Sally Collison/PUMA Ocean Racing
Il mostro, PUMA Ocean Racing’s challenger for the 2008-09 race, has left Newport, Rhode Island, bound for the start port of Alicante.
Skipper Ken Read and his crew have been preparing il mostro for this moment since its launch in late April. il mostro is expected to arrive in Spain early next month.
Once in Alicante, the PUMA crew will participate in mandatory safety training, hold weather briefs while il mostro is officially measured.
Read will also make sure his crew has plenty of practice for the in-port and pro-am races on October 4-5, prior to the start of the first leg to Cape Town a week later.
“We can’t wait to get this race started,” said Read as he left the dock for the sail across the pond. “We will have put nearly 8,000 miles of sailing on il mostro prior to the start of the race and feel pretty good about the boat and its capabilities. I hope the boat is quick, but we will never know until we finally get this adventure started for real.”
Meanwhile the Green Dragon team, is making for the start line in Spain from their home base in Ireland.
For the last eight weeks the team has been training from the Naval Base in Haulbowline, Co. Cork. A flotilla of over 100 spectator boats came out to see the Green Dragon begin its delivery from Dublin to Spain. They are expected to arrive in Alicante at the end of August.
Skipper Ian Walker provided the following update from onboard.
“In the absence of our navigator, Ian Moore, who is racing TP52s in Spain, it was with some relief that we first found, and then rounded Cape Finisterre off the north west tip of Spain.
“Neal McDonald is particularly relieved as he has been referring to the Bay of Biscay as the 'Sea of Certain Doom' since we started crossing it 36 hours ago. Evidently he has had several 'near misses' in these parts!
“Anyway, it is a fabulous sailing day with 20 - 25 knots of wind and glorious sunshine. As always we are ticking off the miles - 525 down, 820 miles to go. The trip has been relatively incident free apart from an hour of man overboard drills earlier today.
“Every time you do this you learn something, and it was important for us to do this drill in the 'open ocean'. I'm pleased to report that we found and retrieved the lifebuoy 3 times, but I only hope we never have to do this for real.
“Life onboard is considerably better than on our 2000 mile qualifying trip, but it is still no holiday. In particular I am not getting on well with the freeze dried food - I must be too spoilt at home.
“The lads seem pretty happy, we should have a lovely night ahead before a tougher trip through Gibraltar and into the easterly winds of the Mediterranean - Green Dragon out”.