Neal McDonald's Club Med Diary - 6/12/00

With 25 days to go to the start of The Race, former Olympic, America's Cup, Whitbread and 18 Foot Skiff racer, Neal McDonald, reports for madforsailing

With Club Med safely out of the water and on the dock in Barcelona, our team has an intense five-day period to carry out the final preparations to our huge, state-of-the-art racing catamaran. We arrived in Barcelona on Sunday evening, 3rd December after a few days in Portofino in Italy. And seeing the boat suspended 30 meters above the ground this afternoon, I had just enough time to marvel at this fantastic machine, and the new generation of maxi multi-hulls.

I started my Club Med programme with skipper Grant Dalton back in May, 2000. From my very first glimpse, it was hard to get over the size and simplicity of the boat. Several weeks later on our first sail - flying a hull at 34 knots just outside La Trinite - it lived up to all my expectations.

This boat seems to bring together just about all of my wilder past sailing experiences - scorching across Sydney Harbour in an 18 Foot Skiff, screaming downwind in the Southern Ocean in a V.O. 60, or weaving in and out of hundreds of boats on a Bank Holiday Chichester Harbour in an International 14 - all skills that appear pretty relevant once we leave the dock in this boat.

Since we launched we have sailed in a variety of conditions, set a new 24 hour sailing record and have broken or worn out a whole host of items. Some more major than others, some failing catastrophically, some wearing out at a rate that suggested they wouldn't be making it around the world.

A lot of hard work on and off the water, much thinking and plenty of brain-storming has come and gone. Club Med have supported us and allowed us to train and develop our programme and team as Grant has wanted, and finally we are - nearly - ready for the task ahead.

By the end of this week we will be ready, we'll have fixed all these known 'teething problems' and be as prepared as we can to cope with a non-stop round the world race. But however head-down you are in any job, it is almost impossible to completely ignore all the rumours we hear about some of the other possible competitors. I guess a substantial amount of our spare time is spent chatting about the snippets of information acquired by our multi-national crew!
But at the end of the day, all we can do is the best we can with our programme. Some of the possible entries may well not make it, but I’ve little doubt about the quality and determination of the crews that do - it won’t only be the elements that we will be battling in this race!

Club Med's Schedule

3rd-11th December: Barcelona, final check-up.
9th December: The Race Press Conference, Disneyland Paris.
12th December: Leaves Barcelona for Monaco.
14th December: Training run off Monaco.
15th-16th December: The Race Monte Carlo Prologue, Monaco.
17th December: Leaves for Barcelona.
18th-31st December: Boats gather in Barcelona.
31st December: Start of The Race.