Some Pictures from Level 2 Training

"Spiking the Spinnaker" - a fairly spectacular manoeuvre even when moored in harbour - I can only imagine how it feels when in 100ft waves mid-Pacific.  

The fore-deck - everything forward of the mast where the high-adrenaline action takes place. That's me in the middle, suitably dressed for the weather.

Dawn in Gosport. It was all too easy to forget to take in the incredible views and experiences during the week.

Our Level 2 crew - dressed for the conditions and still smiling at the end of a tiring but exhilarating week.

Training - Part 3

We made our way onto our new boat to meet our new Level 2 crew mates, tired from the day's antics in the pool, jaded from the previous night's drinking and still fairly exhausted from Level 1 training, but with our gallows humour still firmly intact. We went below deck to encounter 6 pint-sized girls in their mid 20s tidying up the boat - we had officially arrived on board HMS St Trinians. The Skipper looked somewhere between ecstatic at having so many women on board and terrified at having so many women on board. Sparkey, Yacht Ninja and I just said nothing - we quickly realised that the gallows humour from the other boat would have to be toned down remarkably or risk being thrown off the boat for obscene behaviour, and due to the fairly tiny size of our new crew mates that we would be left doing every bit of heavy work on the boat for the next week. I have to admit my heart sank a little. The only person on board who was happy at this point was Michael - the only other male crew member doing Level 2 who must have thought he was in the middle of a Candid Camera moment when he seemed to be the only male member of the crew. However when we all sat down and had a crew introduction, my outlook changed completely. I referred in an earlier entry to the hardcore people who were taking on the full round the world race and how interested I was to meet them and see what sort of people they were. On Level 1 there were 2 - Keith, who had worked in the merchant navy for 20 years and now consults for oil rigs in the North Atlantic and the Yacht Ninja who had owned and raced yachts all his life - it made sense - only hardcore sailors would be willing or able to take on such a feat. But here we were back on HMS St Trinians and an incredible 4 of these pint sized girls were taking on the whole thing, 2 of which had never been on a yacht before their Level 1 training. I was stunned - were they stupid, naive or were they just remarkably gutsy? I have to say it was certainly not the former in any of their cases and for most it was just pure guts combined with maybe just a sprinkle of naivety! And as the introductions continued it became apparent that most of our new crew had a good sense of humour too and although not the dead-pan and slightly obscene humour of Level 1, we could still have fun in the week ahead.

Nicknames were the way on this boat - Sparkey and I carried our Idiots 1 & 2 names over from Level 1 (they seemed to fit so why change....) though Sparkey later became the Hippo, Yacht Ninja was soon christened, and we quickly had Jedward, Grabby Hands and Idiot 3 on board too. There is something quite comical about, in the heat of the moment of a complicated manoeuvre shouting something like "Jedward - throw the Ninja a sail-tie, quickly!".  What ensued was a thoroughly enjoyable week of sailing. No it wasn't the hardship and incredible bonding that we experienced in week 1 but it was great sailing and genuinely fun throughout. My initial impression of the pint-sized girls was completely blown out of the water - far from leaving all the grunt work to the men they were determined to prove themselves our equals and so we probably ended up doing less of the heaving lifting than we normally have. The only frustration they ever showed was at times their lack of height counted against them but never once did I see one of them beaten. The sailing, in sharp contrast to the "hell week" that is Level 1 was so enjoyable. We did more downwind sailing which is much faster and warmer than sailing into the wind and even flew the Spinnaker (the huge sail on the front of the boat) a few times. We practised the Man Overboard Drill 3 times a day and it soon became second nature - in total (all Clipper races) there have been something like 3 men overboard and all were recovered without any serious injury. The frightening thing is how long it takes - between 10 and 15 minutes to recover the person back onto the boat which must seem like an eternity when bobbing up and down in the water watching your boat sail away but by the time you secure the sails, get the engine back on, get back to the person and get them safely on board, 15 minutes have soon flown by.

