Throwback Thursday: Race 2 start to Rio de Janeiro

This week’s Throwback Thursday takes us to northern France and the city of Brest, where the fleet set off on of Race 2 - the 5,000-mile Atlantic Ocean crossing, to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

Waving goodbye to Europe for 10 months, tension was high amongst the fleet, with Invest Africa keen to repeat its winning performance in Race 1.

Round the world crew member, Peter Sykes described the atmosphere on board Invest Africa in his crew diary, as the team set its sights on a second podium win, “Invest Africa is heading south west, ripping along at 10-12 knots and we have covered over 300 miles since race start.

“Trimming the kite is the challenge now as it needs constant attention and total communication between trimmer, grinder and helm.”

Meanwhile, a dreaded ‘kitemare’ almost stalled PSP Logistics progress as the team set about to find and repair a tear in its heavy weight kite.

“The repair work is tough work, a needle in a haystack comes to mind when trying to find a 30 cm tear in 300 plus square meters (larger than a tennis court),” explained round the world crew member, Tristan Grigalis.

With 5,000 miles of racing ahead, Race 2 would be the first giant test of endurance for the teams, and little did they know just how challenging the race would turn out to be…

To find out more about the race to Rio, you can read the Crew Diaries here