After a very slow start of the race where Quannon said they were basically drifting for about 6 hours, the wind picked up and they had some good sailing, but they were unfortunately positioned poorly, so they ended up near the back of the pack. They've also had tears in their spinnakers which has slowed them down a bit, but he says the morale on the boat is pretty good.

Quannon's getting more used to the watch system, just pretty much being tired most of the time. He's having a bit of a tough time with sail repair and mother watch as he's still getting sea sick when he's down below. I think it will get better soon - his body is just taking longer to adjust (I hope). It's day 5 now, and he still has about 3 weeks on the ocean before reaching Rio. He had his first shower yesterday since they left on Tuesday because he was on mother watch. Now I'm ok with no showers for a few days, but not as much when you're sweating and working hard, and in a small cramped area - gross!

The meals on the boat have been pretty good - they had tomato chorizo pasta and corned beef hash wraps the other day, and there's been a kind of unofficial baking competition on the boat with people cranking out muffins, chocolate rice crispy treats using Toblerone, and even apple streudel. Sounds tasty! He says the weather is pretty hot during the day but cold at night. At night if its clear they can see tons of stars - makes me think of when we go camping, but I'm sure its more magnificent out there on the ocean with nothing around.

I've been in La Rochelle, France for a few days now, but this is the first chance I've had to explore the city a bit.  The past couple of days have been occupied with the usual post-sail cleanup and maintenance duties as well as a full day of unexpected sail repair.

As many of you already know we finished in last - very disappointing. We knew going in that we were going to play it conservatively, but of course didn't expect to come in 10th.  The good news is that we had our debrief of the race and as a boat we remain very positive for the next race.  There were some real positives in how we did, particularly when we were able to claw our way past a few boats in the English Channel in straight line boat on boat on boat competition.  We've also learned from the mistakes that cost us those places on the last day.

Because of our conservative strategy during the training weeks, and the fact that as a crew we get along quite well, we've garnered a reputation amongst the fleet as the "cruising boat."  But seeing the reaction of our crew and skipper makes me confident that we'll be more focused and pushing harder to avoid another such finish into Rio.  With such a long leg (28 days) and open ocean racing this will be a much different race - much more a test of endurance.

The stay here in La Rochelle has been great.  I didn't know anything about the city and had no expectations so I've been really impressed.  The city is beautiful, with the ports directly in the old center of the city.  The food is great, as you would expect.  That first chocolate croissant I had since Jenny and I were here 7 years ago was fantastic.  The baking here is definitely better, but even if someone had handed me a costco croissant with a hersheys bar stuffed inside after we finally stepped off the boat in France it would have been the best thing I'd ever tasted.  I can't imagine what it will be like after 4 weeks at sea.

I'm also excited about this next race as it will be my first stint as a watch leader after we switch to the 3 watch system (4 hours on, 4hours off, 4 hours on standby).  Now that I have a better handle on my seasickness I'm eager to get the boat sailing as fast as we can on my watch.  The other two watch leaders have been excellent so the bar is already set high.  The 3 watch system should also be easier on our bodies which will be important on such a long race. We have a few more days here since we got here so early with the perfect wind we had coming down, then we start race 2 on Tuesday Sep 22 at 0600 French summer time. But until then I'm going to continue stuffing my face with as many French baked goods as possible!

Some photos from the race start and here in La Rochelle:

More photos in the flickr album: