The ABC (D) of Race 8

Race 8 was meant to be from Victoria to Panama but was cut short on day 14 with 2000 nm to go as Tropical Storm Aletta was in our path. We came fourth, just twenty minutes after Liverpool, and ahead of WA and Victoria which gives us valuable points in the overall position table. Since then we've been motoring, with an unplanned stopover in Mexico (more of which on another day). Seeing as I was particularly lazy about updating my blog along the way, a few of the highlights below:


A: Accidental Gybe

A fairly restless night as the wind picked up to 35+ knots and the rocking movement of the boat throws you from your leecloth into your lockers every five minutes. Then the 'all hands' bell rings. A quick peek to check that it's really meant, then an assessment of how to get out of my bunk – the boat appears to be at an eighty degree angle, which means the floor is about 12 foot away. Handily Stephen is making his way through so provides a handy foothold, oilies and life jacket on, then up on deck. The boat has been accidentally gybed, dunking several of the crew on watch under water and needing the emergency guy to be cut before she'd right herself. We check that both spinnaker halyards are still attached, then decide to drop the kite. The drop goes badly as the wind's still gusting over 40 knots and the crew can't pull the kite back onto the boat. Soon we can see multiple holes and the top end is wrapped round the inner forestay. Finally it's dropped, and a ripped heavyweight takes up residence in the saloon to be mended.


B: Broach

After a chilled out mother watch day spent watching DVDs, cooking apple crumble and generally pottering around a flat boat as we headed slowly downwind, things changed slightly as we reached dinner time. With beef stew, vegetables and custard all simmering on the cooker waiting for the on-watch to finish, the helm caused the boat to broach – this is when you head too far up to wind, she overpowers and flattens out on her side. The consequence in the galley is carnage... A rather hasty exit into the saloon as containers started to fly off shelves, the beef stew jumped into the carrots and the boiling water from the beans started to spray around wildly. Most of it was salvaged and served up, the remainder was wiped up off the floorboards. Luckily the mother watch that cooks isn't responsible for cleaning up.


C: Can I do this?

I've been putting off going out to the end of the spinnaker pole for six months, principally due to a fear of heights when combined with a sheer drop into water. If we’re sailing downwind someone needs to go whenever we drop the kite, plus there are always emergency guys that need attaching, working guys that need to be checked or sheets to swap over. Turns out it's not that scary at all – tho' I have since managed two unnecessary trips when I've forgotten to take whatever I'm attaching up with me, rope burn from sliding back down the downhaul far too fast, and getting stuck rather aimlessly with only my feet on the boat.

D: Dolphins

It's the morning after the accidental gybe, we've finally sorted everything out on deck and have a poled out Yankee 2 up. I'm on the helm, doing 17 knots, and accompanied by a pod of hyperactive dolphins. We debate whether running a dolphin over causes bad karma... (General consensus, 'yes'). And finally, scooting along under a blue sky I remember for the first time since we left China to cross the Pacific why I thought this was a good idea.

For my 33rd birthday I got...

On Saturday I spent my 33rd birthday just off the Oregon coast on a 68ft racing yacht... Not the usual state of affairs, and to celebrate, I got to go out on the spinnaker pole not once, but twice; the first time under the guise of having a go when the weather was calm, although Tom then sneakily gave me the emergency guy to attach as well, followed ten minutes later by a call to peel from the medium weight to the light weight kite. As I still had the climbing harness on from earlier endeavours, that was me again, spiking the old kite so that it could be dropped and attaching the new one for a hoist. All actually not too scary, you get hoisted up on a halyard so there's no real climbing involved, just hanging on to the downhaul so that you don't get swung around too much.

In more traditional birthday spirit, there was chocolate cake as well, and pressies including honorary membership to the 'Piss and Moan about Anything and Everything' club from Jenn, my mother watch partner on the pacific leg, whose coffee and brownie whinging sessions made all 31 horrendous days seem just that little bit better. Plus an exra hour and a half in bed during one of the night watches which may not seem like much but when you're snatching sleep in two hour intervals is worth an indescrible amount.

Other than that? Loads of wildlife; a couple of orcas (killer whales) surfacing next to the boat yesterday, and before that a giant pod of dolphins, probably a couple of hundred, making the sea look as if it were boiling over with them. We're still languishing in sixth place, partly due to having had a giant clump of seaweed wrapped round our keel for a few days. But, best news of all, should be back to shorts and tshirt weather in the next 48 hours. Hurray.

