Goin' Fast

I just read about a boat in the Volvo Ocean Challenge Race that set a new world monohull distance record of 563 nautical miles for 24 hours. That is an average speed of 23.4 knots! Holy Sunfish. The Southern Ocean between Cape Horn and Sydney is howling. I think that Dave is the only one among us to have experienced serious speed in a large sailboat during a race in gnarly weather and his boat was quite a few notches below 23.4 knots. When he returned from that race he looked like he was returning from a war. How do these guys manage to race under these insane conditions? Go faster boat, hold on everybody.