Which Way To Go?

I't's a nostalgic moment. I'm down in the nav station of the Delta Lloyd analyzing the latest weather models and listening to Bob Dylan.

A favorite memory from my college sailing days is driving in the middle of the night back to the University of Michigan from regattas at the Naval Academy and listening to Dylan with my best friends. During my Junior year, in 1997-98, our discussions in the van revolved around the latest news from the Volvo Ocean Race. Dylan was background.

After a busy first-24 hours the reality of this race is sinking in ...

And what a crazy 24 hours it has been. As I wrote in my last post we had a great sail out of Alicante, blasting along at 28 knots. At the click of a finger we put 140 miles between ourselves and the mayhem of the starting-line spectator fleet.

Then in a single instant we sailed into a huge hole of no wind.

We tried to gybe to escape but we were trapped.

Even worse, the rest of the fleet squeaked ahead and sailed off onto the horizon.

This was not the way we wanted to start this leg. However, the Mediterranean is a tricky place to sail. As I write, the guys ahead of us are sitting in a parking lot without wind. We are bringing the wind with us, sailing at 12 knots, and closing the gap. When we clear the Med for the Atlantic the wind will be variable. Very. The navigators on all of the boats are definitely in the hot seat as we try to find our way south to the trade winds.

There certainly has been a lot of head scratching today, trying to decide where to go. But there are already many other story lines from life onboard. Today we performed a surgery onboard—to our media station.

Said media station is provided by the race organizers and is a vital communications link to the Volvo Race HQ. Not only does it send photos and video to race fans, but it is also the portal that allows me to access weather data. In the midst of the frustration of being stuck without wind and having the pressure of nine guys asking me, "where is the wind going to fill," our media desk stopped functioning.

Right away I called on our satellite phone for technical help from Race HQ. Twenty minutes later, our surgery began. Parts and pieces were everywhere.

Sander, our media man, and I put on our head lamps and started to dig into the brains of the media station. Our search ended with a blown fuse. We replaced the 5 Amp fuse with a 10 Amp fuse and once again we were online.

It's time to log off, the guys are asking 'which way to go'

My next report will come from the Atlantic Ocean . . .


Editor's note, this line arrived later:

We have some catching up to do . . . finally made it out of the med . . . that was brutal!


Matt Gregory, from the nav station of Delta Lloyd