Rendezvous to transfer items with other race boats such as our fuel transfer with Durban are not all that rare for us in this race. The picture above was taken last December by another boat, Jamaica, as we joined up with them to pass them medical supplies a few days before reaching Australia. Someone on board had a kidney infection (brought on by dehydration, a common problem with open ocean racing; we're continuously handed more fluids than we really have the stomach to consume but do so anyway). Jamaica was coming close to using up all their IV fluids and so we handed them our surplus.
Jamaica had been leading us by 20 miles and had turned back to meet up with us. Accepting outside assistance, however, forced them to restart racing from wherever the assistance was finished, as long as they'd gained no distance from it. Having come back to us, the resumed racing a few hundred yards behind us. We were able to hold them off the remaining days in the race and so placed ahead of them.
I felt bad about this but, as Skipper Mark explained it to me, "Hey, they required outside assistance. We didn't. It's a race."
In the photo above, you'll find me on the far right, taking video of the whole process (click on the photo, as with any other in any of this blog, for the full screen version).
The video I sent in to the race organization an hour later by satellite is below.
