Midpoint

A midpoint invites you to look both forward and backward in a project.

Looking backward, are we attaining our goals that we stated at the start? For this project, it was to sail well, to tell the story of the sea to those on land, to deliver all of our promised sitesALIVE content, and to finish the Vendée Globe.

Did we achieve these? Slowly we are sailing better to the capacity of the boat and the skipper is learning that his capacity may be bigger than he thought. We have created some problems of our own to solve (batten car) and we have solved some problems not of our own making (hydrogenerator pump).

We have told a detailed story, but perhaps it has been too much on the sailing side and not enough on the life and humanity side of the Vendée Globe. We have delivered our promised content, but also with the aforementioned imbalance in focus perhaps. We have not yet finished the Vendée Globe.

So for the second half, we shall try to attain a higher percentage of the boat’s capacity, while acknowledging that our natural conservatism has served us well so far. We shall work on telling more of the human side of the story rather than just the boat numbers. We also know that chance or luck has a big role to play (Vincent, Kito, Thomas hitting objects in the water) and we hope that King Neptune will continue to smile on us, and the rest of the fleet, and let us all pass.

Almost nothing makes me happier out here than that you teachers and students have chosen to participate with us in sitesALIVE! When I get tired, or discouraged, or afraid out here, I have come to say to myself – you’re out here for the students, teach them what you can, tell them the stories, help them to learn – and I am reinvigorated. You truly are helping to bring me home. Thank you.