© Oracle Racing

Peter Isler

I love this place. I’ve been coming to Key West since I was a kid, and it still has that great “outside of mainstream U.S.” tropical feel in some parts of town. We sailed into town a couple days ago after a pretty brutal race down the coast from Fort Lauderdale on the Rambler. We had 12 of the 21 team members who survived the capsize of the R100 in last summer's Fastnet Race. It was the first time we’d all been together since being “shipwrecked” in Baltimore, Ireland, and you can be assured that the pre-race safety briefing held special meaning for everybody on board.

Every sailor and every team has its own way of preparing for high-level competition. What I find interesting is how this varies from sailor to sailor and team to team.

For some, the preparation ritual consists of a precise and calculated procedure of logistics, boat work, pre-regatta tuning, looking at new sails, video debriefs, strategy meetings, etc…The high performance teams have this scheduling down to the minutes and seconds of the day. On the other hand, you have the sailors who prefer to wing it or sink their nerves at the beer tent the night before.

© Paul Todd/ Volvo Ocean Race

Puma Ocean Racing trails Camper/ ETNZ at the finish of Leg 2, headed into Abu Dhabi.

Ryan O'Grady, a veteran follower of the Volvo Ocean Race and a top amateur sailor, is providing regular insight and analysis on the 2011-'12 Volvo Ocean Race for SailingWorld.com.

By all means celebrate the fact that that Banque Populaire just circumnavigated the globe non-stop in the Jules Verne Trophy record time of 45 Days, 13 Hours, 42 Minutes. Banque Pop is a spectacular, monster tri that measures in at 131-feet and is the fastest oceangoing sailboat ever built. Her professional crew, ably skippered by the supremely talented Loick Peyron, sailed smart and fast and deserves full credit for taking almost three days off the old record.