Race 3 - Day 11
Crew Diary - Race 3 Day 11: Cape Town to Fremantle
11 November

Temperature dropped again. I had to add extra pair of socks, second hat and Seattle Sounders scarf to the same number of layers I mentioned in the previous blog. It must be the wind chill factor as the wind picked up. I keep watching the water bottles to see they ice. Seeing water slushing in bottle makes me feel warmer.

We continue to “Sail with Style”, which the old time Visit Seattle supporters know is our theme Nikki offered to us at the crew allocation and we all embraced it. What does that really mean? It means we created unique Visit Seattle culture. It would take few pages to describe it in detail. Like any other organisation, it is based on values we all agreed on early on. Because of our culture and values everything is clicking nicely. We have been sailing fast in the right direction for few days now. Despite the cold weather the spirits are at all-time high. Everyone gets up for their watch on time and works hard sailing and doing daily jobs.

Risky but brilliant tactical move to go south several days ago is paying off. What can I say, we have a great Skipper, an awesome boat and a high performing crew. Speaking of tactics, we have another decision to make, weather to go or not to go for the scoring gate. By the time most of you read this blog it may be obvious. Going for the gate may give us few bonus points, but it takes us slightly off the shortest course to the finish line, which could mean podium finish. The calculated decision should be to go for the gate if it maximizes total number of points we can score in this leg. However, emotionally, all of us would like to finally experience the feeling of getting on a podium if not winning a race.