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Monday, January 26, 2009

Sailing : Volvo : TELEFÓNICA BLUE LEG FOUR DAY 8 QFB: received 25.01.09 0037 GMT

We survived the worse part of the storm, but still have a stiff breeze and nasty seas... The watch captains, Jordi (Jordi Calafat/ESP) and Jono (Jonathan Swain/RSA) have done and excellent job guiding the rest of the guys.

They all worked as a great team in the last 36 hours. Since I was still stuck to my bunk, with a back muscle injury, the only thing I could do was being awake and gave my input and advice, above all ‘BOYS, KEEP IT ONE PIECE’ .

In these conditions, down below is the best way to feel how big the crashes are, and when to throttle down. I was really angry when some of the competitors suggested to cancel racing, so didn't get involved with the ridiculous correspondence regarding scoring, this would be a jury issue anyway. If the organisation had given in, all the slogans about how tough this race is could have been thrown out of the window and, worse, it would have been the kiss of death for the future of the race. We always knew this was going to be a horrible leg.

Cheers,

Bouwe Bekking - skipper

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