The last few days of the race have been very exciting. After having been in the last place earlier on during the race we were meanwhile back in the leading group. With three other boats we were racing for the podium positions. With us were the Teams for Seattle, Unicef and Gosh. This was facilitated by a high pressure system, that had lead to a compression of the entire fleet due to its low winds in the centre.

Another building block for this promising position was a good performance in the Ocean Sprint. Although we could only secure a single bonus point this time, we were the third fastest boat after Unicef and Seattle. At this time, Seattle had sailed out a healthy lead, while Unicef in position two was quite close to us. Behind us we had Gosh who were chasing us at high speed. That was the situation as it presented itself about a day before we were to cross the finish line.

In the last day we then had a few squalls with strong gusts which reshuffled the positions yet again. In the end there were less than ten minutes between Gosh who managed to clinch first position, Seattle in second and us in third. All boats were within sight for the last couple of hours, increasing the tension on all the boats I guess. After the team of Seattle got a time penalty for an infringement at the beginning of the race we even moved up to second place.

While this is our third podium finish, team Gosh with this win also secured their overall win of the race. It is truely remarkable how consistently they managed to show good performance and win races, even if it did not look that way. Congratulations to Team Gosh.

After crossing the finish line we had to wait in the finish area for the other boats. Only once they had crossed as well we started our delivery towards Washington DC together. We initially passed Norfolk, which is home to the largest US Navy base in the world. We continued through the Chesapeak Bay and up Potomac River. Just before our arrival we crossed below the Woodrow Wilson Memorial Bridge, which was opened just for us.

After our arrival we could successfully complete all our maintenance tasks. Thus I now had a few days to recover and visit some of the iconic sights of Washington DC. Whether it is the Capitol, the Washington Monument, Lincoln Memorial or the National Air and Space Museum: It is simply impressive what DC has to offer. There are now around two days left until we set sail again on Monday evening.