The end is nigh

Blue sky and sunshine outside, but otherwise at first glance it's the same old same old – icy cold, upwind in 30 knots, the boat at the perfect angle to make life as difficult as possible, and the staysail back in the saloon, being mended after developing a new rip. However...the radar screen is showing that we're heading towards Victoria at 11 knots (that's good) and mother of all miracles, we've broken the 1,000 nm barrier. Yep, only 832nm to go, which means our little ETA counter is currently showing 84 hours. After 27 days that’s got to be worth a smile.

In the expectation that when we do arrive, I'm going to spend the next ten days either working on the boat, sleeping or shopping, it's probably now or never to reflect on the race – after all, for £4,000 you want to take something away from the experience. So what have I learnt? Firstly, that the leg has been much harder than I think any of us expected. And not necessarily in a sailing sense, though the first couple of weeks saw a run of storms that pushed us physically. Tiredness has been pervasive, particularly since we were short crewed to start with and have been even thinner on the ground, particularly on deck, after a couple of injuries. It seems to go in cycles, for a few days you feel fine, then that lacklustre, not quite motivated feeling kicks in, and finally it moves onto the need to sleep whenever you see somewhere to rest your head. For the female section of the crew you can add random crying into that last phase as well, which leads to more tears just from the sheer frustration of being so pathetic about it all.

Secondly, that adversity does not bring out the best in people (myself definitely included). Whilst the odd emergency may lead to some inner strength shining through, the long term hardship of living in miserable conditions doesn't. When you spend four weeks in cold wet clothes sleeping intermittently in a soaking wet bunk with condensation dripping on you, eating meals that consist of stewed tomatoes and rice, very few people discover hidden reserves of humour and kindness. Instead, we become fixated on the minutiae of life, the things that in any other context wouldn't matter. Which watch works the hardest. Which watch were two minutes late on deck. Why have we run out of sugar. Why do people that in any other circumstances you'd like disappoint you when they don't meet the levels of effort that you think they should put in. And no matter how much you know that life would be a lot easier all round if you pulled together, you just somehow can't stop the odd flickers of sarcasm and resentment.

So, conclusions?

• I'm never sailing across the Pacific again – the moments of this leg that have been fun could probably be condensed into a couple of hours at most. In an ideal world I’d probably quit in Victoria and use the next couple of months to meet up with friends at the original stopovers planned before the keels fell off, then decide what I want to do next. In the real world I suspect I’ll be back on the boat on 17th May and heading towards Panama, as sometimes admitting you’ve had enough takes more gumption than staying with the status quo. Something to ponder over the next couple of days.


• In normal London life, you never really know how you or your friends will react in difficult circumstances. Ignorance is bliss...


• Snickers bars will bring a smile to the most glum of faces. Rice and peas will not.

Hopefully after a bit of R&R in Victoria, normal service will resume, contemplation will cease, and we’ll be back to stories of too much beer and helming in bikinis...

Today I will be wearing.....

Wicking thermal knickers, thermal leggings, a thermal long sleeved top, a t-shirt, a Buffalo fleece, another thick fleece, fleece lined salopettes, oilskin salopettes, an oilskin jacket, sealskin socks, scarf, balaclava and a fleece hat. And none of the above have been changed for the last 6 days. I've said it before, international ocean racing is a glamorous life..

Day 22 and still 1,949 miles to go. This leg is seeming endless, with Victoria still at least 10 days away. The restart to Panama has already been delayed by 3 days to hopefully give us a chance to have a day or two off for the first time since getting back to Subic over a month ago.

Plus, I have to say, relentless upwind sailing is not how it was advertised; for the first 3,000 miles we hit one weather system after another, bringing with it 30-40 knots of wind and biting cold. We're running a split watch system so that we only have two people on deck at a time for a maximum of half an hour, though given that you can still see your breath in the saloon, it's not exactly a case of staying warm and toasty down below. The boat is freezing and every surface is dripping with condensation, including bags, bunks and the outside of sleeping bags. Kit in general hasn't fared well - oilskins aren't proving waterproof, drysuits aren't dry, and will someone please make a glove that doesn't absorb every drop of water within a 20 metre radius. Other than that, morale varies between poor to mediocre; not helped by the prospect of being on food rations next week. I'd like to report that I've lost weight but it's difficult to tell when you have enough clothing on to rival the Michelin man - there's been times when I've struggled to fit out of the hatch to get on deck....

But, life can only get better after this. We've spent copious amounts of time discussing and planning food intake when we finally arrive, Victoria looks great, and after the first two weeks of the next race we should be back in warmer climes. And I need never sail across the Pacific again....

Mixed Blessings

We're currently pottering along with 3,659 miles to go until Victoria, with blue skies, sunshine and a brisk breeze. Fairly much perfect sailing conditions in fact, and one of those days that make you remember why you signed up for the whole thing. Strange to think how different things were 24 hours ago; Easter Sunday was a catalogue of disasters, not least due to the conspicuous absence of any chocolate bearing Easter bunny.

