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Monday, April 16

Photos & Videos!!!!

Firstly the videos. Here's a couple of edited ones - there should be more to come as there is loads of raw footage - as and when people edit and upload them I will update further.

1. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tOpT131xIao - footage of our first steering failure.
2. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aWTSXAAvL_0 - some great footage of the rough weather on board. I was helming the big wave at the end (from 1:40 to 1:49).

Now for the photos - quite a lot here so be warned!
- Qingdao - Olympic Sailing City and our Base for 6 days before race start.


- Sadly this was more the side of Qingdao we saw during our stay. For those interested, this lovely little bundle of joy is called a Grenade - you "pull the pin" by taking out and drinking one of the shots allowing the other to fall in as a Jaeger Bomb....wonderful. 


- The send off was only outdone by the cold weather on race start day. 


- Once the water maker couldn't be fixed we had no choice but to load on 50 of these 19L water bottles which was more than enough to see us across the Pacific.




 - And we're off - Le Mans start in the South China Sea 24 hours after leaving Qingdao. 


- Starboard Watch - this (plus Emma who presumably took the photo!) was our watch for leg 6. We had many many laughs on our way across the Pacific. 


- The only land we saw from China to San Fran was the south tip of Japan. 


- Taking advantage of one of the only 2 sunny days to finally dry out some kit. 


- The sunshine was brief - back to wind, rain and waves coming over the bow. 


- AFS (Another F'ing Sunrise/Sunset) - the round the worlders were very bored of their twice daily AFS but on this leg we only saw 2 sunsets and 1 sunrise - the rest of the 29 days were covered by thick cloud.


 - Tim getting into the spirit for Paddy's Day


- Our rather tired looking mainsail feeling the full effects of 25,000 miles sailed to date. 


- Me and Tim on deck, still smiling! Based on lack of beards though this must have been fairly early on. 


- AFS (see above)


- Celebrating Jav's birthday. Yes that is me looking hobo-like to the right. 


- Action shot on the bow


- Helming the big seas was undoubtedly the highlight of the trip. Capturing the sea-state on camera was very difficult - this was one of the best shots taken. 


- Arty Shot


- Porridge for breakfast...again. 


- Crossing the international dateline


- Nearly there. Not even Tim was big enough to block out the Golden Gate Bridge! 


- A very well deserved swig of Calvados on race finish. 













Friday, April 13

Filling in the Gaps

After a hectic 10 days in Oakland/San Francisco we made it home in one piece last night. While memories are still relatively fresh I thought I'd fill in a few of the blanks from the trip - mainly Qingdao, arrival into San Fran and thoughts on the race since returning to dry land. So here goes....

Qingdao:
Those of you who followed our round the world travels from 2006 will probably recall we didn't enjoy China too much. So here I was, 6 years later, heading back into the dragon's den. We landed in Beijing to a familiar cold and smoggy sky, people spitting in the airport, no one speaking English and of course Kung Po Chicken (the only dish recognisable on most menus, hence the only dinner we'd probably eat for a week, again). And it all started so well - made the treck to the domestic terminal and depsite having a BA receipt saying my bags were checked through all the way to Qingdao, they informed me this wasn't possible - thankfully I had thought to check just in case. All the way back to International Terminal, collected my bags and just about made check-in deadline before catching flight to Qingdao. And we were there. It's quite a pleasant city right on the coast with a remarkably familiar French-Riviera feel to the natural coastline, albeit with a lot of big sky-scrapers. I'm pleased to say the locals were a lot more pleasant than those we had encountered previously in China - perhaps it's the more relaxed "Chinese Riviera" lifestyle they enjoy. Once checked in we headed straight for the boat where we encountered about half the crew and skipper, and headed out for drinks and dinner. What followed over the next 6 days was 1 day's maintenance, 2 sails (refresher sail and corporate sail) and a lot of fairly frantic drinking in a local bar called Lennon's which soon became Clipper's and more specifically Derry's favourite haunt. Jetlag wasn't a problem as we basically didn't change to Chinese time, finishing in the pub around 6-8am most days (9-11pm body time) and sleeping most of the day. It's the first time I've ever been in a bar so late that we had to wake up the staff to get served. Guns and Roses's "November Rain" became the stopover anthem as it was the band in Lennon's Bar's late-night masterpiece after which things generally fell apart. In Annie "The Assasin" and Robin "The Drunk" we met 2 great characters from Leg 5 who sadly we wouldn't be sailing with but who set the benchmark for the kind of performances expected of us new leggers both on land and at sea - they would certainly be big boots to fill!

Life on Board:
In previous blogs I referred to aspects of life on board, type of jobs we did and the watch system. But I still think people (skipper most of all probably!) wonder how we spent our time on the average day. So here's a rough breakdown of how the "average" 24hours was spent:
Off Watch:
1. 8 hours in bed asleep. By asleep I mean in bunk trying to sleep despite being thrown in all sorts of conditions. Actually, sleep obtained ranged from about 2 hours right up to nearly the full 9, depending on conditions and levels of exhaustion.
2. 2 hours spent after watches eating, having a bit of a chat/wind-down and preparing for bed ie getting out of gear, preparing sleeping bags etc.
2. 2 hours spent before watches mainly getting dressed, eating etc.

