| So how did you get on? |
| Stéphane: | Not too bad, we were second. |
| Phil: | Out of two. |
| Stéphane: | I' m not going to change career just yet. |
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| How was the sailing? |
| Phil: | Surprisingly difficult. There' s a lot to think about when you' re at the helm, you have to keep an eye on the sails, the correct course, the other boat and then there' s the wind to consider. We had a fair bit of guidance from a professional skipper, but even with the help it was very easy to get out of shape. |
| Stéphane: | The boat weighed more than 19 tonnes, so it was pretty slow to react to the steering wheel, not as quick as the rally car anyway. Once we were moving we got up some good speed, but our turning manoeuvres let us down. We should have been quicker around the buoys but instead we lost momentum, the sails flapped all over the place and we struggled to get them wound in. We' ll get some practice before next year. |
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| How about the tactics? |
| Phil: | We didn' t get the best start, and once the other boat had the lead it took the wind from our sails and we struggled in dirty air. We made a few risky moves to try and get into a stronger tactical position, but they kept the advantage and we couldn' t quite catch them. |
| Stéphane: | We accidentally started the engine a couple of times, and that gave us a lot of extra speed, but the skipper wasn' t happy and kept turning it off. The guys in front looked fairly surprised to see us gaining so quickly. It was like we had a turbo. |
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| Was it much of a physical workout? |
| Phil: | Working the sails looked quite hard, but on the whole it was pretty relaxing. |
| Stéphane: | Definitely. I seemed to be stuck with the job of sail winder. Toni Gardemeister and I spent most of the trip winding the winch at the front of the deck, which was okay for the first 20-minutes, but then got pretty tough. The wind pulls very hard on those ropes I can tell you. |
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| Any plans for another trip? |
| Stéphane: | Why not? But next time I want to spend a bit more time at the wheel with a nice cool drink, someone else can wind the winch. |
| Phil: | I' d definitely do it again. I think we' d be quicker too, now we know the drill for turning and can do it a bit quicker. Next year I' d like to have a go on one of the proper America' s Cup boats, there are a couple here available for hire, it would be good to settle the score. |
2006
2005
