Race 12 - Day 8
Crew Diary - Race 12, Day 8: New York to Derry-Londonderry
05 July
Happy 4th of July! BBQ and fireworks. Not this year. Instead of we are racing fiercely against Unicef in our sight and the rest of the fleet dispersed within 200 miles. As I write this we are in numero uno position and intend to keep it till the finish.
The whole crew including myself feel very competitive. We’ve been treating this race as the warm up to the last race from Derry to Liverpool. We have an inshore rather than offshore racing mindset. The sailors understand the difference. In a nutshell, in on offshore race you sail several days with the same sail plan, the same course, with sporadic sails trimming effort. In inshore or bouy/can racing, we sail the (big) boat like a small dinghy, trimming constantly, looking for every little current or back eddies push. It takes a lot of hard work and concentration, but everyone is extremely motivated.
The hunger for winning increase during the race to the scoring gate last few days. As you recall, we went into the Stealth Mode, to hide our intention of going or not going for the gate. It was funny, cause for few hours, both Unicef and Garmin could see us in a distance and later on the radar with our AIS turned off for 24 hours. We race hard defending from Garmin and trying to catch up to Unicef . The last couple of hours were very intense. We started gaining quickly to Unicef and came within a mile or so before the scoring gate. We run out of time to pass them, but we were happy with two points at the end of the day. I feel coming close 2nd made us even more hungry for coming first in Race 12 for the entire Race.
In case you are not familiar with the leaderboard and the math, here is the scoop. We are currently 21 points behind Sanya Serenity Coast (after bagging 2 points at the Scoring Gate yesterday ). We can still score maximum 45 points and Sanya Serenity Coast can only score 33. The 12-point difference are the bonus Joker points we could score if we win the last race to Liverpool. It ain’t over till it’s over and I don’t want to jinx anything. However, if this race 12 ended now with us in #1 and Sanya on #7, we would gain six points on Sanya Serenity Coast. Here is one of many scenarios of how we can still best Sanya Serenity Coast in the overall standings:
+6 points - Race 12 finish (1st vs. 7th)
+12 points – Race 13 Joker
+4 points – Race 13 finish (1st vs 5th)
0 points – Race 12 sprint
0 points – Race 13 scoring gate
0 points – Race 13 race to finish on Mersey
Finish 1st in the last two races is a tall order. We know. If we could score few more bonus points from this race’s sprint and next race’s gate and the final race on Mersey, it would put less pressure on us having to win both races. We obviously cannot control how well Sanya Serenity Coast will do. They may finish second (or first in both races). We are focusing on what we can control, sailing the boat as well as we know how to. If you are reading this, you can do your part and keep supporting and cheering us on.