On Watch:
1. 3 of the 12 on-watch hours were spent on standby. On cold and wet nights (most of them for our leg), we split the watch of 6 people into two watches of 3. Three would go down below staying warm and ready for action should they be needed, while the other 3 helmed the boat in turns. We rotated these two sub-watches on an hourly basis to prevent all 6 people getting too cold on a 4 hour watch. Standby watch was usually when I would try to catch up on emails etc.
2. In good weather we'd spend 2 hours a day helming each. When the weather got heavy this would go as high as 6 hours due to some being unwilling or unable to helm in the very big weather.
3. One hour a day would be spent doing our daily job. These included cleaner (below deck), log entries (taking detailed notes of where we were, what was going on every 2 hours), engine checks - although we didn't use the engine should we ever have needed it in an emergency you'd want to be sure it would work first time. Bilges - this is the name for generic water that accumulates in the bottom of the boat - mainly sea water but also condensation, spilt water etc. The water is a dead weight so a 2-man team would clean it out every 2 hours to reduce our boat weight.
4. 1-2 hours per day would be spent on evolutions. These are well practiced (though not always well executed!) maneuvers such as changing sails and reefing (making the main sail bigger or smaller in size) which depended on the current wind. In truth there were many days when we did none at all as the weather and our course were both stable, and others when we'd be pretty much constantly doing them. The 1-2 hours is a best-guess average.
5. That leaves around 2-4 hours a day which fall into the "miscellaneous" category. Some of this time was spent on Leg 9 (see below in case that expression is new to you). Some was spent trimming - looking at the sails every 15-20 minutes to see if they were still the right shape or if small adjustments were needed to move the boat along as efficiently as possible in changing conditions. On very cold days, some was spent below trying to quickly warm up. The vast majority of this time though was spent chatting to crewmates about every and anything and all without the ability to look up google for the answer - good old fashioned conversation! Some of the best topics discussed included best celebrity encounters (all fairly rubbish but funny none-the-less), geography - can you name any of the countries from Mexico to Columbia (answer was generally no), why Gold Coast Australia were so fast (illegal use of engine and giving themselves a miserable time were the main reasons we liked to conclude), what adventures we had planned next, what we most looked forward to on dry-land and why Bondi used to stick his tongue out all the time when helming (we're still not sure).

Arrival into San Francisco:
We all surfaced from our 8am-2pm off watch fairly early - like kids on Christmas Eve we were too excited to sleep through knowing what lay in wait. We all arrived on deck around noon with land well in sight. We had one last crew meeting where skipper congratulated and thanked us all for our efforts in the crossing. We then got ourselves ready for the finish and crossed under the Golden Gate Bridge accompanied by the Clipper media boat at around 4pm local time. The spectacular arrival into San Francisco Bay was outdone only by the wonderful sense of accomplishment at being there - we'd made it, still smiling and all in one piece. The sun was shining as we passed under the bridge with Alcatraz dead ahead and the skyline coming into view to starboard - it was a sight I will never forget. We passed around a well deserved bottle of Calvados to celebrate, while Bondi, in a shameless bout of media prostitution, sprinted to the bow to pose for photos for the Clipper camera - we were not angry at this act of self-promotion, just disappointed (sorry, small in-joke there - we actually just found it quite hilarious!). Our attention was suddenly grabbed by the wonderful smells of food wafting over from Fisherman's Wharf as we remembered all the land luxuries we were soon to enjoy. It took a further hour and a half before we docked in Oakland, greeted by a hundred or so fellow crew, interested locals etc. It was a very warm and unexpected welcome which we then provided for all the boats finishing after us - although it's a race and we are rival crews, the safely and timely return of all boats and crew is the most important thing to everyone involved. And after a quick and friendly customs/border control visit, we headed straight to the bar in full (and smelly) kit for some well deserved beer.

Incredibly, after an initial lull in adrenaline (I think it was our bodies expecting to be back off-watch at 8pm), the mood picked up, as did the drinking pace and we drank on until about 3am the following morning. The next 2 days were taken up with a big and much needed boat clean and a day of boat maintenance - CV10 (our boat) had looked after us incredibly well across the Pacific, it was now our turn to return the favour by looking after her. And by day 4 on land, most of us made the move from Oakland (slightly dodgy area where the boats were moored) over to San Francisco to await the arrival of friends and family. It was great to see Helen, to start the transition to normality, to enjoy our last few nights out with our new-found Derry family.

Thoughts, Conclusion and the trip on Leg 9:
I think I mentioned the concept of Leg 9 before on the blog. The round the world race involves 8 racing legs. On our race (Leg 6), we introduced the concept of Leg 9 - the mental/spiritual journey undertaken by each one of us during and after the race itself. On those long night watches spent staring up at the stars or even longer day watches spent looking at the horizon, each of us had much time to ponder life, our current adventure, future adventures and a whole lot more. The crossing was a strange experience - there is no doubt that it was a big undertaking but as with many challenges in life, in the day-to-day of living it, it just felt normal. As I type this I wonder how I could ever describe surfing down 20m waves at over 25 knots as normal, or spending 20 minutes at 45 degrees trying to get dressed as normal, or being wet for 29 days as normal, but each day of it and even now having finished it, although it was a fantastic experience, it was not something I would ever describe as remarkable. I suppose it was a good reminder of just how adaptable and tough humans really are when pushed out of their comfort zone, but that has a lot more to do with evolution than it does with any great achievement on our part. And I'm afraid other than that there was no great, earth-shattering enlightenment for me on the trip. I loved the experience - not every minute of it (see previous blogs, notably "The Dorothy Button") but undoubtedly the overall adventure. There were sights and experiences I will never forget, friends I will have for life and I'll never quite look at the sea the same way again. Maybe not life changing but not bad none-the-less.

I've some great photos and videos downloaded from the boat media camera which I'll post shortly. And I'm sure there are a couple of topics I've forgotten which I'll post if/when I remember. And of course if on my ongoing journey on leg 9 I do encounter spiritual enlightenment or the meaning of life I'll be sure to let you all know!  

