Leg 7 Day 10 blog from Amory onboard PUMA’s Mar Mostro: Five hundred miles to go and this race is only getting closer. Not exactly a surprise – we knew everyone was going to compress again – but what is a surprise is the kind of day we had yesterday: it was slow, sloww, slowww. After a few consecutive days of feeling fast, a humbling 24 hours brings us all back to reality, and maybe for the better. You might think performance on these boats is formulaic – at a given wind speed, point of sail, and sea state the boat is tuned to a certain preset and that’s kind of that, right? But the truth is that confidence plays a big part in boat setup and boat speed, and having or not having the confidence to know when to change, to admit you’re slow and not just blame it on the conditions, that’s going to be a big part of anyone’s success. And thankfully, after a tough day that would shake anyone’s confidence in setup and speed, we closed out the night with a winning sched. The guys went back to the books and made some small but significant-in-summation changes…put the board down further, put the water back in the stern ballast, changed staysail combinations. Thankfully the boat responded. Not always the case, but happy to have a good one in there, as we sure needed it! Continue reading on PUMA.com/sailing. High-res

Leg 7 Day 10 blog from Amory onboard PUMA’s Mar Mostro:

Five hundred miles to go and this race is only getting closer. Not exactly a surprise – we knew everyone was going to compress again – but what is a surprise is the kind of day we had yesterday: it was slow, sloww, slowww. After a few consecutive days of feeling fast, a humbling 24 hours brings us all back to reality, and maybe for the better.

You might think performance on these boats is formulaic – at a given wind speed, point of sail, and sea state the boat is tuned to a certain preset and that’s kind of that, right? But the truth is that confidence plays a big part in boat setup and boat speed, and having or not having the confidence to know when to change, to admit you’re slow and not just blame it on the conditions, that’s going to be a big part of anyone’s success. And thankfully, after a tough day that would shake anyone’s confidence in setup and speed, we closed out the night with a winning sched. The guys went back to the books and made some small but significant-in-summation changes…put the board down further, put the water back in the stern ballast, changed staysail combinations. Thankfully the boat responded. Not always the case, but happy to have a good one in there, as we sure needed it!

Continue reading on PUMA.com/sailing.

Leg 7 Day 9 blog from Amory onboard PUMA’s Mar Mostro: One thousand miles to go, and what a thousand miles it is shaping up to be. The last 24 hours have been fast and fun, but they’ve seen a continued compression of the fleet front to back, and that should only continue until we all arrive at what looks to be a seemingly impenetrable wall of light air just west of Lisbon. It is exciting to think that after sailing 3,500 miles across the Atlantic Ocean this leg could well restart with just 100 to go, and with Groupama, Telefónica, and now Abu Dhabi squandering breakaway leads due to unfavorable weather, the thrills look set to continue until the end. Once over 90 miles to our east, Abu Dhabi is now just 30 away, and as we’ve brought the stronger winds to them, the guys to our southwest are doing the same to us; at some point we could all line up south to north. Fortunately, the exciting 15-25 knots of wind are forecasted to last at least another day – a final chance to gain some leverage to the north – because when the front begins to overtake us it should again favour the boats further north while lifting and lightening the southern pack. Continue reading on PUMA.com/sailing. High-res

Leg 7 Day 9 blog from Amory onboard PUMA’s Mar Mostro:

One thousand miles to go, and what a thousand miles it is shaping up to be. The last 24 hours have been fast and fun, but they’ve seen a continued compression of the fleet front to back, and that should only continue until we all arrive at what looks to be a seemingly impenetrable wall of light air just west of Lisbon. It is exciting to think that after sailing 3,500 miles across the Atlantic Ocean this leg could well restart with just 100 to go, and with Groupama, Telefónica, and now Abu Dhabi squandering breakaway leads due to unfavorable weather, the thrills look set to continue until the end.

Once over 90 miles to our east, Abu Dhabi is now just 30 away, and as we’ve brought the stronger winds to them, the guys to our southwest are doing the same to us; at some point we could all line up south to north. Fortunately, the exciting 15-25 knots of wind are forecasted to last at least another day – a final chance to gain some leverage to the north – because when the front begins to overtake us it should again favour the boats further north while lifting and lightening the southern pack.

Continue reading on PUMA.com/sailing.

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A sleepy Tom Addis talks through PUMA’s strategy as he tries to keep Mar Mostro in the leading pack.