“Everything is OK (onboard), we replaced the tack line for the stay sail in New York, specially because we knew we were going to bash upwind and right as we were about to tack over, about a quarter of a mile behind toothface, it blew! No staysail in 25 kts is slow, so we did a little bit of everything, a little backwards, a little tacking, and we finally got it re-rigged and now we are on going, back in the fight. It sucks, it really sucks, but were doing good. 3 days of 25 kts wind is (£@$#) and its bloody cold out. I can’t wait to turn the corner and we are ready to come home. My mom and dad are there and my sisters will come down, whew, we are ready.” 

“We have no water ballast this leg, which isn’t so good for going upwind and has slowed our performance but we managed and are in an OK position but nothing great. So that was disappointing but we are still on our way! We have been really aggressive with the stack. We tried pinching a little bit with too much sail and it didn’t really work, then we tried to foot a little bit with smaller sails and that seemed to go OK. We were side by side with Eärendil for awhile, which was fun but they were just quicker with water ballast so it was a little bit tricky. We did just cross Amhas, we were on starboard, they took our stern on port a little while ago which was a good feeling and I’m sure we will converge at the turning mark… Of the 5,000 At Cup mile I’ve done, these have been the toughest 200.”