Saturday, March 31

Quick Fire Questions

Why did you decide to do it?
CHALLENGE, UNIQUE EXPERIENCE, SAILING SKILLS
And more specifically why the Pacific?
MOST INTENSE LEG OF RACE SO WANTED TO EXPERIENCE IT AT ITS BEST AND WORST
Did you ever feel scared?
NO - THE BOAT HANDLED EXTREMELY WELL IN BIG SEAS AND SKIPPER AND CREW WERE SENSIBLE AT ALL TIMES REGARDING SAFETY.
What did you enjoy most about the experience? 
SAILING HUGE 20M WAVES 
What did you enjoy least about the experience? 
MOTHER DUTY - PREPARING FOOD AND DRINKS FOR THE DAY FOR 15 PEOPLE WHEN AT 45
DEGREES WAS NO FUN AT ALL 
How did you sleep? 
OVERALL WELL. HAD ABOUT 8-9 HOURS PER DAY IN BED WHICH IS A LOT BUT IN CERTAIN
24 HOUR PERIODS MANAGED LESS THAN 2 HOURS SLEEP, IN OTHERS SLEPT THE WHOLE LOT. 
Were you wet all the time? 
GOT WORSE AS TRIP WENT ON. FOULIES (WET WEATHER GEAR) WERE GREAT TO START WITH
BUT GRADUALLY BECAME SATURATED. TOP AND MID LAYERS FAIRLY REGULARLY SOAKED,
BASELAYERS LARGELY DRY. 
Was there a time or how many times did you think "I just want to get off"? 
BEING MOTHER OR TRYING TO GET INTO 7 LAYERS OF CLOTHES WHEN AT 45 DEGREES. 
What was the food like? 
NOT BAD ACTUALLY. FREEZE DRIED MEALS, PASTA, RICE AND TUNA ALL FEATURED
REGULARLY
 
What did you miss the most?
BED, HELEN, DRY CLOTHES. PROBABLY IN THAT ORDER.
How was it being in a confined space with almost strangers for so long?
SURPRISINGLY EASY. ONLY 7 ON OUR WATCH OF WHICH ONE WAS MOTHER EACH DAY SO ONLY
REALLY SHARING THE SPACE WITH 6 PEOPLE. NOT A PROBLEM AT ALL. 
Would you do it again?
NO. THOROUGHLY ENJOYED IT BUT IT'S A CASE OF SEEN ONE OCEAN, SEEN THEM ALL.

Nearly there

Out of adversity comes something....can't remember what it is but am sure it's
relevant to us here. Perhaps it's strength. The Derry crew has certainly shown
it in abundance since we lost our 3rd place. Morale is very good - maybe we're
just demob happy, maybe now that we've taken our focus off the podium and back
onto why we're really out here doing this we've realised just how amazing it's
been. It feels like months ago that we waited in Qingdao to see if we'd be able
to race at all after our water-maker failed. Had you offered us then a 4th place
finish with all crew safe and smiling we'd have ripped your hand off. Yet after
29 amazing days on the Pacific that's exactly what we're looking at. It's all
very, very good. We had 2 great day's sailing, counting down the number of
watches left before arrival and watching the ETA tick down towards zero.
Humidity levels down below are near saturation levels - I've really never seen
anything like it. If you hang something out to dry it gets wetter, so
counter-intuitively the best thing to do with something wet is roll it in a
ball to hopefully stop it getting wetter.

One real downer has been finding my "dry-bag" of land-clothes to wear in San
Fran has leaked so I now own nothing dry. Going to quickly turn my hotel room
into a chinese laundry on arrival. Not to worry - with a bed, beer, burger and
shower just 11 hours away it would be diffiicult put a downer on things. It
seems spirits are the onky thing left on board that aren't damp. And by way of
a final goodbye the Pacific threw us a quick 40 knot headwind for the last 6
hours just to remind us of how potent it can be. Despite some fairly extreme
conditions it's been a fairly benign crossing.

The schedule from here is 3-4pm crossing of line tomorrow, sorry, later today
(just started 4am watch). Moored by 6pm, beers, quick shower, food then more
beers until tiredness overcomes us. Big boat clean tomorrow followed by
maintenance day the day after and then crew dinner on the 4th. Then a lovely
week with family before returning home at last. Will post more details of the
adventure in the coming days/weeks, but for now, one more watch to go, a sleep
and then the Golden Gate Bridge awaits.

Thursday, March 29

A bad 24 hours

Sadly it's not been a very good day on baord Derry which resulted in us
dropping to 4th place and out of the podium places. NY went into their stealth
mode (24 hour period "off radar") but we were largely unconcerned. They had
proved unable to outpace us in the previous 3 weeks, the wind files suggested
light winds to the south, and given our more northerly position they would only
drop further behind by coming up to our level. So nothing had changed - keep
sailing as we were and avoid serious equipment failure and third place was ours.
Just as our 12am-4am watch was finishing, our steering gear, for the second time
in the race, failed. What followed was a slightly frantic but highly
"professional" 45 minutes of rigging the emergency tiller, getting the sails
under control and fixing the problem. OK, we had lost about 3 miles in the
period but it was far from a disater. Indeed we opened and polished off a bottle
of Jameson to celebrate a job well done.

