What an amazing finish we had arriving in Albany. We hadn't seen land or another boat for over 3 weeks since leaving Dave Griffin behind in South Africa and at last we saw the coast of Western Australia...... with 3 other Clipper boats heading for the finish! Matt then put us through some intense sailing, after hours of racing against each other and countless head sail changes all of us got to the headland to turn into Albany. We were at the back of the group of 4 in 11th place so had nothing to lose. So we decided to 'welease Bwian' our spinnaker as the other 3 boats had chosen not to use kites for the final push to the finish line. This saw our speed increase considerably and poor Invest Africa became our target to beat, with about 5 minutes to the line we overtook them, but they fought back and blocked our wind that filled our kite so this allowed them to pass us, at this point 'Bwian' filled again and again we picked up speed and just beat them to the line by less than 4 seconds, after 5000 miles! The other boats Old Pulteney and Derry~Londonderry~Doire were less than 4 minutes further ahead. Loads of people came up to us afterwards saying it was the most amazing race finish they had ever seen. For Team Mission Performance; Although we ended up coming 10th out of the 12 boats it was a brilliant result and the highlight of our race so far.
Now recovering in Albany; We have met up with Dave Griffin again who is recovering from his injury but the worst news is that we are going to lose round the World crew member Mick from the boat, he tore ligaments in his knee, not only is he a great guy, he is a very experienced member of the team. He will have to have an operation on it, I do hope he is able to return to the boat later.
So far I have spent a lot of time repairing sails again, the locals have been very kind to us all, along with driving me around town to get things, putting on BBQs and music festivals. Yesterday a few of us were all given surfing lessons which was great fun. On this trip I have been lucky to see Sugar Loaf Mountain and Table Mountain, but Albany has Dog Rock!
Thank you for all your kindness Amazing Albany!
Yeh what a finish, and go for it and enjoy Albany. I guessed you’d be repairing sails but hopefully not for too long. I was very sorry to hear about Mick. I picked the news up earlier in Neil’s blog. Sad for Mick and a real blow for ‘team Matt’, but I’m sure you’ll all step up and get on with it. After all that’s what you did being short handed on the last demanding leg, and it sounds like good lessons were learned.
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