A time to reflect
It is a gloomy, rainy day here in Lorient, as another inevitable low is passing by the area, and while having a nice warm cup of coffee out of a proper coffee mug, I found myself reflecting on the past 9 months and the adventure that is nearing an end. There is a lot of thought about the future and the big inescapable question that looms all of us is ‘what next?’ Albert Einstein once said, “I never worry about the future, it comes soon enough…” He was absolutely right, the future comes to us in a blink of an eye and if you spend all your time worrying about what’s next, you will miss the right now, and ultimately have no memories to reflect upon later. It seems like ages ago, that we were in Cape Town and we were repairing a Mini Cooper size hole in our boat, and not long after that, we found ourselves in Madagascar, sailing the boat to Malé and ultimately to our home port of China where we received a hero’s welcome. Auckland was amazing, the passion that New Zealand has for the race is nearly unparalleled and inspiring. After leaving Auckland, everything seems like a blur, the boat back on a ship, Thank you Maersk! then all of a sudden we were in Miami. We had an incredible transatlantic finishing minutes behind two boats, and now we are in Lorient, with an in-port race ahead of us, and the final leg just around the corner. My summery of the last 9 months does not do the adventure a touch of justice but it would take a novel to recap all the amazing details of this journey. There have been countless lessons learned by all, but as the youngest on the boat, and one of the youngest in the race, I was extremely lucky to have the opportunity to open my mind up and take in as much as my brain could handle, both in turns of sailing knowledge, but most importantly, Life. If I had to summarize the greatest lesson that I have learned, I would say that it was that courage, determination, inspiration, team spirt and friendship are the backbone of a true team, or at the very least the qualities that the team I have had the privilege of being a part of for the past year posses. Withdrawal from this race is inevitable, and it is probably the main reason that the legends of this race come back for more, again and again. The laughs on the loft floor, and the tales of history on the yacht, and months from now we will all be off doing our own things but there is not a single person who was apart of this team in some way that will forget the amazing year we just had together and I have a very strong feeling that you will see most, if not all of us working together in some shape or form again soon enough. Words cannot describe, but it has been an absolute privilege and pleasure to work and sail with such professional’s, and I certainly don’t just mean professional sailors, boatbuilders, sail makers, riggers, engineers, and assistants, I mean professional people, which our entire team is made up off. I have no doubt that there are a million more memories to be had in the last weeks of this race, and I can promise you as always that Team Sanya and the professionals that are apart of it will keep fighting till then end. Lastly, I need to thank everyone who has supported our team from the beginning, whether you know it or not, you have kept our fires burning, and our spirits high, the words ‘thank you’ don’t quite seem enough to express our gratitude for all your support, but we can only promise you that we will make you proud till the very end… More still to come… Andrés