The next morning however we faced a bigger problem and one that was out of our
control - the windhole predicted down south had popped up north instead and we
sailed right into it - the even bigger sucker punch was that if NY had gone
south in stealth mode they would now miss the wind hole and sail into strong and
favourable winds. We spent a hugely frustrating 8 hours bobbing around at about
4 knots, and when NY came out of stealth at 8pm yesterday the updates confirmed
the worst - we were now 20 miles behind. It was a flyer for NY to go south - all
the data we had suggested it was the wrong move but in 4th place you have
nothing to lose - get it wrong and you might come 5th/6th, but get it right and
you're on the podium. And so it worked out - better lucky than smart as they
say.

The really interesting thing has been the reaction on board. Probably more than
half the crew didn't really care - the lure of land luxuries just 2 days away
overcame any disappointment at losing 3rd place. That doesn't make them wrong
at all - people come on this adventure for many different reasons - to race, the
expereince, to learn etc etc and if the race itself is low down on your
priorities then nothing has really changed. A few of us were disappointed but
understood the nature of the lost place - we hadn't done anything wrong, were a
little unlucky while NY got very lucky. It hasn't changed how well we've done so
far nor the fact that anyone on board would have gladly taken 4th place when
we'd just learnt about the 1 ton extra of water we'd be carrying way back in
Qingdao. I'm reluctant to blame it all on luck but there isn't a lot we would
have changed about our tactical decisions or how we've raced. Sadly the person
to have taken it worst has been the skipper. Now I do understand that as a
professional skipper he is under different pressures than we the crew, but I
hope he does not now overturn the crew approach which has served us so well thus
far and risk destroying the tremendous atmosphere on board. Worst case there is
just 48 hours to go so we can survive anything, and either way the fun and
morale on our watch remains as high as ever. 
Thoughts now turn to all the land luxuries awaiting us in San Fran. I worked out this morning that I only have to get dressed 5 more times (the hardest part of every watch) before we arrive. Sleeping in a flat bed and seeing Helen (in no particular order of course!) are the 2 things I am looking forward to most. In the meantime we'll sail as hard as we can on this spectacular adventure and hope for NY to mess up.

Wednesday, March 28

Ocean Racing

Ocean racing is proving a strange world. Nothing happens very quickly - in
identical boats and similar weather it's incredibly hard to make gains on boats
around you. Take New York for example - it's about 2 weeks now that they've been
about 10 miles behind us. 10 miles is less than 1 hours sailing, but the gap has
remained consistent for well over 1000 miles now. We've helmed some incredible
conditions in that period banging out ridiculously high speeds for a sail boat,
yet when we get our 6 hourly updates there they are, still 10 miles behind. It's
enough to drive you insane, enough to want to pull over and let them past just
to enjoy a few hours of relaxation. The only thing worse would be being in 4th
place trying to catch us for 2000 miles but depsite pushing boat and crew to the
limit being unable to catch up. 

The skipper of New York sent our skipper an email 2 days ago saying simply "Christ, you guys are hard to catch". Advantage Derry. It was a huge psychological boost for us. No matter how sick we were of seeing New York 10 miles behind us, they were even more sick seeing us 10 miles ahead. While 14 days out you can console yourself into thinking that all you have to do is match us and wait for a mistake, 4 days out the chances of that mistake become more and more remote. And if the latest updates are accurate, it looks like NY have taken a dive south in desperation to give themselves some chance of making 3rd. The problem is the forecast, if accurate, is for a lull to arrive from the south which should stop them dead before they can gain any significant ground. It's brave but maybe stupid - they may be risking a safe 4th position on a flyer. 


For now we plough on with our more northerly course knowing that if we can avoid significant damage to our boat that our podium place remains ours to lose. On we race, around 96 hours away from all we yearn - a podium finish, a bed, beer, meat, friends and family, toilets that flush, flat floors, dryness. The list is almost endless, as it sometimes feels is the Pacific itself. Morale on board remains fantastic - nothing like an exciting race to focus the minds away from the petty discomforts that could at any
moment rise up to arguments. The sailing too, apart from a frustrating 6 hour
lull this afternoon, remains incredible. We're close enough to the end now
that adrenaline is overcoming any tiredenss and no doubt soon will start to
regret the end of this great adventure. In the mean time however, all that
matters is that 10 miles gap to NY. 

Monday, March 26

PS

As I had suspected my "down day" yesterday was closely linked to my lack of helm
time. I returned today to huge seas and strong winds. Due to a lack of peope
on board willing or able to helm in these conditions I had a massive 2.5 hour
shift this afternoon (usually about 1 hour max) and another 1.5 hours tonight
(usually 40 mins). Absolutely amazing stuff. I hit a top speed of 25.2 knots
(about 45kmph) which is a boat record for the Pacific, and 2 minutes later an
even bigger wave crashed over the deck throwing more water at us than I have
ever seen. Imagine having a fire hose turned on you for 20 seconds and you get
the idea. When it finally stopped I had my 4 crewmates in front of me sprawled
across the deck in various posiitons. Thankfully no injuries. Size of
the waves is just straggering - well over 20m tall. Quite amazing stuff and
exactly what I came here to experience. Off now for my last 30 mnins helming of
the day and then a much deserved 3 hour sleep.

And from skipper Mark Light

“We have monstrous waves that chase down our boat and then climb up behind us, massive walls of water that break at the crest and then come hurtling down towards the back of the boat. The art is to catch one of these monsters fairly square on and with enough speed to begin the most amazing sleigh ride ever.
"The boat feels like a torpedo being fired from a submarine (which is exactly how the boat feels) as she accelerates rapidly up to a full on surf speed,” explains Mark, as his team continue their game of cat and mouse with New York. “Speeds up to 25 knots have been achieved today and in the right direction. The feeling on the helm is amazing as the stern is picked up and you stand tall looking down the entire length of the boat and watch as the bow dips at first, then literally takes off and great spumes of water are sprung up from each side of the bow.

