All over - 22nd July

Crossing the official finish line with Suhali

We had a heroes welcome in to Southampton. A huge flotilla of boats accompanied the Clipper fleet, in race formation, up Southampton Water. It was so exciting and exhilarating. About half way up we came across two tiny little fishing boats who had anchored in the middle of the route. Two guys on each were facing the other way, intent on their fishing. Their faces were a picture when they turned around to see this mass of boats descending on them. It looked really funny seeing them scrabble to move out of the way, but they really needed to. Someone was going to miss them and their boats would just be smashed by larger ones if there was a collision.

A massive flotilla escorted us up Southampton Water

 

As we got to the turning point to go into Ocean Village, one the boats from my sailing club came past and I was shouting and waving frantically. This prompted the reporter from Radio Solent to put his microphone by me to do an interview. He had joined us as we came up the Solent. I was delighted to be able to give a plug for Channel Sailing Club on the radio show, which also came out as a podcast.

As we approach Ocean Village I heard my name called and then make contact with my good friends Jenny & Harold, who had surprised me by coming down to race finish.

A huge crowd waited for the arrival of the boats

The crowds were huge, such a wonderful welcome. As we docked in the marina, lots of familiar family faces and lots of my friends appeared. Steve had kept it a surprise that loads of my friends were there to greet me. The formalities meant that we kept in a holding area behind the stage until it was our turn to go up for the presentations. There we were joined by members of  Team Singapore, who had done previous legs.

A triumphant Team Singapore on stage

  The joy of finishing third overall was brilliant. We have done Keppel proud. In four years they have sponsored, their previous best result was seventh. The boss of Keppel in Belgium was there to congratulate us.

Ben being presented with a momento

On the stage Ben was very emotional. We were all delighted that Jeff won a prize for his photography; very well deserved. He is a superb photographer, most of the photos on this blog are his.

Greeting friends and family

Released out into the crowd, I was able to greet my supporters group. That much needed beer was drunk and then some tours of the boat for friends who wanted to see just how basic the conditions we've lived in were.

Out to eat a celebratory meal

Time was getting short and off we went to have a lovely meal with my family and friends.

Unfortunately after this, my lack of sleep and general exhaustion started to kick in and I just had to crash at only nine in the evening. Just a well we had eaten early so friends could back home and prepare for work the next day.

What an adventure. There are so many wonderful memories to keep. I am going to miss the team so much. There'll be much more sailing to be had, but not like this has been.

The end of race 15 was filled with mixed emotions. We crossed the second gate, the originally planned finish line, in first place, but because we were too early for the organisers, the course was extended. It was crazy and frustrating to be sent round a triangular course in the English Channel, with the length of the legs of the triangle only 12 miles. The Clipper boats are not “round the cans” boats. It meant that the watch system was destroyed and we were set up to have no sleep during the morning of race finish. This, on top of being sleep deprived overnight to keep our place in the race, was very frustrating. The skippers were on the phone to the race office about this and so the next course extension was to send us back to Brighton. The expected dying of the wind happened on the way back from there and we drifted on the tide with zero boat speed for two hours. About half an hour before the finish line there was a trace of wind and I started to trim the wind seeker. Three boats were very close together, the group including DLL, who we had to beat to retain our third position overall. We all hoisted our light weight spinnakers about the same time. Ben, who was bursting with excitement, trimmed the kite while calling instructions to Jonathan, on the helm. When we crossed the finish line, there was not the usual joy and hugs all round because it was so close between the three boats that we didn't know if we had beaten DLL or not. Half an hour later we had the news that we had crossed only seven seconds ahead of them after this 280 mile (plus loops) race.

Oh what great celebration we had. We had finished in third position overall and surpassed the goals the team had set at the very beginning, last July.

The run to the finish

Perfect blue skies in the Solent

The official finishing line

Jubilation!

The finish line had been put in so that the boats could finish the race about 5am and give us time to get up the Solent and prepare for the parades. Therefore we had to raise the medium weight, branded spinnaker for the last time, to cross the official finish line between a Clipper 60 training boat and Sir Robin's Suhali, complete with quarter size canon, to hail us finished.

Race 15 - the start of the final lap - 20 July

Prize-giving was a blast. It was at an outdoor arena, surrounded by stalls selling Dutch arty stuff , food and drinks. The party kicked off with the DJ on stage calling forward the multitude of DLL staff, who had been brought in for the weekend. They were all in blue tee shirts, looking like the Smurfs.

It was like being at a rave. Everyone was dancing. Those on the dance floor were encouraged to jump up and down, as it was an environmental dance floor, generating electricity from the pounding. Rather neat.

Going on stage to receive applause for our first place was just great. Ben's speech was very emotional, particularly as it was also his birthday. Afterwards, more dancing, then the crews all went to an enclosed area for a barbecue. DLL had laid on superb food, very impressive for so many people. I headed off to my hotel tired and very happy.

