Race 3 - Day 19
Crew Diary - Race 3 Day 19: Cape Town to Fremantle
19 November

It is a sad day for the Clipper fleet and all the sailing community. Earlier, I wrote my blog about how miserable Southern Ocean was. Around the same time team GREAT Britain was fighting to recover Simon Spears, who went overboard. I understand they did their best in very tough conditions. Unfortunately, they could not get to Simon in time. My miseries I wrote about in yesterday’s blog are obviously nothing to what happened on that boat. My and team Visit Seattle's thoughts and prayers are with Simon’s family and all crew on GREAT Britain and other boats. We cannot wait to get to Fremantle to pull together and support each other.

We sailed in the same Southern Ocean weather as GREAT Britain who were 60 miles behind us. We battled the same squalls with winds gusting to 55 knots last night. We bested our boat speed record to 24.2 knots surfing down the waves. Yet, none of this matter or will be remembered in few days or weeks. However, we will forever remember Day 18, November 18, 2017 of Southern Ocean Leg 3 as the day we lost someone who dared the oceans, challenged himself and set example for others.

We go thru grieving process differently, but the steps we go thru are the same. “This couldn’t have happened.” “Why did this happen to us?” “It’s not fair.” ”What if we did things differently?” We go thru the flood of emotions and feelings in a short period of time. At the end, we pull together and come out on the other side even stronger.