Sunday, March 25

Dorothy

Much time is spent discussing the "off button" during the race. The worst thing
about a boat/race such as this is there is no way to stop the game if for whatever
reason you aren't enjoying it. This is what makes it so tough for the Round the
World-ers to see the race out because every month or so when back ashore they have
the option to walk away from the race. We have so far lost 5 of our 9 Round the
World-ers and it's not difficult to see why. At the start of this leg I gave this
topic a name - the Dorothy Button - referencing of course Wizard of Oz. We each had
the option, once only, to press our Dorothy button which would instantly rerturn us
home. Home is an important feature - lots enquired as to whether the button could
bring you 2 days out from San Fran - the answer was a strict no - this is all or
nothing stuff - the Clipper adventure would be over. Not too surprisingly most of
the Round the World-ers were up for pressing it right away - most are battle weary
and are stubbornly hanging in simply to complete the race - for them the option to
be finshed would be quite a luxury. Incredibly, a couple of leggers would have used
the option in week 1 - why you'd spend the time/money getting here to wish it away
is beyond me. The rest of us have flirted with it on many occasions - usually when
life at 45 degrees becomes a little too much. The concept has taken on a life of its
own - we spend hours talking about what the button looks like, how close we've come
to pressing it and the first things we'd do once we were teleported home.

Yesterday I pressed the button.

I had been on mother watch which is never my favourite job - 24 hours down below
preparing meals and hot drinks for 15 people for the day. It's pretty dull at the
best of times and a particularly miserable sea-state made it even harder than
normal. Usually, the boat is at a fairly fixed angle one side or the other. On that
basis you stack up all the things likely to fly around on the lower side of the
galley safe in the knowledgte that they can't fall down. This makes life a little
easier. Yesteday we had rough seas swaying from one side to the other. This made for
most of the day being spent picking up things from the floor - like bread dough
while trying to make bread, like lamb stew while trying to serve it etc etc. This
really wasn't fun. I had also (schoolboy error) offered to try to make yorkshire
puddings to accompany said stew - depsite managing down expectations, there was
boat-wide disappointment when I couldn't manage the feat due to no cooking oil and
an oven that wouldn't stay lit. Meanwhile, above deck, our 3rd place feels like it
is starting to slip away to a relentless NY boat slowly closing us down. We hoisted
our spinnaker (largest sail) and within 5 minutes had wrapped it and torn it on the
way back down - this was a huge setback to our race. A couple of minutes later the
stew pot once again lunged at the floor. I turned away, opened the glass protective
box and pressed the Dorothy Button. I had had enough.

In the real world this was merely a lot of cursing followed by cleaning up the mess
again, grinning and bearing it until dinner was finshed and then going to bed. This
morning after a good sleep and great boat speeds overnight I'm back on track. As
I've said before, in rough conmditions the best job on the boat is helming so not
doing it for 36 hours really takes away the fun factoir. I'm back up on deck in a
couple of hours and itching to get going in favourable 50 knot winds (90kmph) with
huge boat speeds being recorded. We've about 7 days to go till San Fran and are
still for now holding off NY in the race for 3rd. It would be just lovely to see
them give up just a little ground and allow us to enjoy the run in but they seem
unwilling to cooperate. So it remains a tense few days where any serious mistake
will cost us our much coveted podium place.

Thursday, March 22

Bitter Sweet

Day 20 of the race and we continue to fly along in very favourable racing
conditions. By tomorrow morning we will have less than 2000 miles to go - still
longer than most sailors will ever have completed in one go but for us a big
psychological barrier. At our current rate of 240 miles per day we will arrive
in 9 days, realistically it will be more like 11 days to go - all depends on
what the high presure in front of us does next. It's funny watching and counting
down the miles to go to san fran - obviously the faster we get there the better
we'll do in the race but the sooner this incredible experience will be over.
So it's very bitter sweet. Things like showers, flat beds, fresh food, normal
toilets, seeing friends and family and of course finishing in a podium place are
all big incentives to getting there as soon as possible so I think the trick is
to enjoy every minute while we're still out on this greast adventure. Living
conditions are better with the angle down to about 25 degrees now - still
frustrating as hell getting out of bed and dressed 3 times perday (all my lows
of the trip have been in this period). Getting out of bed when at a 45 degree
angle is basically like a letter trying to jump back out of a post box. But the
winds are favourable and we are enjopying some wonderful sailing.

Wednesday, March 21

Hello From Yesterday

Midway by name and nature; the fleet is now just over half way through  their mammoth 
Pacific Ocean crossing, although they still have the equivalent of the breadth of the Atlantic 
to sail before they reach California!
 


So today we crossed the International Date Line which has lead to much confusion on board. We started today tomrrow, 
moved back into yesteray and are now back to today. In a straw poll of crew no one got the correct date or day once we 
crossed.....tad confusing to say the least.  It has to be said that the concept of days and dates becomes fairly irrelevant 
on board., it's all about the next watch and our position on the leader board - other measures of time don't really matter
anymore. 
 
We also returned "home" into the Western Hemisphere which was much comfort to all...until I realised that we actually
live East of Greenwich so in fact ion the Eastern Hemisphere. We're trying to work out if that makes us Asian!?
 
Race continues to go well - we've banged out a few 240 mile days which are keeping us nicely ahead of the chasing pack 
and slowly catching the 2 lead boats. Still over 2500 miles to go but it's going very well and as skipper put it today, barring
serious damage to our kit, someone has to sail right past us for us to lose our podium position and nothing we've seen to
date suggests that is about to happen. 
 
