Also to the Camper team for second, and even the Groupama Team for finishing third. They didn't have the best race and they are probably thinking to themselves that they got third by simply being one of the three boats that managed to finish the race. But that is part of sailboat racing. Your boat actually has to make it to the finish.

Six boats crossed the starting line in Alicante Spain on November 5 racing for a finish line in Cape Town, South Africa, by way of a turning mark at the island of Fernando de Noronha off the coast of Brazil. 7,480 miles of pushing a boat to it's limits.

Shortly after the start Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing lost their mast in heavy wind and they turned back to the starting point to install their spare mast. Once they had the mast in the boat a couple of days later they took off racing again. But not having had enough time to thoroughly test the new rig, having no chance of finishing better than last, and not being sure they could make it in time to start the next leg, they decided before they had made it out of the Mediteranian that their best option was to retire from the leg and ship the boat to South Africa and be tested and ready to go for leg two.

There's was not the only disaster in the early days of the race. Team Sanya struck something in the water during the first night of racing resulting in a large hole in the bow of the boat. A watertight bulkhead kept the boat from sinking and they were able limp to the nearest port. And for them leg one became a race of logistics. A ship was secured to transport the damaged boat to South Africa. In the mean time, a team of boat building specialists flew into Cape Town and began building a new bow section for the boat. Their goal was to build a section of hull bigger than the area damaged on the boat so that when it arrived they could cut away the damage and have enough new hull to make the repair.

This is project that would normally take weeks. When Sanya arrived in Cape Town they had eight days. They are working night and day and expect they will have the boat repaired and in the water in time to race.

Ordinarily, that would seem like a heroic accomplishment of management, logistics and hard work. But then there's the Puma story.

Somewhere in the middle of the South Atlantic The Puma team also suffered a broken mast. Unlike the Abu Dhabi team, they were more than a 1,000 miles from the nearest port. They jerry rigged some sails on what left of the mast and started up the onboard diesel - very slowly. These boats carry just enough fuel to power the generator and keep their batteries charged for the expected length of the race. They didn't really have enough fuel to go very far.

But the shore team was fast into action. They made contact with a freighter that was "nearby" and would divert their course to meet Puma and supply them with the fuel they needed. As the Puma boat bobbed alongside the freighter at what they hoped was a safe enough distance to keep from being crushed, 10 gallon cans of diesel were passed back and forth on a series or ropes between the two vessels.

Fully stocked with fuel they shifted the engine into high and headed for inhabited land, the Island of Tristan De Cunha. Tristan is the most remote inhabited place on the planet and has a population of 262. The shore team was busily arranging for a freighter with an onboard crane to meet Puma at the island, hoist the boat on board and take it and the team to Cape Town. Simultaneously the team's spare mast was prepped and flown from Newport R.I.

The first ship didn't work out. I never caught the reason but they just couldn't make it. So second ship was contracted. It left from Dhurban for Cape Town to pick up the cradle for the boat then proceeded on to Tristan Cunha.

Tristan does not really have a protected harbor. They do have a break water that would not, however, accommodate the freighter. The task of lifting the boat out of the water onto the ship would have to happen in open ocean. It was only going to be possible if the wind and waves cooperated. A carbon fiber sailboat hull does not respond well to crashing into the steel hull of the freighter.

The freighter, the Teem Bremen, arrived a Tristan and they were able to load the Puma boat without incident and they got underway. If the weather cooperates the Team Bremen will arrive in Cape Town on Tuesday. The new mast transported by truck from Johannesburg arrived at the team's dock on Saturday after multiple truck breakdowns.

The in port race portion of the event is scheduled to take place next Saturday. There is a pro-am race on Friday but I don't think that counts in the points standings. The Start for leg 2, Cape Town to Abu Dhabi (5, 430  nautical miles) is Sunday, December 11. If Team Puma is on the starting line for those races it will be an astounding convergence of hard work and amazing luck.

I am once again participating in the Virtual Volvo Ocean Race and finished leg 1 in a disappointing 14,594th out of 121,060 boats. I was at one point just under 4,000 but made a couple of unfortunate tactical decisions that put me on the wrong side of a couple of weather systems. Actually it was one decision that put me on the wrong side of a weather system that left me on the wring side of the next weather system, and the next… I entered with zero expectation of winning because doing so requires and investment of time I'm not willing to make even though the winner gets a nice new Volvo SUV! I'll consider myself satisfied if I finish a leg in the top 10%, happy if I finish in the top 10,000, beside myself giddy if I finish in the top 5,000. I'll keep you posted!

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