They left Gosport, England into the teeth of an horrendous blizzard more akin to the Southern Ocean, and at times en route it was worse, so it was a slightly relieved and visibly tired Alex Thomson (GBR) and Andy Meiklejohn (NZL) who arrived into Barcelona at a little after 0115hrs (0015hrs GMT) this Wednesday morning to complete Hugo Boss’ delivery passage of some 2000 miles.
After leaving early last Tuesday morning, the duo - accompanied by four technical crew- had a ‘challenging’ but useful shakedown passage after Hugo Boss’ final refit in winds to 45 knots from every point of the compass. The British co-skipper, who finished second in the first edition of the Barcelona World Race when racing with Andrew Cape (AUS), confirmed that he is especially happy to have arrived in good time, in good shape. ‘ We have never been better organised or better prepared’ he remarked.
They made a short stop in Cascais, Portugal to drop off Doyle Sails NZ’s designer Richard Bouzaid, as scheduled, and by chance met up with fellow Barcelona World Race skippers Iker Martinez and Xabi Fernandez there.
Alex Thomson said:
“ It was a good trip. It is always a worry about being being stuck in Northern Europe at this time of year so we gave ourselves a window to leave and is always the case the window was at the beginning of the option! We had 45 knots of wind downwind and 45 knots of wind upwind, we had every sail up at different times. It was pretty challenging all in all. In a perverse kind of way I suppose it was what we wanted just to make sure everything is good with the boat.”
“ The first night was pretty unpleasant, going out into 45 knots of wind and a blizzard, leaving England, it was just like the Southern Ocean, almost exactly like it. The boat is fine, there are a few little things which you would expect given that she was only in the water for three days before we left, so there a few little things to catch up on. It was good”
“ We had Matt Lees our boat captain with us, me and Andy, Rachel who does all our data, Richard Bouzaid our sail designer got off in Cascais – I think he saw the forecast for going through Gibraltar and our friend Gustav who was taking some photographs.”
“ It is good to be here, for sure. It is nice be here early and to have nothing major to do. We just have final preparation to do, nothing very much. And let’s be honest if there was nothing to do, you’d make things to do!
I am fairly relaxed. I feel like we are more organised than we ever have been. We have done a lot of miles on the boat, so we have every reason to feel confident."
Co-skipper Andy Meiklejohn (NZL), added:
“ It was great for us, we had every breeze strength, every breeze direction. It was really nice opportunity to make sure that everything is working after the refit. It was good.
For me it feels really good to be here now. It feels real and like the race is about to start. Up until now it has been an awful lot of work, but now it feels like we have worked for something.”
From Barcelona World race