The weather, though cold, was not as severe as week 1 with most days providing clear blue skies and amazing sunsets. And no night sailing this time, with most evenings being finished off with a hot shower and a couple of pints before bed and a good sleep. There were no shortage of comedy moments this week either. Idiot 2 (Sparkey) made it his mission to be the landing party (the first person to jump ashore with all the mooring lines) each time we came into dock. Now although it was warmer than last week there was still a good covering of ice on the pontoons each evening and watching the Hippo slip forwards, backwards, and even one time straight into the hull of a neighbouring ship brought many a tear to the eye. I myself had a comedy wipeout on the foredeck of the boat which resulted in some pretty spectacular shin bruising but that was nothing to the damage done to my pride - one of the few things that the First Aid course didn't teach us how to repair! The week pretty much flew by. The crew bonded well and worked very, very well as a team on deck. We had great weather - a little more wind would have been nice but no rain or sleet this time, the sailing was good and we learnt a lot. Thursday provided an interesting evening, as we pulled into Gunwharf Quay in Portsmouth to go for a few drinks. The showers were all busy so 4 of us went straight to the bar in our boots, waterproof gear etc clutching out plastic bags ready for showers later. But when we walked into the All Bar One (or equivalent generic bar) it was simply surreal - it was full of people all dressed up for Christmas drinks etc and we looked and felt like we had just landed from another planet. It hadn't even occurred to me it was just 2 weeks to Christmas. And although it sounds a little dramatic, it felt really strange trying to re-integrate to "normal" life after the 2 weeks we had just experienced. Dave, our First Mate on Level 2 had said he thought they should provide reintegration courses to people after they had finished the race and based on how weird it felt returning to society after just 2 weeks on a boat, I can only imagine how the round the worlders cope after 11 months on board.

And that was it. After another big Friday night meal and another hungover saturday course (VHF radio this time so a little less stressful than sea rescue) we said our goodbyes and headed home. The last couple of days have been weird trying to work out where the hell I am each morning when I wake up and then trying to remember how normal life works. But I guess in a couple of days the last two weeks will be little more than a strange distant memory. I thoroughly enjoyed the 2 weeks and learnt so much about sailing and life on board one of these yachts, and now simply cannot wait for the next training which is still 2 months away. The race now feels very real and very exciting and although it remains 15 months away I have a funny feeling the time will fly.

Training - Part 2

The first thing I did when I got up on Day 2 was put on pretty much every piece of clothing I had in my bag - actually, that's a lie, the first thing I did was give Sparkey a tirade of abuse about his snoring, then I got dressed. So I was now wearing (from top down) a thermal hat, 2 short sleeve t-shirts (1 technical material, 1 merino wool), 2 long sleeve t-shirts (one technical, one merino wool), 2 fleeces, 1 wind-proof jacket, 1 waterproof heavy-duty outer layer, a scarf and gloves, 2 pairs of thermal leggings, 2 pairs of trekking trousers, one pair of waterproof heavy duty leggings, 2 pairs of thermal socks and a pair of technical sailing boots. Day 2 started with a walk around the deck of the boat and our first lesson in rigging the boat - basically setting up all the sails and ropes on deck so that you are ready to sail. This took about 3 hours of standing around in the cold and despite now wearing everything I had brought I was freezing again. So I was now tired, cold and getting all the rigging wrong. And at the very point that I may have been most tempted to jack in the whole adventure, everything suddenly changed - the gallows humour began. It soon became clear that no one had slept well last night (well, except Sparkey and Keith, aka the snorers), everyone was cold and no one, not even the experienced sailors, were used to rigging a boat this size. And suddenly, by laughing at ourselves and the situation we found ourselves in, the crew began to bond. We were in this together and nothing, not even the appalling weather we were facing was going to break us.

We set off for our first night sail which was just amazing. It's remarkable how strong your night vision is when you get away from the city lights. We sailed till about 9pm and although cold, we all enjoyed it immensely. Upon returning to port we had time for a hot shower and even a quick beer and spirits were remarkably high. The forecast was for freezing winds and snow the next day, and the boat was still raining inside but we didn't care. We went to bed, most of us still wearing all our clothes and had a better if still not great sleep. As the week went on the gallows humour became more and more outrageous as the weather got worse and worse - we had force 8 gales, snow, freezing fog, temperatures as low as about -8C with an additional wind chill factor of about -11C. But we just sailed on and on, learning, enjoying it and coping with the conditions. Day 5 saw us sail overnight from about 11am on the thursday (having been out until 2am the night before drinking in Weymouth) until 5am friday morning. It was our first experience of sailing in watches - ie 2 teams of 4 taking it in turns to sail the boat while the others tried to sleep below. The shifts would normally be 4 hours on 4 hours off but due to the extreme cold it was reduced to 2 on/2 off. That left little time for sleeping really and so we just lay in our bunk with our full wet-weather gear on (to save 10 minutes trying to take it off and then put it back on) trying to get some rest. You'd learn tricks like not rolling over as that would expose a new cold bit which you'd have to try to heat up all over again, and in between it all we actually grabbed bits and pieces of sleep here and there. One of the more surreal moments was when I was called in by the skipper to contact 2 french fishing vessels on the VHF radio who didn't speak english to find out where they were going. He then asked what we were and when I told him we were a sailing boat (it was about 2am in freezing conditions at this time) he simply paused and said "oh" as in "are you nuts?". The other training boat had actually abandoned their overnight sail at around midnight but our Skipper was adamant we were carrying on (we think largely as punishment for a slightly sluggish and error-strewn performance that morning) and in the end we made it. It was slightly surreal going for a shower in a snow-covered East Cowes Marina at 5am but very satisfying none-the-less.

