Mike Golding Yacht Racing

As always, the organization of the team was perfect. And I mean that not only the yacht responsible, but also the ambassadors had precise tasks and a schedule to be matched, but no stress was appreciated at all.

This was what impressed me most: people where not hurrying around fixing things, jumping in and out the pontoon, asking for that tool that should be there and it is not… But not, absolutely controlled situation. That is an example of good planning. Everybody knows what to do, helps each other and feels comfortable.

Even Gamesa customers visit to the yacht on Saturday went smooth and without perturbing the normal tasks. Conchita made an enormous effort to have everything ready to feel them comfortable and enjoy their stay with us. Thanks for your effort.

Only a little brushing was needed to leave it perfect for Sunday.

Voilá!

We, the Ambassadors team helped in some tasks, obviously not in the boat itself, but with supporting activities. I am particularly sorry not to be able to participate since Wednesday, however I felt that my colleagues integration in the team was almost perfect. Our roles were to help with the inventory, supply goods to the boat, take thousands of photos, talk to the press (thanks Chris). But also supported sales team for technical questions regarding the new products and developments we are taking on in the Company.

We even helped to pull Tim out of the water in his diving suit after inspecting the quill and the lower part of the boat for defects or dirtiness. That maybe was not so easy, but funny, in any case.

A not so little detail that also impressed me was the model of the boat that was exposed in the team stand. It was a fully-functional remote controlled 1:10 scale model of the real boat. I think it was one of the strong points of the exhibition: you cannot normally jump into the real boats and see the details and how it works, but that can be seen perfectly on the model. Everything worked perfectly, and even the materials were the same as in the real boat. The mast was a perfect shaped real carbon fibre piece of art.

The model creator, Hermann, is a Dutch Mike and Andrea’s friend that spent 4 hours per day, along 3 years to built it. Calculate a rate hour and estimate the value. Impressive.

As a part of our amateur journalists job we tried to take some photos and videos of what we saw there. This is the one I liked most. The design of the boat is made for speed. You can imagine this heading at you at 40 knots. You better go aside!

Great day on Sunday was a bit not so good, due to the agreement amongst the skippers to stay in the dock due to the big storm in the Atlantic Ocean. Safety is first. Nevertheless, a short race was celebrated.

It was the first time I was so close to a boat race. I was astonished about the complexity of the strategy to get first through the departing line, and the speed these boats can reach only with the wind. Even though I should be used to the power of the wind! I took some photos of the Gamesa, with Le Havre cliffs in the background:

And in the middle of the battle with Bureau Vallée.

Fantastic experience. Congratulations to the whole team about the goals you reached here. And best wishes to Mike and Bruno.