A Tale of Two Routes

Leg 4, Day 13 blog from Amory Ross onboard PUMA’s Mar Mostro:

I hope they’re showing the classic film “West Side Story” in the Auckland race village. You know, the one about two rival city gangs on opposite sides of town? Ignore for a moment that it’s a movie about dancing, because we’re headed for a sort-of-similar story here, a story of east versus west.

It’s no longer about risk versus reward or “rolling the dice,” or any of the other catchy ways to spin it; both sides are fully committed and there’s no trading places. The facts: we’re east with Groupama and Abu Dhabi. Telefónica is west with CAMPER and Sanya. From our perspective, their only play – other than sail upwind to our line and take a 200-mile loss with 2,000 miles to go – is to stay where they are and hope for favorable winds south of the Solomon Islands. Likewise, we’re fully east and to get to them would be an ill-advised run away from New Zealand. East versus West (only, without all the finger snapping).

Continue reading on PUMA.com/sailing.


Buddha Course

PUMA led the fleet up to the Buddha, then got stuck while the entire fleet sailed around Mar Mosto.

From Amory Ross onboard Mar Mostro: 

That’s where things have gone wrong. As the leaders, we were the first to sail into the lighter winds on the return leg, and we’ve been struggling to get out of our offshore position. The boats behind had the advantage of seeing our problems and opted for the inshore option. We can’t get to them, they’re all powered up in completely different conditions, and we’re watching them sail right by. We’ve completed maybe 30 tacks in the last 30 minutes, could be more, and it doesn’t look like it will change soon.

Continue reading on PUMA.com/sailing