Weather has improved with winds at a more favourable angle and the boat pitch down from about 45 degrees to a mere 25-30
 - sea state has calmed though so sleep is back on the agenda. Morale good on board still with the rapidly descendingh miles 
to finish providing a big boost each day. Back on watch now so have to hop. Will try to update again in the coming days if the 
weather holds as promised. Estimated arrival date in San Fran now the 3rd April but lots could change in the mean time.

 

Sunday, March 18

I Wonder do I smell yet?

"Being aboard a Clipper 68 at the moment is much like being inside an otter's pocket: Cold, damp and a bit smelly" - Quote from skipper of Singapore.


Yesterday I changed my socks. I grant you that's hardly earth shattering, but if
I tell you that's the first time I've done so in 13 days it becomes a little
more controversial. And if I go on to tell you that they were the first items of
clothing I've changed since leaving Qingdao on the 4th March it begins to verge
on the offensive. Now in my defense there are mitigating circumstances.
Following the failure of our water maker in Qingdao we have been under strict
water rationing on our Pacific crossing. We have 1.5L per person per day for
drinking and sadly none at all for showering. Although this isn't quite as bad
as it sounds (details below) it does make it harder to justify changing clothes
on a regular basis. Not showering hasn't been nearly as bad as I feared - there
are good options - dry cleaning (deoderant), wet-wipe showers (cleaning "the
arches" on a daily basis with baby-wipes) and anti-bac hand wash make it all
very doable. And let's be honest, the cold weather also helps keeps smells to a
minimum, or at least well wrapped up. There are also other factors to consider -
with average air temperatures in the single digits, combined with wind-chill
means getting undressed is hardly a very inviting proposition. Of course we were
all very much aware of this before setting off so have equipped ourselves with
clever things like merino wool base layers which claim to never smell (so far so
good...I think) and to stay warm when wet - this feature is remarkably helpful
after getting a soaking on the foredeck. The other factor to consider is that we
are allowed a total of 20kg luggage for the trip. That includes "land clothes"
for before and after the race, all our gear, treats etc. The long and the short
of it is that you have to pack light. For most this involves a couple of pairs
of midlayers, and maybe 3-4 sets of base layers, including underwear. I had
contemplated washing while on the go but had forgotten that drying things on
these boats is pretty much impossible. The t-shirt hanging from my bunk for a
week now is wetter than when I first hung it to dry. I had consutled on this
topic with the original salty old sea dog (and Clipper instructor), Simon
Bradley who advised me to bring 2 pairs of underwear - one to wear and the other
for special occasions, like arriving into San Francisco. How true those words
ring now.

This is a topic of conversation that has recently arisen on the boat as
presumably we all go through the same thought process each morning of just how
long we can go without a change of pants. Our experiences seem to have been very
similar - not nearly as bad as we had feared, can't see any reason to change
them yet, how can it be wrong when it feels so right etc. The slightly worrying
thing is that we all noticed after about 4-5 days that we weren't smelling as
fresh as perhaps we might, that damp clothes were starting to smell and that
some of our crewmates were perhaps starting to smell mildly of cheese. Yet now
14 days in, these smells seem to have all "vanished". Hmmm. The fear and most
likely cause of this is that we have merely got used to our smells and now don't
notice them anymore. And sadly the tragic victims of this phenomenon will be our
beloved friends and family who come to meet us in San Francisco who will no
doubt confirm our greatest fears - yes, we do smell. 



Re. A drier than normal Paddy's Day for Niall and an excerpt from skipper Mark Light:

Happy St Paddy's day! We started the day with a nice shot of jameson at 9am
before the morning watch! Think we're getting beer each with dinner too as a
treat.



"On Board, we have our own celebrations with decorations, face paints, hats, Irish music and maybe a wee tot of Jameson's Whiskey. For dinner we have roast lamb and vegetables with mash (freeze dried and nearly Irish) and we have a delicious fruit cake soaked in Jameson's Irish Whiskey, baked a couple of days ago and allowed to soak. We also have a sweep stake running on the England v Ireland rugby match.
This weather may be severe and safety is of paramount importance, but in reality this is exactly the conditions wanted and expected by all of the crew. This experience will live long in the memory and I imagine will form the basis for many a tale in pubs and yacht clubs for years to come.”









Tuesday, March 13

White horses

It's been an eventful 48 hours on the good ship Derry. We've had 3 snapped ropes (stay sheet, yankee halyard andreef line 3), a life raft come untied (caught before it fell off!) and most seriously a broken steering cable which left 
us dead in the water for nearly 90 minutes whiler skipper fixed it. But I'm happy to report we've come through in 
one piece. 
Conditions remain extreme - 45-50 knot winds (about 85-90kmph) but thankfully behind us which leads to more 
pleasant conditions, very high speeds (23 knots registered today - about 40kmph) and incredible helming 
conditions. The seascape is simply stunning - rolling mountains of water with white horses as far as you can sea 
in every direction. There were many swells today of over 20m from peak to trough. Photos just don't do it justice 
but it is something I will never forget. We also had bright sunshine for most of the day - it really was the North 
Pacific at its finest. 
Helming (steering) has been fun but very tricky. I took over yesterday evening around dusk as a series of squalls 
hit. One particularly strong one resulted in our first broach of the race - this is when a gust pulls the boat into a 
 sharp turn which tips over the whole boat dramatically ending with the boom (pole which the bottom of sails are attached to)  in the water. All you can do is fight it and hold on until the gust eases. Thankfully skipper was on deck so all was fine, and given the next 3 helms had a further 6 broaches between them I felt a lot better about the 
whole incident! Although a broach can be very dangerous to the boat, these were all relatively minor - it was 
comedy value though watching each helm confidently take the wheel and within 10 minutes suffer the same 
inevitable fate. 
Thankfully the conditions improved a little today so no further broaches to report.
 
