Team Russia – Mark Covell (MCM)
When I was about eight, I remember driving to London in the back of the family car going to stay with some friends for Christmas. The weather was bad and the A3 was slow with the heavy Christmas traffic.
As we crawled along, my schoolboy face stuck to the window I remember seeing a small stone like a gravestone with a carved inscription on it. Fascinated I looked closer, through the heavy with moss and lichens, covering it.
The worn inscription read “50 Miles To The City of London” with a pointing hand to guide the travelers gone by. From that moment I would scourer the roadside for milestones whenever we traveled.
I loved the anticipation of reaching the next step in the ladder and then immediately looking forward and goal setting another.
On this first leg it’s been shaped by milestones, the start, getting through Gibraltar straights and out into the Atlantic, reaching the dreaded Doldrums, getting out of the dreaded Doldrums, passing the waypoint at Fernando de Noronha and now racing to catch the low that will hopefully carry us home.
We have just passed 3000 mile to Cape Town. I know this because I had my face pressed up against the guardrails and saw a moss covered gray stone that said so.
Our navigator, Wouter Verbraak is the first in the chain, carving the inscriptions in the stones and putting his neck on the line. 300 nm to? 2 days until? 5 hours and then the wind will?
Wouter has to step up to the plate, raise his head above the trench and be accountable by making the statements that the crew will hold him to.
I think from watching him you have to be a special bread to cope with such responsibilities. Yes he debates and deliberates with the skipper and watch leaders but ultimately he is the expert and he makes the call.
Our goal at the moment is to haul ass down the Brazilian coast to rendezvous with low that is brooding and building just off Rio de Janeiro. We are calling it “the last bus home” If we catch it we will have 30-45 knots to sit on and kick our fat ass all the way home to Cape Town. If we miss the bus we will have a long walk home and be as much as two days behind the leaders.
As a crew I would be lying if I said that for a moment no one second-guesses Wouter’s calls but would they step up to the plate and do his job? Absolutely no way!
Typically the crews get the glory when they win and the navigators get the blame when they fail. On this boat Wouter Verbraak has made the call to run for the bus and the whole crew are running with him as fast as we all can.
(Received 1848)