5am; I'm on watch, but we're running a split system because it's so cold on deck. Offer to make everyone a hot drink, and promptly spill a mug of boiling water over my hand. Now have an appealing patch of blisters covered by a bandage that I'm not meant to get wet... hmm, that’s going to be easy on a racing yacht in the middle of the Pacific.

10am; We hoist the medium weight kite. This is the one that ripped in half on the run up to Qingdao, and subsequently had three days spent on it being repaired. Five minutes later, with only 9 knots of wind, the whole thing shreds into small pieces. Collective crying from the crew.

11pm; I'm below decks working on repairing the stay sail (which ripped in two a week ago). Hear shouting on deck and crashing as the boat lurches from side to side. We’ve been hit by a squall, the helm has accidentally gybed, and the traveller system has broken (which is the bit that holds the main sail to the deck via the boom). We now have an unattached boom sweeping backwards and forwards across the deck, and the ten foot stretch of metal that was previously the traveller swinging by one end in front of the helm. It takes us three hours to lash the traveller down, drop the sails, rerun the rigging, rehoist a smaller sail, all in screaming winds and rain. Not a particularly fun night, and one that won't help us move out of our current low position.

In the meantime, Jersey have diverted back to Japan to mend a broken forestay (that'll be the one that was meant to have been fixed in Cape Town five months ago) and Qingdao have met up with a patrol boat to offload a crew member with a dislocated shoulder. So things could be worse...

Days 1-5

We were expecting a gentle run in of a couple of days downwind sailing in about 15knots. What we got was upwind Force 8s and 9s (35+knots) and two days of headsail changes and deckwork in howling bitingly cold winds and rain.

Our staysail tore in half on day 2, and is currently occupying most of the saloon as we attempt a repair. Luckily my Scopoderm patches appear to be doing a magic job of fending off sea sickness, and my drysuit has been a godsend, even if I do have to be physically stuffed into it by the time I've put all my midlayers on (imagine a 5foot 4in michelin man...).

Today and yesterday have seen lighter winds and a chance to get the spinnaker back up, the boat to dry out a little, and crew to catch up slightly on sleep and changes of clothes.

I'm on mother watch today, which has proved less chilled out than usual; the routine of spinnaker up, spinnaker down, yankee up, yankee down that is becoming unpleasantly familiar meant that watches were late off deck and we didn't get breakfast finished until 11.30. Just in time to start lunch for 12.30, which wasn't finished until 2pm, at which point there were the toilets to clean, the boat to anti-bac, and the bilges to pump out.

Still, a full nights sleep last night was good, tho' didn't make up for the disappointment of finding out that we don't have enough water for showers at the moment - there's only so much you can do with a packet of wet wipes!

Race 7

Race 7 is an epic 5,600 miles from China to Victoria across the Pacific, with our only points of reference being a waypoint to the south of Japan that we have to leave to port, and an upper limit of 48 degrees, which whilst it stops us following the great circle route (which is the quickest), also keeps us relatively out of harms way south of the Aleutian Islands.

Expectations are that it'll be tough; cold heavy weather, lots of wear and tear on the boat, and the challenge for crew of managing tiredness and health sufficiently to be able to pull their weight.

Qingdao

None of us knew what to expect from our Chinese stopover, and in the end it was probably both more and less than we'd imagined.

On the one hand, Qingdao is a large industrialised city, 7 million inhabitants, and all the standard facilities you'd expect. On the other, Chinese culture can seem impenetrable to outsiders - the crew of Singapore who complained about being overcharged by a taxi driver probably didn't expect him to be tracked down using CCTV and sacked...

The city put on a great prize giving dinner for us, complete with Chinese acrobats, dragon dancers and Tsing Tao beer drinking competition, and the crew found a regular evening drinking haunt at the aptly named New York bar.

A bit of maintenance, a deep clean, a chance to repair the kite meant we only got a solitary day off which wasn't really enough to recover from the efforts of the previous three weeks and most of the crew seemed to pick up coughs and colds just in time for our next departure. Ellen McArthur arrived mid-week as a stop in her Asia record circuit attempt, with her trimaran B&Q making the clippers look like ten little Skodas sat next to a Porsche.

And then just 5 days after our arrival, we were off again, with 5,600 miles to go before next landfall.

