Taking Leave

Nic Douglas and Jan Edney filmed a “dock walk” on the morning of the departure from Auckland, covering the last 45 minutes or so before the boats left. And it was simultaneously both a little dull and kind of fascinating.

It was dull because all the big departure events had taken place three days before. The wait for Typhoon Pam meant that the shore facilities had been packed and shipped off to the next stop, and a lot of the shore team and family members had likewise left. So the only people on the dock were the sailors and a relative handful of well-wishers and media. It was a quiet, almost somber scene.

Two moments stuck out for me. One was the brief goodbye between Sophie and a man I didn’t recognize; he had an SCA jacket on, but I don’t know if he was a coach, family member, or friend. The audio is mostly inaudible, but the body language speaks volumes, especially the last tap on the head. Be smart out there.

The second moment was when Libby was walking by and called out to her brother Rob, who walked out to the stern of MAPFRE to talk to her. They exchanged a few words, then Libby continued down the dock toward SCA.

I was struck by Rob’s body language. While talking to Libby he seemed casual, looking down at some piece of equipment he was holding. But as she walked away he lifted his head and followed her with his gaze, his little sister. Maybe I’m reading too much into it. But I don’t think so.

Reposted from http://ift.tt/1xA94tU.

Tags: vor, volvo ocean race, sophie ciszek, gifs, my gifs, libby greenhalgh, rob greenhalgh.

This entry was posted by jbc on Wednesday, March 18th, 2015 at 9:03 pm and is filed under Tumblr. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.