The race continues to go well - we are currently around 4th or 5th and happy with our position (on the map rather
 than result) and boat speed. It looks like we'll be in a pack of 5 or 6 that will escape an imminent wind hole which will really split the fleet. The race remains very much on and we will be looking to improve our placing in the 
coming days. Tough headwinds predicted in 24-36  hours so sadly, life at 45 degrees will be on the cards again. 

Sunday, March 11

The calm after the storm.

The storm and conditions as described by a competing skipper:
“To give you an appreciation of the fun we are having, the sea state is rough to very rough. The current causes the waves to build steeply so they are more like walls of water and as the ‘Purple Beastie’ falls off the wall of water we nose dive straight into the next wave. The warm sea comes rushing down the deck washing the crew to their knees, the cockpit is constantly full of water and runs down the companionway steps like a waterfall, then we crash head on into the next wave with an almighty BOOM. The entire rig vibrates and anything that is not secured below flies from one side to the other. “Every muscle in your body is constantly under tension; this is like Ironman super circuits! With all that said and done, what an adrenaline rush you get from surfing the ‘Purple Beastie’ off one giant wave after another and feeling the raw power of the ocean as Mother Nature shows you who is clearly in charge!”
And here is Niall's update:
The calm after the storm today. After incredible conditions yesterday with huge
waves and winds gusting at 45knots (about 80-85kmph) today we have sunshine and
light winds. Great to get the boat on an even keel again, get everything
cleaned and organised and overall give the crew a much needed rest. We are here
to race but it is nice to take a little pause and hopefully the whole fleet are
in similar winds so we're not losing ground today. 
Today I'm on Mother Watch which means I have to prepare 3 meals for 15 poeple as well as baking bread for said crew. The conditions are ideal today for it so I've been quite lucky there - as the rest of the crew keep pointing out. It's a more realxing day all around, chance to catch up on emails, sort out wet clothes and best of all we get a 14hour sleep tonight! 
On the subject, for those not familiar with the watch system, the boat uses 2 watches on the following schedule: 
8am-2pm - on watch. Awake at 7.20am, quick breakfast, up and ready to sail by
7.55. Lunch at 2. 
2pm-8pm - off watch - eat, sleep, up at 7.20pm - eat dinner, get ready for deck
by 7.55pm. 
8pm-12am - on watch. 
12am-4am - bed, up at 3.30 am, on deck by 3.55am 
4am-8am - on watch. 
This rolls on a 2 day basis to prevent working same watches each day/night.
It works really well - plenty of sleep (unless conditions are very bad) and no
watch ever feels too long. Anyway, back to my bread!

Saturday, March 10

The Experience


Photo  - Singapore, one of our rivals, in view!


Today I had "the experience". Or maybe that should be in the present tense - today
I am having "the experience". With the adrenaline of the start line long gone
and 3 painfully long days of trying to live life below deck at 45 degrees (and
associated lack of sleep) I was starting to experience my first dip in morale.
Then this morning we woke to "The Pacific". Helming a 68 foot yacht through
huge seas (it's all relative I know and we will most probably see far bigger
seas before we reach San Fran but...) is a wonderful experience and one we
are very lucky to be living.
We have seen peak to troughs of well over 15m (an average 2 bed house is 6-7m high) rolling through one after the other as far as the eye can see but on sails Derry- London Derry relentlessly ploughs through/around/over these mountains of water with not the slightest bother.
Being at the trough and surrounded by walls of water might sound a little
daunting but no sooner has she got to the bottom, then she climbs high over
the next one over and over again. 
It's exactly what I signed up for when I chose the Pacific leg and now just 7 days in it is already living up to all my hopes. On board, morale is good. The race is going well so far - we are currently in stealth mode so don't know our exact position but hope to be in the lead pack when we resurface tomorrow.
Update - on resurfacing they are in a good 3rd place as at Sat 10th March 2pm about 60 miles from Gold Coast the leaders but on a different trajectory.

Thursday, March 8

Stealth

The boat is still at a ridiculous angle and has been for 2 full days now and
probably at least one more. It is great fun helming but any jobs below are
ridiculously hard to do and sleeping is almost impossible too - as one of our
crew put it today, "It would be hard to design an environment where sleeping was
more difficult." 
The race is going well though - don't worry too much about race viewer
in terms of positions as they are measuring stright to San Fran which is a route
none of us will take - the map is a more important indicator of how we are doing. We are currently about 2nd or 3rd and are in 'stealth' mode. we are hoping to hold or improve on our position while we're "invisible". (Each boat can do this twice during the race. Gold Coast have already done it once)
There is a long way to go still though so taking nothing for granted but it is good to be competitive though. 
Still having a lot of fun here though and it will be so much more comfortable once the wind turns more westerly and the boat flattens out.

Monday, March 5

Qingdao & Race start

Qingdao stopover - what can I say? - bedlam is a word. I'll post further when I
get back to land but a combination of boat prep, Clipper admin and very late boozing
meant race start was a welcome relief!
Race morning gave us something of a bombshell though when our water maker packed up. So we loaded a ton extra of water and headed off. It means strict rationing of water - no showers (yes, no showers for 30+ days!!) and a big weight handicap. No point complaining though - at least we made the start line and now, after 24 hours of motoring we are finally racing. Brilliant to be out sailing again and although fairly cold, conditions are good.
Day 1
After 24 very frustrating hours motoring south east of Qingdao, word finally came through from Clipper Race HQ that we would soon be racing. It was going to be a Le Mans start to the race - a technique many of us had practiced already in training. It involves all crews preparing their boats to sail while still sailing under engine with just the main sail raised.