And so after a gentle sail back to Portsmouth on Friday morning in thick fog we arrived back in one piece. What followed was a 4 hour "deep clean" of the boat for the oncoming crew and then one hell of a session over dinner looking back on what had been a remarkable 5 days sailing. In one of the few profound conversations of the week we had discussed how, signing up to an experience such of this should be taking a step up Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs to Self-Actualisation -  (anyone remember them from Uni?) when in fact the reality is that you are actually pushing yourself right back down to the bottom - Survival. After chatting to the Skipper and the training directors, we learnt that the last week had been probably the toughest Level 1 training ever experienced and that, the whole purpose of Level 1 was simply to push crew to the absolute limit to see how they will cope in the conditions. 20% of people drop out after Level 1 training and interestingly, on what was the toughest Level 1 ever, only 1 of the 15 people dropped out. There were so many highlights of the week it's hard to remember them all nevermind try to recount them all. There were comedy moments such as duing a lecture on what kit to buy/bring, I asked if there were sailing trousers with knee pads (as your knees get destroyed up on the foredeck when trying to put up sails/take down sails in rough seas) - a fair enough question I thought - the Skipper thought about it for a bit then said "No, not really. I mean you could perhaps try to find some knee pads in a DIY store or something, or you could just MAN THE F**K UP NIALL" which simply brought the house down. From then on if anyone complained about anything, whether justified or not, they were greeted with a chorus of "JUST MAN THE F**K UP". Sparkey and I were soon branded Idiots 1 and 2, which stuck with us all the way through Level 2 and I fear probably will do all the way to the end of the race - somehow it seems to fit. But possibly the highlight of all was when we had 30 minutes in Weymouth to go to outdoor shops/chemists etc to get any gear we might need, that Anton, our Russian Spy, went off and bought everyone onboard a set of thick gloves used for helming the boat as a gift - a remarkably thoughtful thing to do in the circumstances.

Then the week finished with a particularly unwelcome 7.30am start (after a 1.30am finish from the drinking the night before) for 6 hours of Sea Survival and Rescue including 2 hours in a pool with liferafts, life jackets etc. It was very interesting stuff and would undoubtedly save your life (for instance if you catch a fish when stranded you should only eat the eyes, liver and skin as the flesh requires so much liquid to process that you would effectively speed up your own death by eating it) but was probably not what we needed after the previous night's excess. And then it was over. We had survived Level 1. We said our goodbyes, and then Sparkey and I along with John (the Yacht Ninja as he later became known for his ability to appear unseen at one end of the boat and then suddenly at the other) got our gear together and went to find our boat for our Level 2 training. We feared it couldn't be the same atmosphere as we had just experienced on our boat in week 1 and we were right - in fact it simply couldn't have been more different......

Training - Part 1

So the good news is that I just about survived our first 2 weeks of training in one piece. I'm not quite sure where to start really, so I think I'll split it the blog up into 2 or perhaps even 3 posts - 1 for the first week (Level 1 training) and 1 for the second week (you guessed it, Level 2 training). There is so much to relay that I fear this may be a long entry - I hope it doesn't bore too much but I'm trying my best to recount some detail of what made for probably the most extraordinary 2 weeks of my life.

