It's been now two weeks since we left Washington and we are very few days away from fulfilling my dream of crossing an ocean.

Tonight we have been tacking a lot, trying to avoid a couple of windholes that were surrounding us. Seems it worked because we are still part of the leading pack. We have now started the ocean sprint that we hope to complete in one long tack towards Oban. This morning we saw a whale! A small pilot whale about 200m from us. Exciting!

While on the boat I have completely forgotten about all the stuff that usually occupies our mind. I have not given a single thought to the UK elections, the elections in France, Trump, Spanish politics, the war in Ucrania or the massacres in Palestine. My thoughts revolve around this little 20x6m island which has become our world. And it feels really liberating and healthy to free my mind of all those worries and thoughts, to be able to just concentrate on our day to day sailing.

I've always thought that holidays should be used to tire your body and rest your mind and that's precisely what we are doing here.

Helming school

It's now getting colder every day, we are all now wearing several layers and get into our sleeping bags any time we are resting.

Yesterday I had an interesting night at the helm. The previous watch had just dropped the yankee and hoisted the windseeker and I started helming under diminishing winds which quickly turned into a windhole. Helming became very tricky because if the boat has no speed it has no steerage. Then a few minutes later the wind picked up incredibly quickly. We were trying to set up the yankee while at the same time going incredibly fast and heeled with the windseeker. Helming became a Mario Kart videogame where everything was happening at high speed. When we finally hoisted the yankee I had been helming more than two hours straight and I was spent.

Every day each of us spends a couple of hours at the helm, during our day and night watches, unless conditions are really difficult or critical, when Nano, Angus and the watch leaders will take over. There are many aspects of helming that we need to master: helming using a point in the horizon, helming using the compass, helming with waves, helming with fickle of variable winds, helming with the spinnaker, helming at night… We are all slowly improving and reaching higher levels.

A hard day’s night

As the sun went down we saw a big change in the weather, with lots of clouds, more wind and a bit more cold.

During our watch at night it was completely cloudy and very dark, with no moon and stars, and since the wind was not stable, so Nano told us that only him, Angus and the watch leaders would be helming. Since we could not see the horizon it felt like we were floating and flying through space.

The watch went well, but as soon as we had gone down, suddenly big collapse and a broach. We had to do an emergency drop of code 2, prepare code 3 and hoist it. By the time I finally went to sleep I was knackered.

When I woke up the day was grey, cloudy, with a bit of rain. As Angus put it: “this looks like summer in the UK”

We had discovered a small hole in the code 3. We were not able to switch to code 2 yet as it was still quite windy. So we had to designate a "hole observer” who was to be looking at the hole all the time so that we could do an emergency drop if it started to get bigger.

Finally the wind died a little and we were able to peel from code 3 to code 2. This is a very complex evolution which requires a lot of people, most of them handling several tasks. It's great that Nano is awesome at directing these evolutions, clearly indicating to every one what they need to do and when.

Today we also saw a couple of sailor jellyfishes. These creatures float on the surface and have something that looks like a sail. They use it to travel through the oceans using the wind. Look them up, they are amazing.

Holidays at sea

Yesterday and today have been the most beautiful sailing days so far: really nice weather, sunny but not scorching, good wind that allows us to sail at 10 knots, a very flat boat, easy helming. I spent some time basking in the sun, it really felt like a holiday, I only missed the Gin & Tonic 

We have now gybed and changed the tack that we kept for the last 5 days, we are pointing straight to the scoring line, going northeast. Sailing under the code 1 and flying.

I prefer the other tack because in this one my bunk is on the high side and it is more difficult to get in and out of bed. It's not a huge problem because we are not very heeled over, let's see how this evolves.

We have now changed our clocks and moved them three hours forward, so we now only have a two hour difference with the UK. Getting there!

Yesterday was also Will's birthday and Cleo baked a nice chocolate cake and wrote his name on top using some slices of orange peel. It was beautiful!!

A good night

Today we had a really good night. It started with the visit of a large group of dolphins. We could see their wake under the water and then we could see them jumping around the boat, all under the light of the moon. Amazing!

We had changed to using the Yankee instead of the spinnaker and this is more relaxed on the crew as there are less tasks that need to be handled. This allowed us to have a good group chat, full of jokes, banter and fun.

During our watch we were able to see the starry night with the milky way shining above us, then we saw a beautiful moonrise, and finally an even more beautiful sunrise, making our time really enjoyable.

And we ended our watch with a really nice breakfast of "pan tumaca con jamón" which are bread loaves with olive oil, grated tomato and Spanish ham. All the crew loved it!

