Overpowered 6.5 meter Minis with 12 meter rigs do one thing spectacularly well. Surf downwind, the windier the better! So it was with dismay that the fleet and I looked at weather charts that promised an upwind thrash from Madiera and calms by the Canaries instead of the steady trade winds for which our yachts are designed  As I was soon to learn, few things about my race were as advertised.

Stacking 200 kilos of water, food , spares and equipment with each tack, I had good speed out of Madiera but fell back on approach to the Canaries and then was becalmed between the islands. I was forced to watch others sail past, merely a mile away with fresh breeze.
As I wriggled free and I restarted the hunt, the lights winked out on my fuel cell, the primary power source on board. Having worked perfectly all season, I had adopted the philosophy of “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” and had concentrated my meager funds elsewhere in my pre-race refit.

I realized that I had met my match with the power system when I traced the problem to the circuit boards within the fuel cell and resigned myself to use my back-up pilot and basic solar charging system.

Now, with 3,000 miles to go, I was on an energy starvation diet and thus unable to use my energy hungry primary autopilot.
Proof that bad luck strikes in threes, I was shortly plunged into communications blackout when my SSB radio receiver refused to tune into the daily weather and rankings broadcast. Fortunately I had done my weather homework and had built up detailed analysis of the average weather patterns in each segment of the course.
Out of range of VHF, and without forecasts, I ignored the outside world and drove myself and the boat like I never had before. My small solar panels captured enough of the sun’s energy to allow me four hours of sleep in every 24, a pace I maintained for three weeks. As it was, the battery alarms daily screeched in protest at 4 am each morning.
My backup pilot was not strong enough to drive with the spinnaker, I ran under main and jib while asleep. This meant that I gave up at least 10 miles per day to the fleet, equating to a loss of at least 10 places overall.  Despite this I was gaining all the time after the Cape Verdes Islands, unknowingly passing others in my radio blackout.
Entering the Doldrums was an exciting milestone in a race that I had broken down into 400 mile chunks; measurable goals heightened focus and lessened the solitude. Without competitors in sight, I imagined that each marauding squall line had a vendetta against me and I pushed to stay in front. The dark clouds further reduced solar charging capabilities, and sleep, and I shuffled from spinnaker to jib to gennaker and back  while in a fog of fatigue.

At night I was able to pick the whirling wind shifts by their temperature. The gradient wind was warm whereas a cool breeze foretold of an approaching cloud and its associated gusts, wind shifts and rain.

As Doldrums had lived up to their reputation, I shouted with joy when the clouds finally pulled back and exposed a perfectly clear vista of the twinkling heavens; I was a prisoner no longer of the fickle winds. The following day a huge pod of dolphins welcomed me to the sunshine, schools of flying fish burst from my bows and energy trickled into my batteries. It was beautiful.

I arrived in Salvador de Bahia, drunk with the scent of the sweaty land and was welcomed ashore by the race committee playing the New Zealand band the Black Seeds, a caipirinha cocktail and a ceremonial dunking in the harbour. I arrived in 29th place on the leg just behind a clump of boats that I would have easily been part of had I not been giving miles to the fleet every time I went to sleep with the small pilot.
Overall I garnered 24th place, but enough of numbers. I set out to learn, to lay the foundations of what will be a long and exciting career at sea and to find within myself the strength to overcome any potential obstacles that the Atlantic presented.

On this score I did admirably, as I now have the experience and certitude to launch a campaign that will see me become the first New Zealander to compete in the Vendee Globe around the world race in 2016. The Vendee is the absolute pinnacle of solo ocean racing, and the next step towards it is a 2,500 mile race to the Azores Islands next year in the Mini class. The Azores race will cap a full season of racing along the Brittany coast with excursions to Spain, England and Ireland.

I am now looking for a new partnering sponsor for next year’s project in France and globally in 2011-2012 for an around the world race that will stop in Wellington. Having grown up with Lion NZ, Fisher and Paykel and Steinlager sponsoring boats that captured the world’s imagination, I wish to find a New Zealand firm that wants to build on this legacy to again take on the world.
Many thanks to those who have written to me over the course of the last year.