Having packed all my gear into what felt like a very light bag, I began to worry that I hadn't got enough kit for the 2 weeks ahead. And the weather being predicted for the south of England was bad enough to make me concerned. I double checked my sleeping bag  which claimed to be good to -12C (it couldn't get any colder than that could it?) and so threw in a few extra pairs of skiing socks and one extra waterproof jacket. And that would have to do because I didn't really own anything else worth bringing. So I arrived in London on friday the 26th Nov, which feels like about 4 years ago now, and then very sensibly before a tough 2 weeks on a boat went out drinking all night with 2 of the lads used to work with in London - perfect preparation. And the next morning, feeling excited if a little tired, we headed down south to Gosport. A little late, we went straight into our First Aid course where we met the other 13 crew who had signed up for the week's training. As expected, the people came in all shapes, ages, genders etc. I was probably 1 of about 5/6 people in their early thirties and the rest were older than that. I think there were 4 women and 11 men. Despite Clipper's claim that 40% of the crew have never been on a boat before, there was an awful lot of sailing experience in the room and I was a little worried that my limited experience would count against me in the weeks to come.

What then followed was a fairly brutal 5 hours of lectures on the various types of injuries likely to be encountered on a boat from the fairly simple windburn, rope burn, cuts and bruises all the way to badly broken and dislocated limbs, hypothermia, man overboard drills and dealing with dead bodies on board. Quotes like "you're not dead on a boat until you're warm and dead" (in case of extreme hypothermia your body may seem dead but isn't quite so needs to be heated up to see if you're actually dead or not) really hit home with some people. It was quite a reality check into the potential dangers onboard, and although the chances of serious injury remain very low, when you're mid pacific and days away from help, you really need to know at least where to start in case someone gets injured. The second part of the lecture took place on one of the boats, which was the first time that many of us had actually been onboard. I can't really describe in enough detail what the boat is like - it's nearly 20m long but feels about half that when below deck. There is a kitchen with a counter about 2m long (including hob/oven) from which you need to feed 20 people 3 times a day. Opposite the kitchen is a "couch" which seats maybe 5 people and that is the total living area below deck. There are 2 toilets, the larger of which is about the size of the toilets you'd find on an airplane - for the race itself this is also your shower room. The second toilet is basically too small for me to actually fit into. And the toilets have no doors, just bits of cloth that hang down in front of the doorway. The rest of the boat is simply a passageway with 3-high bunks along each side and bagged sails along the floor - each raceboat carries about 10 sails which can be as big as 200m2 and has no space for them except on the floor so you end up walking around on a wet and uneven surface. And then there was the "rain". Our boat "rained" constantly, indoors below deck. Because of the extreme cold outside, the lack of heating onboard and the air/water-tight nature of boats (helpful feature when at sea), massive amounts on condensation form on the ceiling and constantly fall like rain. It means everything onboard is wet at all times and it becomes bascially impossible to ever get anything dry. There'll be more on life on the boat later but this was merely our first impression upon climbing onboard. We then put into practice some of the First Aid we'd just learnt by doing things like trying to carry a body down below from on deck which proved nearly impossible - and we were moored and not in 100ft waves like you'll get on the ocean. Although there were jokes being made throughout I think it really made the whole adventure seem very real and a little scary and I'd being lying if I said I didn't ask myself if I really wanted to put myself through all of this. Over the coming days of getting to know the rest of the crew it seems to have been a thought process we all went through.

  - The Honeymoon Suite and Sparkey trying in vain to dry a towel on the rope-locker door.

 - Walking around on damp sailbags was pretty much inevitable down below.

Hell's Kitchen?

And so we ended the day back in the office and were split into 2 crews for the week. After a little wheeling and dealing I managed to get Sparkey on my boat and so we headed to the boats to meet our Skipper and First Mate and to get to know the rest of the crew. First impressions of the Skipper and first mate were very good - fun, relaxed people, and the crew, though remarkably diverse in backgrounds etc seemed a very nice bunch. After a lovely lasagne for dinner we bedded down for the night. Sparkey and I had the last bunks up the front of the boat, affectionately known as the honeymoon suite and we prepared for our first sleep onboard. I worried a little about my wet matress and non-waterproof sleeping bag but with thermals still on I got ready to sleep. What followed over the next 8 hours was the worst night of my life with less than 2 hours of sleep. I have never experienced cold like it - I quickly realised my sleeping bag was not in fact "good to -12C" as advertised. I shivered most of the night and listened to the dulcet tones of Sparkey snoring soundly all night in his luxury sailing sleeping bag - his snoring was complimented beautifully by Keith who slept behind us so that basically while one was breathing in, the other was breathing out, to ensure maximum noise. Among the many dark thoughts I had that night (including suffocating Sparkey to death to give myself even some chance of sleeping) I did keep wondering what I had got myself into. I think at that point I would only have given myself about a 25-30% chance of actually taking part in the race and the 6 days that followed would prove decisive.