I was staying in a little village outside of Den Helder, which is in the farming area in the north of the Netherlands. It was a little holiday. We stayed at a recreation park in the middle of nowhere. Even most of the taxi drivers in Den Helder didn't know it, so it was a time to get away from it all and get the much needed rest of the stop over. We also had a day cycling on the island of Texel and a day sight-seeing in Amsterdam.

Race start was exciting as usual, but with added unwanted excitement of having a horrible riding turn on the primary winch controlling the yankey sheet, at one of the tacks just after race start. (A riding turn is where the rope on a winch gets tangled and effectivly locks itself in place.) The senior crew on the boat jumped into action and sorted it out. Then we had 12 hours of upwind sailing in mid 20s knots of wind; back to being on a bucking bronco.

Unfortunately we then hit a wind hole which caused us to drop from 2nd place down to last. We are now sailing down wind, having past a couple of wind farms on the east coast of England. The light weight spinnaker is up and we are back up the sixth. We are trimming like little badgers again.

The aim is to beat DLL in this race so we stay in third place overall and keep our podium place.

Go Singapore!

Prize-giving at Den Helder

First into Den Helder - 14 July

Win, win, win. Our first win in the series. This has been so exciting. 

The last section of the race we were trimming, trimming, trimming. We all kept the focus with no one talking to the trimmer or the helm. The last 36 hours Ben was up pretty well continuously, keeping a watch on the weather patterns and Visit Finland and Gold Coast.

The last night I went on to mother watch so went off to bed at 9pm; awoke at 5am to make breakfast. I popped my head up to see several oil rigs and ships in sight. The waves were about 3 meters and we surfing down them with the spinnaker up, Finland and Gold Coast behind us. I could hardly contain my excitement.

Even blue sky at the finish

 We dropped the spinnaker and rounded up into the wind to cross the finish line in first place. 

Happy crew in full party mode...

...and you have to spray the bubbly!

Team Singapore are ecstatically happy. It's going to brilliant at prize-giving this evening.

Round Scotland - 11 July

This race is turning out to be fun, a game of leap frog is going on. However I have found it very hard, mainly because it's been bitterly cold. Remind me never to be persuaded to do the Round Britain and Ireland race, it's just too cold. I would love to come back to cruise in Scotland but only if you can choose when you leave around the weather and be in the pub at night with a roaring fire and a tot of whisky.

Anyway I digress. We had an amazing send off from the people of Derry/Londonderry. There were hundreds of people lining the river banks in the city and along the banks of Loch Foyle as we made our way down to the start at Greencastle.

Crowds line the banks of the River Foyle as we depart

We had a flying start, second over the line I think. I'm not sure exactly, as I was in the nav station at the time, Ben (the skipper) had asked me to look at the tides. We came out of the bay quite close behind Yorkshire and straight away hit the cold. We were beating up wind all the way up around the Hebrides, past St Kilda on our port side, which was the first sighting of the land of Scotland. Then we saw Lewis on the starboard side. We only came off the wind at the Cape Wrath, when we turned the corner to cross the top of Scotland.

I had the dilemma of being on deck, sitting on the rail getting cold, or going down below to get warm and knowing that I would get seasick. So on the first evening I had to come down, as I was concerned about getting hypothermia, and the old “mal-de-mer” kicked in. It meant I missed a watch the first night as I was really quite ill, with the shivers etc. as well as nausea. It lasted all the next day, but I managed to get up on deck during the day and a spell on the helm helped me to feel better.

Across the top of Scotland, the sea temperature was 9° C.

Once round the corner we had to play the tides and we approached the Pentland Firth, knowing we would be against the tide going through and had been just overtaken by Finland. Visit Finland is the new boat that replaced the one that ran aground in the last race, and it just does seem to go faster.

We came up on watch in the afternoon to great excitement. Finland had taken a route down the middle of the outer sound and just stopped in the adverse tide. Ben had spotted an eddy around the north of Stroma and we just shot past them.

The next day Finland were clearly chasing us down and overtook us again. Last night great excitement again as Gold Coast (who had been leading), and Finland got caught in a wind hole and we just went past both of them. Ben was so excited he couldn't sleep.

As I write, Gold Coast have apparently passed us again. It's difficult to tell because they have switched their AIS (identification system similar to that used by planes to identify themselves, and give course and speed information.  It is not compulsory for this size of boat at sea.) off, but that is the latest position report from the race office. Down the east coast we've been down wind sailing with the kite up, but it's still cold, requiring all my layers. We've had to pull kites down twice for repair because of holes in them, so it's been very busy the whole time. Busy is good because then you keep warm.

I’m off to bed now for my morning sleep, as I am on deck again this afternoon. Let’s hope for some sunshine. It's also just been grey the whole way.

