On May 11, a great ocean race will be departing from Charleston, S.C., and no, I’m not talking about the Volvo Ocean Race. The Atlantic Cup will soon be here, and 14 Class 40s are set to do battle in a doublehanded series up the U.S. East Coast. Departing Charleston on Friday, May 11, the fleet will speed northeast, finding the Gulf Stream Current to help propel them towards the first leg finish in New York City. After a short break and Pro-Am Race in New York Harbor, the fleet will depart on Leg 2 from New York to Newport, R.I.

Act 2 in Qingdao was a whirlwind, by any competitor’s account. In Oman, most teams (including all of us on Oman Air) had a week or two to get settled on the boat, overcome jetlag, and let our bodies adjust to the new atmosphere. We had more than enough time to establish a daily rhythm. China was a whole different ballgame. Due to league rules, no program had access to their boats until two days before the event. This gave everyone 48 hours to empty their containers, set up shop, and build their boats.

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The first day of Act 2 brought some of the closest racing I’ve seen so far in the Extreme Sailing Series; a trend that I’m sure will continue in Qingdao. Light air, current, and geographic shifts kept things incredibly tight. Just when it appeared obvious that coming off the pin and hugging the seawall on the left side of the course was a surefire recipe for success, someone would get bounced off the line and come out of the right in the lead. A boat penalized at the weather mark would split from the fleet on the run, catch a puff, lift a hull, and take off.

You never really get used to it. And you can never not feel empathy, sadness, and regret when sailors die at sea. It doesn’t matter whether you know them, or know their families. Everyone who sails boats on the oceans is part of a community that is bound together by a love of water and adventure, but also by the quiet knowledge that the oceans can kill. That’s why this past weekend’s tragedy during the San Francisco YC's Farallones Race, in which the Sydney 38 Low Speed Chase lost crew overboard and then was thrown by heavy seas upon the rocks, hits so hard.