First Place Part 2

After the piracy threat, we all went back into race mode. We motored back to our location before we started the engine, put up the sails, and got underway. When I woke up for watch a few hours later, I was relieved to find out we were only 6/10 of a mile behind GB. They must have been becalmed in the night...to our advantage. Watch was peaceful as we all joked about what we would tell our families and friends who were probably looking at the GPS tracker thinking, "why are they going in circles!?" Ships that passed in the night brought a bit of worry, but our daily yummy baked bread and stargazing helped us keep the mood up. I love my watch. We have become a family in many ways- we laugh together and trust each other, but we also easily get under each other's skin. Only a few minutes ago, James jokingly antagonized me about servicing a winch at dusk. I'll lose all the pieces overboard and we have no spares. I called him a jerk and walked away. But tomorrow, it will be behind us. One can't hold grudges in such close quarters. We spend too much time together, both physically and mentally, for things to fester. It creates a difficult dynamic for everyone on board and it's a huge waste of what little energy we all have. Anyway, back to race finish...

Next morning, we woke up for watch again and found that a halyard had been wrapped on the wrong side of the spreaders. Up the mast I went, just as fast as I could slam down a cup of coffee. It has become fairly obvious to everyone that I am incapable of functioning for an 8-12 morning watch if I don't have coffee. So, even though it was the last day of racing and every moment counted since we lost the 3 hrs, Nick allowed me the "luxury" of getting high on caffeine. Halyard sorted, I spotted white sails on the horizon and a pod of dolphins surfing our beam. Finally, a boat to spar with and spar with them we did. The dolphins turned out to actually be a school of tuna. Interestingly, they stayed with us for the better part of three hours, gliding up and down, in and out of our wake. I've never seen fish do that before. It was neat. Meanwhile, Great Britain slowly bore down on us until we were within a mile of each other. We both had our A1 spinnakers up, the lightest and largest sail we have on board. The wind started to pick up and our GPS speeds went from 8s to 15s. A1 spinnakers are not meant to handle 15-20 mph winds. Eric's face and body language told that he was more than nervous about the kite exploding, but GB wasn't going to take theirs down and switching ours meant a possible loss. So, we pressed on and thankfully the wind died down a bit. Several hours later, we closed in on the finish line with GB within throwing distance. They slowly crept up on us, and our crew literally and figuratively began to tear our hair out. I was on a grinder with Meg on the other, Nick calling trim, and Eric helming. We sailed broad reach, borderline downwind, in light wind conditions which meant lots of fast and furious grinding. My heart was racing so fast, I threw up and before I could even swallow it back down, I was grinding again. But it was worth it. 26 seconds and we would have lost. The sweet taste of victory cleansed my palette and lifted the stress from my muscles. I slept like a baby that night. It was glorious.