Race 13 summary / Derry-Londonderry

I wasn't able to give daily details of race 13, as the weather, early on made it just too difficult. It was all I could do to keep body and soul together.

As best I can remember, the summary:

We made a fantastic start, off to a flier. It was very cold while south of Newfoundland. We had been given gates by Clipper to keep us south of the icebergs. We hit the fog off the Grand Banks, no surprises there.

On day 3, we had word of an approaching tropical revolving storm. Skipper Ben played it down and didn't want to call it a hurricane, then we heard it had a name; Chris. The crew mood was calm with a hint of anxiety. I was anxious only because I was going to be on mother watch the day it was due to pass over us. So, lots more Stugeron to be downed. We had some pretty high winds, with 30 knots apparent on the nose, but the eye of Chris fortunately turned to loop behind us.

My day on mother was at 45 degrees but the crew got their food, and on time. My only frustration was managing to prepare the cake for 5pm tea, mixed, in the cake tin, into the oven and chocked up to allow for the oven being at an angle. Feeling very pleased with myself to have managed this while being throw around, I went off to something else for 15mins and came back to find the chock up had not been enough and there was a river of chocolate cake mix pouring out of the side of the oven and along the back of the galley work top. It took me twice as long to clear up the mess as it had done to make the cake, but fortunately there was enough mixture left in the tin to have "brownies" at tea time.

Ben's brilliant tactical move of deciding not to go for the scoring gate and go south of the hurricane then set us up to do well in the race. As a result we were flying along down wind or on a beam reach for about four days, whereas the boats who had opted for the northern route were beating upwind in freezing cold. We decided our constant fog, rain and drizzle was a far better place to be. I'm very pleased not have experienced going through the eye of a TRS.

We finished 2nd in the race. It is fantastic to have that red pennant. I think I'll frame it when I get home.

We've had a fantastic welcome and reception in Derry-Londonderry. The city council and the people have been brilliant, making it the best stopover so far for me. The whole town is buzzing about the race and enjoying the festival, which has been on all week. Prize-giving evening had the joy of, not only being on the podium for the presentation of our 2nd place in the race, but also Singapore won the "Clipper's got talent" competition. Hope you can see the video. Not sure if I can post it on the blog but will do if I can.

 Many thanks to our sponsoring pub Tinneys for their kindness and generosity.

River Foyle - 29 June

Just finished race 13 from Halifax to Derry in 2nd position. WOW!

Very happy days! I had so hoped to get a podium on at least one of my races and here we are.  As we motor up the River Foyle, with a pilot on board, there is a party atmosphere on board, we are all very happy.

As I am on ‘mother’ (taken out of the watch pattern for cooking duties) today, I had a long sleep last night and feel much better, and a lot less achy for it. I was up at 5 a.m. to make bacon sarnies for breakfast. M came to help, as turning them out in rapid succession, from this small galley, for 18 with teas and coffees is quite frenetic.

We crossed the finish line, all togged up in corporate gear, and sitting on the rail. The media guys, in an Irish Coast Guard boat, were there to take photos. Shortly afterwards our pilot arrived and we have had a couple of hours of motoring towards Derry. It is beautiful here, just as you would expect of Northern Ireland. A pity it is chucking it down with rain, but hey ho, you can't have everything.

I must go. Just had the call for all hands on deck for mooring. I’m looking forward to a great week ashore.

Approaching Ireland - 28 June

Having had three days of down-wind sailing with the spinnaker up, we are now upwind with the white sails. The spinnaker run was great sailing but somewhat frustrating, as the helming was limited to certain people. It was deemed to be "difficult" because of the rolling waves. I guess there was a certain amount of twitching going on about it, because a mistake would blow our good position, second in the race. For me, it meant going stir crazy after three days of just trimming and grinding. I now have a return of painful swollen hands from gripping the ropes.

I was just delighted when first mate Will asked me to do some rope work. This involved learning a new knot: a blood knot, which is used to connect a shackle to the guy line or any other line for that matter.

Shortly afterwards my day further improved with more activity, as the kite came down. I then was allowed on the helm again and really enjoyed an hour of reaching with the Yankey #1 up, surfing down the waves at about 10 knots. Bliss.

We had a brief dry spell, then the usual weather of this race returned: fog, drizzle and rain. Overnight it was cold and raining, but the “rail meat” kept ourselves entertained with games of 20 questions and "I went to market". This morning we looked over at the landscape and discussed the pallet of the various shades of grey. We are all so in need of some sunshine. Can't moan though, because this almost constant fog has been the price for the constantly good winds in the right direction for us to have a stonking run up from the Azores and make lots of miles on our competitors.

We should arrive in Derry tomorrow if the wind doesn't die on us. I am so looking forward to a hot bath and Irish hospitality. I'm on mother watch tomorrow so also looking forward to a good night’s sleep tonight. All good.