Time flies

I can't believe that it's been already a week since we left Washington. It really feels like yesterday. I guess that when you are having fun time flies. The first day motoring was a bit boring but everything else has been outstanding. Nice weather and good wind almost all the time. Wonderful team. What else can you ask for? I can only think of maybe a bit more wildlife, it's been a bit scarce so far.

We are all learning a lot and improving all the time. Today was interesting because even though the wind was not awfully strong, we were sailing with the full main, the staysail and the spinnaker up and the boat was heeling a lot, we were putting the boom into the water. Exciting!

At race start we were at the latitude of Cádiz, south of Spain and tonight we are going to reach the latitude of Pontevedra, my home town on the north of Spain, so we have moved north the equivalent of almost all Spain. Now only France and half of the UK left! 

Dinner is ready!

We continue sailing with our code 2, making really good progress. We seem to have returned to the gulf current so temperatures have been higher today. The waves have also been taller, we have been seeing three meter waves today, which make helming more difficult. All the new leggers are going through the Punta School of Helming during the day and trying to continue during the night.

Today I wanted to tell you about our meals. Due to our three watch system, it is always the same people who are available during any specific meal time (breakfast, lunch or dinner), so it will be these people who will prepare each of these meals. We work with day bags that contain all the non-fresh ingredients and we have recipes with all the instructions to prepare each meal.

We try to eat meals that are healthy, nutritive, varied and tasty. In this leg we are going to eat things like mexican chicken wraps, feta salad, pasta carbonara, chilli con carne, dahl, chicken tikka masala, salmon salad, pasta bolognese, thai green curry, chickpeas with chorizo, mushroom risotto or fresh cheese omelette with rice.

The boat elves

Today we are finally going downwind with the code 2 hoisted, doing 13-15 knots. Weather is really nice and there are almost no waves, so sailing is nice and easy, happy days. Today I also reached my personal record on the helm, 16 knots, hoping to go over that soon. We also did our first spinnaker peel (where you hoist a new spinnaker without doing the one you are using first) and it was incredibly complex but went out really well.

Today I wanted to tell you about the boat elves. If you leave anything unattended or our of its place, the elves will come and misplace it and it will take you a long time to find it (if you ever find it). So we need to be extra careful and leave everything in its place or it will quickly disappear. So far I have misplaced:

- My Clipper cap

- A side pocket for my life vest

- The cover of my kindle

- My pillow

- My shorts

- My glasses

The first three have never appeared again. The case of the cap was specially annoying, I had to quickly make a run just before race start to buy a new one as the one I took to the boat disappeared in the first five minutes, never to be seen again 

Three Watches

Today has been a quiet and relaxed day. We are still sailing upwind but with less wind, so the boat is not so heeled over and life is much more bearable. Also it is getting colder, this night we saw some people start using their foulies. The temperature down below is not as hot as before and everything is quite comfortable.

I wanted to talk a little bit about our three watch system that we started using for leg 7 and have continued using for leg 8. With this system at all times there's one third of the crew on deck, another third on support doing tasks like cooking or cleaning and available to help the crew on deck if needed, and another third resting or sleeping. This requires to divide the crew in six groups and assign a schedule to each of these groups. Sounds complex but once it has been set up, you just need to follow the schedule for your group which repeats every 24 hours.

With this way of working you have several advantages over a traditional 2 watch system

- Each person gets an uninterrupted period of rest of 8 hours

- It works great for small crews because it allows you to have two thirds of the crew available at any time

- You share some time with all the other members of your crew, not just with your watch

- It repeats every day, so once you learn it, it's very easy to follow

It's disadvantages are:

- Some of the people get better schedules than other (they sleep at night, for example)

- Since you split the work in three main groups that are not available at the same time, you cannot assign a bunk to two people so that they can hot bunk it. So usually this means that every sleeping period you need to find a bunk that is free.

But thanks to Florian, our brilliant German crew member, we now have a system where three people share two bunks and this works brilliantly and you don't need to hunt for a place to sleep any longer. This removes the last big downside of this system and we are all really happy to be using it.

The sky is full of stars

One of the things that I was really looking forward to in this trip was the opportunity to see the night sky without any human interference and full of stars. And my wish was granted last night. A night with no clouds and no moon and millions of stars. I was mesmerized. Then we had the most beautiful moonrise, a bright and orange moon appearing between some low clouds. Such beauty!!

