I've now been with Land Rover BAR for over three years, telling the story of the quest to #bringthecuphome. It's been a long journey from the early days in a light industrial unit in Whiteley to the current waterfront perch in Portsmouth -- and of course for most of the team, the Cup village in Bermuda.
There is now a week and loose change before the first race of the 35th America's Cup Qualifiers, and the level of activity has been at this same frenzied pitch for most if not all of those three years. In just a few days we will learn whether or not we closed the gap to the established teams - Oracle Team USA, ETNZ and Artemis - who all came into this with, at the very least a team structure and in some cases a full-blown team and guaranteed funding.
Land Rover BAR came into this world with none of those things, and has built them all from the ground up. It's been a hell of chase to catch up, and we know we're close. The question is whether or not we're close enough to make it a yacht race. The boys can win this thing, if we're racing them. We'll know in a week.
Meanwhile, my job is to keep telling the story, which feels strange, after so many years of being on the front lines with Cup teams. But if there's anything I learned in all those years of navigating, when all hell breaks loose stay focused on your own job, and let other people worry about theirs. So I'm really pleased that in these final weeks, we're putting out some of my favourite stories from these past few years - Insight Profiles of both Giles Scott, and Xabi Fernandez - with more and better to come next week.
And after that I'll be back on the live blog - yup, after ten years, I'll be dusting off the tack-by-tack speed typing skills and returning to my first, post-sailing team Cup job... hope you'll join me this time next week, you can find it on the Land Rover BAR home page.