Race 6

Race 6 started in a blur of crew discontent, soon forgotten as the jostling for positions on the leaderboard took over. New York spent most of the race ricocheting from one end to the other; first in one schedule quickly followed by tenth in the next as we sat in a wind hole off the coast of Taiwan for 24 hours. The Taiwanese coast guard came over for a chat, suggested that they escort us out of territorial waters, and then quickly gave up on that idea when they realised that as we had less than a knot of boat speed, not only would they miss their dinners but probably also their weekend plans.... Could things get worse? Yes. Yours truly was standing trimming the medium weight kite when all of a sudden it just split in two - a stunned moment of thinking "I'm sure I shouldn't be able to see sky through the middle" was followed by an all hands on deck effort to recover the pieces. The next week was spent doing a billion and one sail changes, and picking our way through endless fleets of Chinese fishing boats, all lit up at night like little fairground attractions. Then just when we thought we'd made it, the final five miles into the finish line produced zero wind and a hellish run of fishing nets.

So, in summary we came in 7th, with a shredded spinnaker and a tired crew.. That said tho', we all felt as if we'd raced really well as a team, and if it hadn't been for the vagaries of the weather should have been placed higher, but hey, that's the whole thing about sailing. Onwards and upwards.

Top picture; Me helming - you can tell it's in light wind because I'm smiling. Anything above 25 knots produces a look of absolute panic if I'm left in charge of the boat.

Bottom picture; Headsail change. Soaked to the skin, sitting on the sail that we've just dropped waiting for them to hoist the new sail. Sensible people never go forward of the mast...

Starting in Singapore

NY Clipper crew in their new kit just before race start from Singapore.

Unfortunately the smiles only lasted another 5 hours before sea sickness and it's associated misery kicked in.

More details on the NY website (www.newyorkclipper05-06.com).


Sympathy on a postcard to tammyalake@hotmail.com...

One Race Down

[update from Tam]

One race down, 8 to go

I’m tempted to call it a day now and leave on a high note – we’ve just had a relatively easy race, gorgeous weather, and finished with a podium position in third place. Altogether a gentle introduction to ocean racing, and one that makes a mockery of the amount of time I spent worrying before leaving the UK.

Life on board seemed to settle into a routine astonishingly quickly, helped by having a flattish boat as we headed downwind. Being on watch for 10 or 14 hours a day means that sleep becomes a pre-occupation, though mother watch every 6 days fairly much guarantees 8 hours of shut-eye and allows some time for the less essential parts of life (whilst I’m convinced that maintaining the red nail-varnish on my toes makes the boat go faster, it seems that the view is not shared). And admittedly anyone who’s ever shared a room with me will know that getting to sleep quickly has never been too much of a challenge. Even the occasional chance to watch a DVD and eat popcorn, which has a surreal edge when you’re hooning along in the Indian Ocean.

And the racing itself? Light wind sailing – in fact sometimes no wind sailing. One night watch was spent on the helm watching the boat speed instrument move from 0.0 knots to 0.1 knots and back again, which is incredibly frustrating when you know that there are another 1000nm to go. And those of you who keep an eye on the NY or Clipper websites will know that we spent 50% of the time playing tag with other boats. Firstly Liverpool, who at least had the decency to maintain a mile or two between us, then Victoria, who at one point were 30 feet off our stern firing oranges at us from a catapult (we take our racing seriously…..). Both of them vanquished however by a sneaky gybe west with 36 hours to go, and in the end we crossed the line with a good 4 hours spare in front of 4th. The usual corporate party has been delayed due to the finish line being at the start of the Sunda Straits, so instead we hove to just after 1am, stuck the deck speakers on loud, and worked our way through a considerable amount of alcohol while we waited to cheer Victoria over the line.


What next?

We’re currently motoring the remaining 700nm to Singapore, which is proving a tiresome task. We’re going upwind so there’s constant spray over the deck and a regular slamming as the boat drops off the edge of a wave. Added to which it’s still ridiculously hot, and my bunk fan spontaneously combusted last night so sleep has transformed into 8 hours of laying there sweating. Not a pleasant experience, and I suspect that the boat is reaching nuclear levels of smelliness. Victoria, Singapore and Liverpool are motoring with us as a pirate deterrent, and night watches seem to be punctuated by one or other’s engines breaking which mean setting up a tow. Still, we’re due in on Sunday afternoon so only 24 hours to go. And before then we have the equator crossing; as the only equator virgins, David and I have to go on trial before Neptune to plead guilty to our crimes. Chances of being let off? Nil. Punishment? The slops bucket being ceremoniously emptied over our heads I believe. Then a can of beer for Neptune (as we drank all the champagne after the finish) to hopefully ensure a continuing safe voyage. We’re in Singapore for nearly two weeks, so a chance to rediscover the joys of freshwater showers, cold drinks and breakfast that doesn’t involve porridge. Then back to the grindstone as we head for the cold industrial wasteland of Quindao. But I can’t think of anywhere I’d rather be.

First post

A first little message with the pic of Tam's boat that she sent out a few weeks ago - rather her in there than me!

Si
(little bro)