During the night we had very little wind, I spent some time helming but it was very difficult because the wind was very fickle and variable. Later on it picked up and we were doing 7 knots with the windseeker and the wind on our backs. I went to sleep for a few hours and when I got up we were sailing upwind with a lot of heeling

With these conditions life becomes quite difficult down below but it is fun on deck. You should have seen my smile as I helmed with a full main and Yankee 1 doing 9 knots. Weather was really nice and sunny without being unbearably hot, so a perfect day for sailing. Today it really felt for the first time that we were crossing an ocean.

On our way to Oban!

Tonight during my night watch we finally hoisted the main and the staysail. We were not yet racing but it felt really good to finally stop motoring. There was a big storm north of us with lots of lightning but it did not affect us. A beautiful spectacle.

This morning very early we did our man overboard drill and all went brilliantly and then it was finally time for race start!! The start itself was not very espectacular because just before the start time, the wind basically changed 180 degrees and mostly died. So the start was just a bunch of boats all limping around, prepared for a different wind. Then the 10 minutes passed and we were able to hoist the spinnaker code 1

Then the fleet started to disperse and we have been sailing all day under a gentle wind of around 10 knots and the spinnaker up, really comfortable conditions. We have a lot of clouds but no rain, so very nice conditions weather wise as well

We were visited by a couple of groups of dolphins, I'm glad that Angus was sleeping at the time! 

Motoring is boring

There's no way around it: motoring is boring and we have been motoring since yesterday night, so we are a little bit bored. I can't imagine what it must have been for the guys in leg 7 who motored for 9 days on their way to Panama! We have not even hoisted the main or any other sail, so we just pass the time getting to know each other, and getting used to our watches and the tasks that we need to perform every day.

We are all looking forward to tomorrow, when the race will start and we will all be in our way to Oban and our loved ones.

Highlights of the day include being able to helm the yacht, even if it's under power, and seeing a flock of pelicans. These birds are outstanding and graceful, love them!

And we are off!!

We have finally slipped our lines and I could not be happier. I will now be able to fulfil my dream of crossing an ocean and live the greatest adventure of my life.

We started the day with the last victualling purchases of fresh food and I also spent some time organising my things on board. Then after lunch everything finally started. We took the group picture with all the crews, then moved on to the stage where we were able to dance to our team song, then paraded to the boat, then the media team took our boat picture and then finally we slipped our lines and we were off.

It was a quite emotional time. I reflected on all the journey that has taken me here: the excitement of signing up, the first trainings, going through the pandemic, crew allocation, flying to Punta, my accident, my recovery and being finally here. I felt elated.

It was also quite emotional saying goodbye to my wife over the phone. I'm really going to miss her but I know she will be supporting me all the way and will be waiting for me with all her love in Portsmouth.

After slipping the lines we did the parade of sail and the send-off was brilliant. We sailed under the fireworks with Mike holding a flare at the bow, all under a beautiful sunset. A magic moment that I will never forget.

We have just sailed under the bridge (it was great fun to shout "Vamos Punta" under the bridge and have the echo return our shout) and we have now started our motoring towards the race start, which will happen on Thursday.

The Moment of Truth

After five years of waiting, after a pandemic and two race postponements, after falling down a hatch and breaking two knee ligaments, after having to cancel my participation in legs two and three and after being offered the possibility of doing leg eight, the moment of truth has arrived and I am about to start my great adventure.

Our time in Washington has been really nice, I have been able to visit all the main sights and to do some additional activities like biking around town or kayaking on the Potomac. We also did some really wonderful team activities like our party or our crew dinner.

But it feels that the time is passing really slowly, we are all ready to start sailing and what we want is that time passed fast and we finally departed. We did our refresher training and our crew brief. All the victualling activities are done and the boat is ready. So it is great that tomorrow we will be slipping our lines and start motoring towards the start line. 

I am super excited, I will keep you posted!! 

A second chance

 

After my accident in October, I asked the Clipper Race if it would be possible for me to do one of the later legs if my knee healed correctly. They told me that it would be possible but that there was a long waiting list and that it would be quite difficult for me to get a place. So imagine my surprise when a few days ago they told me that there was a spot available for me for Leg 8!! My knee has been healing really well and my traumatologist has confirmed that I should be ready to go, so I will be joining the Punta del Este team in Washington DC, ready to sail through the North Atlantic.

It will not be the same as my original plan: I will only be sailing one leg and I won't be sailing in the southern oceans (should I change the name of this blog?). I won't be either arriving in Australia, a place I really wanted to know and where I had planned some wonderful holidays with my wife. 

But I will be sailing with my team, my friends, my skipper and my boat and I will be able to fulfil my dream, and this is all that really matters. So I am really happy and thankful for this second chance. No open hatches near me this time!!