Tuesday, September 09, 2008

Ericsson Racing reports on the way from Lanzarote to Alicante

[Source: Ericsson Racing Team] Brad Jackson, Watch Captain, International Crew.

I got up for my shift at 04.00 this morning after a very easy evening, for a change, and realized that we had left Lanzarote for good after being there for a year. Ericsson Racing Team will miss Puerto Calero a great deal, we have been extremely well treated and have had a great base to prepare our two boats for the upcoming Volvo Race. A lot of us have had our kids in school there and it really has been home so it is a little sad that we say goodbye to the Calero family and the good times that we have had there. I can't say enough for the hospitality and cooperation that Puerto Calero has given us. Saying that we now move on to the next phase of our campaign and all the team are keen to get on with what we are here for and what we have been training for for the last year.

The International team got back to Lanzarote on the evening of the 7th Sep and headed off to Alicante on the 8th Sep as we did the Maxi Worlds in Sardinia. This was to work on our inshore sailing and combinations and be together as a crew, we had some great racing and a great time, but time was short getting ready to leave and we missed saying goodbye to a lot of people that we have met in Lanzarote.

The shore crew did a great job preparing our boat while we were away and also the Nordic crew, so a big thank you to them and hopefully they can get a couple of days off before we arrive in Alicante.

We are currently sailing along in a light westerly and this should build and head into the northwest later today so this is different to the normal trade wind conditions that we have encountered most of the time here but we are not complaining as upwind in 20 -25 knots is not a whole lot of fun. We will use this trip to keep getting valuable data from the boats as we are close to finalising our race sail designs and this will be the last offshore trip we do before leg 1 starts.

All going well we should be in Alicante sometime on the 12th Sep so we look forward to that.

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