3.12. Leadership over troubled waters

Sailing for the first time across the Atlantic is an experience you surely remember for the rest of your life, if not beyond. When our team of Finns prepared for this trip, we touched the issue of how competitively we would want to do it. For example, should we use spinnaker at nights or not? The arguments for not pushing the speed to the limit were mainly safety considerations. As a solution we now have a veto policy on any safety issues. If one of the guys on the watch doesn't want us to do something - for example raise a big sail at night - we won't do it.

I personally got a great picture of our captain Alberto already before the race - both as a character and as captured with my Canon Power Shot camera. He is fond of racing hard but at the same time he listens to his crew and makes decisions based on their judgment. We all consider him the charismatic leader of this boat.

We all have special roles. Mine includes being the official photographer. So far I’ve taken over 1 000 pictures with my new Canon. I have to confess that it is not easy any more finding new ideas and angles for the pictures. I have tested all there is: sea, clouds, night, day, action and so on. We will publish a web-link for pictures in this blog before Christmas.

Unfortunately it seems that the risks of the northern route are materializing. We have been stuck for more than 24 hours in light and variable wind. Our greatest problem is that by now we have lost almost 100 miles to the leading boats that are cruising more south. According to the limited weather information we have, we should already be sailing with satisfactory seven to eight meters per second east-northeast wind, but it ain’t here yet. In leader board it starts to look ugly. During last 24 hours we covered only a pitiful 127 miles. The previous number two has taken the lead in the race. It won us by a crushing 35 miles. The previous leader, now holding the second position, won us by 26 miles. The new leader is now 70 miles and the second boat 50 miles ahead of us. Fortunately we still lead our own class by eight miles.

Our decision on course strategy and navigating straight on a run line to St. Lucia was affected by the fact that we lost our navigation and communication computer on day three. Navigation itself is not a problem, we have maps and many GPS instruments still on board and there are no rocks you could hit before we arrive in the Rodney Bay harbor. The biggest challenge on computer failure is that we lost all weather information that is essential in predicting changes in the wind and coming low-pressures. Needless to say, this is crucial for the course tactics decisions on a day-to-day basis.

When stuck on the almost calm winds of the Atlantic, we have more time for taking it easy. We spotted a whale, and we had time to celebrate Janne's 41st birthday starting at the breakfast. Pasi and Hannu had a plan to serve breakfast to Janne's bed but the rest of us did not any point in that since his bed is only 55cm from the breakfast table. Anyway, Janne was the first to wake up in the morning. The highlight of the celebration was the lunch. We had roast beef and red wine sauce with grilled aubergine, zuccini and pepperoni. For dessert we had ice cream with ice-cold Spumante.

In the morning when the boat was not moving more than 3 knots, I had time to scan through the book on ocean sailing. We got good laugh when finding out that we are close to the high pressure of the so called Horse Latitudes. It is an area between North Atlantic trade winds that get you back to Europe and Southern trade winds that get you to the Caribbean. 500 years ago sailors did not know this ocean weather phenomenon existed, and ships wandered from the trade routes in to the calm center area between the trade winds. As the ships’ drinking water begun to run out, they threw their horses overboard to conserve their own life supplies – hence the name.

Humans are adaptive – that has been proven again. When boarding Monomotapa in Las Palmas we all wanted to get safely to the other side and have an experience of a lifetime. But when - after only four days of sailing – we found ourselves among the top five boats, our appetite for racing grew and we could almost see the trophy in our hands. During the last 24 hours we again haven’t talked so much about the competition. There was a birthday celebration and we’ve had some good philosophical and political talks, good and bad jokes. As we have been building our team spirit and camaraderie, we have also realized that whatever our final position in this race will be, the journey itself is the Numero Uno trophy.

Olli