Message From nicole

We made it back to a great welcome in Liverpool, and finished overall in 4th place - which is truely a great achievment considering that we were in 9th overall back in Santa Cruz. I'm not sure how I am going to re-adapt to the normal world. The leggers are your good friends, whilst the other round the worlders are more like your family, and it is tough to drag yourself away - to go from seeing someone all day everyday, to 'i'm not sure when, but hopefully soon', and especially when they are people that have looked after you in the tough times. I'll miss everyone on board the Lady Qing. And in fact i'll miss the boat herself, as she has definately looked after us in the tough times - climbing up and down those 6m waves! So the end of an adventure, but hopefully plenty of time for more adventures in the future. xx

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Nearly home

The race is nearly over now.... time to start crying...
We had a great race across the Atlantic (apart from the excessive amounts of drizzle). New York were chasing us hard for a number of days - and they just couldn't catch us. They'd catch up a little and then we'd pull away again, so kind of stressful but also quite cool. But in the end, they went off on a little jaunt to the south, which paid off and put them 10 nmiles ahead. So then we had Hull and Humber on our heels, and we had a little duel with them for a few days, before coming out on top(Ha ha). Its quite stressful when a boat is close, and you can see exactly how much you have gained or lost - and especially annoying when you come on deck after 4 hours off and see that the other watch have lost two miles (obviously it is always the other watches fault!). In the end we came into Cork second though, so a great result and a great performance by the whole team. We also moved up to 4th place overall, which is amazing considering that we were in 9th overall a couple of months back.
We have been hanging out in Cork for the past few days, before the final race into Liverpool. The yacht club has been great, and the town is very pretty, but I think that I am ready now to leave and make the final trip home. xx