Captain's Log

October 29, 2002

Hello all,
 
Some good news. The wind is 7.5 kts I have the Code Zero up ( this is a massive hybrid sail between a headsail and a spinnaker ) for only the 2nd time in the race and BTC Velocity is powering along on flat seas at 8.5 kts of boat speed towards the Canary Islands. Life is good.
 
My good friend Derek Hatfield, on Spirit of Canada, the one who no matter what I do is always seems to be ahead of me, tells me sometimes in jest to stay focused when sailing 24 hours a day 7 days a week, normally after I digress into a topic that shows I am perhaps not totally zeroed in on the task at hand. Its a difficult to keep up the discipline. Derek is an ex Canadian Mountie, I guess they might be tougher than those of us who come from a paradise like Bermuda.
 
To the outside reader this focus manifests its self in a series of complaints from all the skippers like " too much wind from the wrong direction " " no wind " " seas choppy and confused " " shipping everywhere, no time to sleep " " too rough to eat " " broken this and that ". So does this sound like a group of people having fun and following their dreams ?? Well really it is. We are all trying to get the best out of our awesome racing machines and sometimes we lose track that this is really meant to be fun whilst trying to gain that ever elusive extra 1/2 knot of boat speed.
 
So today, no matter what happens to the wind, I am having fun !!!!
 
Alan
BTC Velocity