Barcelona World Race / MAPFRE: We Keep Going ! (ITW)

The message from MAPFRE this morning is loud and clear, even if the decision was a tough one to take: 'keep going!'

credit : BWR

Iker Martinez mailed this morning: "Xabi and I put off the moment when we had to make the final decision whether to stop or not for as long as possible, but here we go. The J1, one of the headsails we will use most in the Pacific, went into the water and although we got it back, we lost the hook which attaches it to the mast, and this sail is essential for the remainder of the race."

" We worked really hard to get it back, we worked hard to fix something up for it to work because without the hook it was not possible. Using other bits we cannibalised off different things we have made something which works, and we can now use it on the sail. It is not ideal because it interferes with the other headsails but it works.
Everything is OK, the daggerboard is OK too.
We are very clear that probably if we stopped in Wellington and fixed everything we would be quicker back to Barcelona.
But we are just about have enough food and fuel. It made all the sense in the world to stop, but this was not what we set out to do. We did not set out to sail round the world and stop and feel that opportunities to sail non stop around the world might not come again, I don’t know if we will have another so we have to take advantage of this opportunity now.
It is like the Olympics. You don’t know if you will be back again, so take every opportunity when it comes and give it everything.
We are just about OK, we did not count on so many extra days. We might be on diet at the end, but meantime: full speed, keep going!
This a race without stopping, so if we can get round without stopping this is what we will do. I hope we don’t regret it.
The guys in front are in different wind and current, but we have two knots of current against us. We hope to get out of this channel soon and go into the Pacific soon."

Indeed MAPFRE have lost a few miles to Virbac-Paprec 3 this morning and are 154 miles behind the leaders.

From Barcelona World Race