All 10 boats line up in the same speed and direction alongside then all cut engines at the same time and then one minute later crews are "released" to raise sails and start racing. It is a great test of crew coordination and trimming ability as ultimately there are ten identical boats moving in the same direction at the same speed in the same tight stretch of water so it is massively rewarding to see your boat pulling away from others.

It is quite an impressive site watching ten 68 foot racing boats lined up this way but sadly on this occasion, other than a few unimpressed seagulls there weren't many around to appreciate it. And so the race was finally on. Although it didn't feel like our start when particularly well, the trimming was good and we were probably third off the line. Then the relentless game of "trim, trim and trim again" began.

We've had a good six or seven boats in sight for most of the day and are probably now in a satisfactory fourth or fifth place.  In truth given our weight disadvantage we feared we wouldn't be quite as competitive. This disadvantage was not just down to the extra-large size of some of the crew members joining on this leg, but down to the extra ton on water we had to take on board yesterday before we departed due to the fact that our water maker packed up on departure morning from Qingdao. It's far from ideal but we certainly are not complaining - the alternative was a one week delay in China which would have all but ended our race before it had even begun. For me as a legger joining the race this week it's wonderful to finally be racing.

Next stop San Francisco in early April and in the mean time a whole lot of fun ocean racing.

Saturday, December 24

Final Training Done.....just 2 months to go!

I figured that not sailing from early July 2011 until race start march 2012 wouldn't be such a good idea - it would be a shame to waste my well-earned reputation at Clipper (ha!) by making a fool of myself on Day 1 of the race itself. So in order to refresh my sailing skills, re-test my cold weather gear and at the same time obtain a very useful qualification, I signed up for my Day Skipper Practical (equivalent of a driving licence in the sailing world) in mid December. It involves 5 days and nights on a boat, practising the very useful skills of navigating, sailing a given course and mooring a boat in a marina. These are skills that although we learnt in theory as part of Clipper, that in reality the Skipper would always put into practice. So on the recommendation of one of my Clipper skippers, I found a small company operating in the same stretch of water in the Solent. Given the lack of demand for such cold weather sailing, it turned out it would be just me, one other student and the instructor aboard the very pleasant (despite the name) Prime Evil - a lovely 40 foot sailing yacht with a nice amount of comfort below deck.

           Prime Evil at dawn in Cowes Marina - a familiar part of the world from Clipper training.

So I packed up all my kit and headed back once again to the south coast of England. Instructor John was a very pleasant fellow who was understandably very boat-proud of his lovely Prime Evil. He showed me around and I was pleased to see that although far from identical to the Clipper 68s, that they shared enough in common for me to work out what was going on and how to sail her - one of the real fears of Clipper training is that we are being taught how to sail a specific boat for a specific race rather than "how to sail", but so far this fear has been unfounded.  The forecast was almost perfect - 25-30mph winds, clear(ish) skies and no rain. So once my sailing partner Andy arrived just 2 hours late we headed off for some sailing. This late arrival proved to be the first of many of Andy's eccentricities (is that a word?). He was around 50 and had only taken up sailing in the previous 2 years. He had roughly the same number of hours at sea as me but where as I had done it in 4 long trips, he had done it in maybe 50 short ones, so we arrived at the same point in 2 very different ways. Although in some ways he had learnt a lot, in others he had clearly learnt some fairly bad habits from the sailing club with which he sails - this is a common trait with sailing clubs that they will do things a certain way but not necessarily the right way. They say there are 2 ways to do things on a boat - the Skipper's way and the wrong way, so if you sail with the same skipper a lot you will soon believe his ways are the "right" ones even though they may not be!
Fellow student Andy attempting navigation - yes those are rollers in his moustache - enough said!

Over the next 5 days we headed off on what could be described as a very long pub crawl. We basically sailed all day in and out of various marinas on the south coast, following our plan from leaving the first marina, finding the next one and then mooring the boat before heading off again. And each night we'd pop into the local pub for a few pints before bed. It was great practice and more than just a little nerve-racking parking the boat for the first time alone. But this was all the really practical stuff we needed to learn if ever we were to realistically be able to hire or even buy a boat ourselves in the future. The sailing was a lot more pleasant (and less tiring) than a Clipper week - no heavy sails to change, no overnight sailing, no watch patterns, no competitive racing. It made for a very enjoyable but perhaps less rewarding week than I have experienced so far, though "normal" sailors probably found it more challenging than normal. But it was exactly what I had hoped for in terms of the learning and we did more sailing than I expected including over 50mph winds on the last day home - thankfully we had it behind us rather than in front!

Overall it was well worth doing - my kit stood up to the conditions extremely well, though they were nowhere near as bad as they might have been with only a little rain and not much sub-zero temperatures. I am pleased to say that I hadn't forgotten much of my sailing and that the skills transfered well to another boat. And finally I'm pleased to say that I now have my Day Skipper Licence so watch out seas, here I come! Returning home to the Festive season has been great and once we emerge into 2012 there'll be just 7 weeks to go until I head off for China. Who knows where the time has gone but I'm starting to get excited and can't wait for the race itself to begin. I'll update shortly before I go on ways to follow the race and Helen will be updating the blog while I'm away with updates from on board as and when possible.