TEAM RUSSIA EMAIL: 'Stacked to windward'

Thursday 23 October 2008 08:35

Andreas Hanakamp (Skipper)

To be honest, I was quite happy how we entered the doldrums and quite disappointed how we left them. The first half of the crossing was ok, then we faced light headwinds that took us nowhere. At the end we left the notorious zone at the same time as Delta Lloyd with them experiencing better wind angles to Fernando than us. Just a question of time until they roll us.

With the leaders 200 miles away by now, there is some work left to do to gain back some places. The positive side of things is that the boat speed is ok, as we are not losing ground on the boats ahead even though they should be in slightly favored conditions the further south they get.

The boat feels very bumpy as we are heading into the waves the trades have built up over thousands of miles all across the Atlantic. Everything on board is stacked to windward to get every bit of righting moment we can.

Received 08:35 GMT