Puma Leg Five Day 15

It is decisions like these that make racing fun and also makes the hair fallout in clumps.  The ‘Fiji’ decision, as we called it on the boat was not made in haste or without an amazing amount of thought.  Capey (Andrew Cape – navigator) was essentially analysing it for days.  First goal was to get to the east of the islands by sailing tight to the wind for literally four or five days.  That was our own personal drag race with Ericsson 3. 

But once we decided that getting up and over the island wasn't to be without a couple painful tacks, the emergence of plan B and plan C came into effect.  Plan B, go through the middle as we did and Plan C was to go to the west of both islands.

Plan C never really got much traction because the western island of Fiji is huge and very high and we were really concerned about a huge wind shadow under the island.

Plan B started to take shape when the weather routing for the next week began to unfold.  Essentially we liked being to the west of the group after Fiji, so the plan to get around Fiji wasn't really that big a deal - it was where we wanted to be after the fact.  And at this point in time we like where we are and we came out with a 20 mile lead or so.  What's not to like?

As I sit here writing, I can rationalise to myself that ‘Plan B’ could have been a lot better for us, and a lot worse.  First of all, we had wind all the way through.  We had no idea really what to expect in that channel although we did have good current information.  We expected some common sense geographic changes to the wind and directions and strengths and it really played out almost to plan.  Pretty fortunate really.  So for this reason it could have been a lot worse

On the other hand, the guys that went east got much better shifts and the breeze stayed stronger than we were anticipating, based on the weather analysis onboard.  They got out of there about three to four hours better than we thought.  To be honest, if we had thought it would have been that close, we probably would have stuck with our Plan A.

But that is why it is called ancient history.  We are done with Fiji for this day.  Gorgeous sail.  We certainly won the ‘scenic beauty while sailing’ award for our route.  Really deep water with about a million living reefs growing to the surface everywhere.  That is why it was so tough.  We had to sail a lot of extra distance to get through the minefield of reefs. Amazing green mountainous terrain, at least on the western island.  It was cool to smell land again.

When it is all said and done, I really don't think that Fiji will have been the deciding factor in this race, but it did bring a bit of added stress to this young man for about 24 hours.  I hope to come back to Fiji some day. But next time with an umbrella in my rum drink, enjoying those reefs, and not trying to dodge them.

Off to the races heading south towards New Zealand.  The Kiwi's aboard have already started the banter about God’s country and the ‘Land of the Long White Cloud’.  One thing is for sure, if NZ can be as friendly to il Mostro as Fiji was, it will be God's country in my mind.

We live to play another day.

Kenny Read - Skipper