Willem Bouwe Bekking must be thoroughly fed up with the body blows being thrown at his ambition of winning the Volvo Ocean Race.
In this edition of the event, his sixth, there have been enough knockdowns to suggest that his corner men are preparing to chuck in the towel any time soon to save him from further punishment.
Remember also that his 2005-06 campaign aboard movistar, riddled with keel failure, ended with the first generation Volvo Open 70 on the floor of the Atlantic and the crew plucked to safety by ABN AMRO TWO.
The catalogue of misfortune in this race has its roots in the steering damage sustained in a drag race to the Straits of Gibraltar just 20 miles after the start gun in Alicante.
A self-inflicted three-point penalty for changing to bigger rudders for the start of Leg 5 was followed by yet another assault on the crew’s sense of humour when the boat struck a rock at the pre-start in Qingdao Harbour on February 14. Some St Valentine’s Day that.
There have been positives. A pair of in-port race wins in Alicante and back-to-back successes on legs 3 and 4 enabled the team to draw to within four points of Ericsson 4 on the overall standings.
The latest uppercut, a broken forestay while leading the charge through the Southern Ocean on day 20 of this leg, might have poleaxed lesser men than the redoubtable Dutchman. Particularly since he and his crew had picked themselves up off the canvas after departing 19 hours after the scheduled starters in Qingdao.
Last night’s failure followed severe delamination of the mainsail which Bekking described as looking “like 10 men had emptied their guns, with our main as a target”.
While the Spanish entry must surely be wondering where and when the bandidos will strike next, Bekking was remarkably upbeat in an email this morning.
"So we have another challenge to face, but we have dealt with worse,” he said. “We will overcome this one as well, as we have great team of whom I am extremely proud of. Of course this is a setback, but there is still a long way to go. We will not give up."
Having had the night to reflect fully on the situation he was equally determined in an audio interview with Amanda Blackley this morning.
Handicapped by reduced sail area in the shape of a J4 (small jib), and a resultant boat speed tariff of three-to-five knots, Bekking took consolation from the fact that the rapid responses of driver (Jonno Swain) and crew saved the mast.
"While I’m disappointed, I’m happy that the mast is still up and we can continue racing towards Rio because it could have ended up in a real disaster and the race could have been over for us,” he said.
"We have to look at the big picture – anything can still happen on such a long leg as this one. We might even overtake one or two boats.”
Overtaking manoeuvres seemed a long way off for the jury-rigged Telefonica Blue by the 16:00 GMT Position Report with the fleet 800 miles from the first ice gate and their bows pointing east north-east.
The north-south separation is pronounced as reflected in the right-hand column of the leaderboard and the thumbnail image (right). The leverage between the Blue boat, lying furthest south and Ericsson 3 in the north was 500 miles.
While there will come a time over the next few days when the wounded Telefonica Blue will start leaking miles to the opposition, the performance drop-off has yet to show up on the leaderboard, nominal as it is.
Bekking’s men held a 45-mile cushion over PUMA which was flanked by Ericsson 4 (+48) and Green Dragon (+97).