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.

It's good to be on the right side of Chris - 26 June

Race 13. Day 12

How quickly the mind forgets unpleasant conditions! It was only a few days ago that we were beating upwind against the headwinds of Hurricane Chris, but it feels like a lifetime ago. We are now flying along beautifully under the medium-weight spinnaker, doing between 10 and 11 knots over the ground seemingly effortlessly. The trimming team are really hot and the banter with it is wonderful. Reading some of the other skippers' daily reports, my heart goes out to the northerly boats who are still bashing upwind in the wake of Chris and his brother, in apparently freezing temperatures. Down here, it's almost balmy, and yesterday the sun came out briefly, allowing us to strip down to just one layer of clothes. We took the opportunity to dry out our boots. Otherwise it has remained a grey world with persistent fog and drizzle. I gather we are tracking along the edge of a low pressure system and we must be in the warm sector.

We had another guy failed this morning, this time the shackle snapped and apparently the spinnaker was brought down in break-neck speed. My watch were woken to "no breakfast until the kite is packed". The rats nest / spaghetti junction, with the halyards, that required Jonathan and Sherlyn to go up the mast the other day, was not repeated and the kite was up again 21 minutes after it had blown. Pretty good going I'd say.

We are blasting along and so excited as we approach the end game. We are trying to knock as many miles as we can off Yorkshire to give us a good position as we converge on Derry.

This morning I was also treated to my first sighting of whales, a pod of about 10. I’m not sure what sort, but small and with rounded heads.

North Atlantic - 25 June

We are currently enjoying the first day of warmth for what feels like a long time. My two watches this morning were very enjoyable. This is the first day with no fog or drizzle for a while. However we are all happy, having read the reports from the other boats to the north, who are freezing. We may have been wet and in a constantly foggy world but it hasn't been freezing cold. The warmth today is allowing us to dry out some of the wet gear. My sleeping bag has been superb; the one haven of dry anywhere. The ghetto (where the crew sleep) is sopping from condensation, my bunk is wet, and there has been a lot of bailing out bilge water. These are wet boats.

The last two days we've had the kite (spinnaker) up and been trucking along nicely. We are pushing hard, the whole crew would rather work hard and be more uncomfortable so that hopefully we can get a podium place at the finish in Derry. This means lots of kite changes and focus. It's been physical exhausting. Our general morale is high this morning after hearing we have moved up into third position.

Go Singapore!

The Atlantic - 24 June

Sorry for the lack of news recently, as I am sure you understand it’s been pretty full on. It seems that everything has being chucked at us in the last 48 hours, and I've been too knackered to even think of writing. I’ve had 3 hours sleep in the last 24 and as anyone who knows me will know, this is not enough.

We're now in final planning of tactical moves for the end game. You may have seen our tactics of using the weather systems to the south to gain favourable wind directions later.  This meant sacrificing our position in the short term to gain the advantage, and for a while it looked as if the mast head problems we had (see Ben’s Skipper reports), might have slowed us so that we missed the weather system. Anyway there is now growing optimism that we could be on the podium at the end of the leg, but there are still many miles to go, and plenty of things can get in the way.

I’m starting to look forward to Derry, there are loads of activities on offer and it will be good to have some time to get myself back together and enjoy the social scene.

Over the Grand Banks off Newfoundland - 19 June

The highs and lows of ocean and offshore racing! Today has been a good day. The sea is fairly calm, a few patches of blue sky and comfortable upwind sailing in about 15 knots of wind. Lovely!

Race start day was great. Because of my injuries, (I had a nasty bang on the head shortly before we arrived in Halifax) I stood at the back of the boat and had a great view of everything. The start line was in Halifax harbour on a beautiful sunny day, very picturesque. Ben thought the start line had a pin end bias and we started in clear air about half way across. (Usually the start line is at 90° to the wind. If it is not perfect, there is an advantage in starting at the most upwind end, but this is often a judgement call at the time.) The others all obviously thought it was committee boat bias and they were all bunched up together. Whichever was correct, the clear air space around us gave us an excellent start and we were second round the windward mark. Then round a spacer buoy and up went the kite, one gybe to get us outside the harbour and shortly afterwards the kite came down as we came up onto the wind. All very exciting, with such a lot of manoeuvres within such a small space. It all went well for us, with no foul ups and the team were delighted with an excellent start.

As soon as we were out to sea we hit choppy waters and for the next 24 hours I think, about half the crew went down with sea sickness, including me. It even afflicted a couple of “round the worlders” who haven't previously been seasick. I was in my bunk for 24 hours, but was then gradually able to run the corridor of uncertainty from the ghetto where the crew sleep to the heads (toilet), when you are not sure if the small morsel you've managed to eat will stay down. Why do I do it?

For days like today.

Now that I'm back to form, I can resume normal duties. I've done a lot more helming, because of being advised not to haul sails for the first few days. I've had the delights of being in the bilges, but have also made bread. Karel, one of our new “leggers”, was keen to have the recipe for boat bread. Given the proportions, it was obvious his cooking skills are above average. I learnt then that his Dad, now retired, was a Michelin starred chef. It was his grandma, though, who taught him to make bread.

We're pleased to be doing well in the race, having held 2nd position until recently on the scheds (3 hourly posting of positions). We're hoping to avoid a patch of light wind, which the boats further to the north may get caught in. Here’s hoping the weather does what the forecasts say!

Now that the initial baptism of fire is over, I've settle down to enjoy it, despite the cold and having to wear umpteen layers of clothes. Leg 7 was a walk in the park in comparison. However there should be some down-wind sailing up ahead, which we are all looking forward to.

Off the coast of Maine - 9 June

We've had fabulous sailing over the past 24 hours. The sky has been clear blue with very little cloud, so glorious. There is a slight nip in the air during the day and chilly at night, but this is just a very welcome change from the heat down in Panama and the Caribbean. It's much easier to sleep.

Today I've been on mother watch with one of the new leggers, Peiyi, so I had a lovely long sleep last night. The pay back though, is that I've been mainly down below while we have this lovely weather. I did manage an hour on deck after lunch to enjoy it and was able to as I wasn't working for that hour. We made a huge chocolate cake for the five o'clock meeting so that went down well.

We are all pushing hard as we want to do well in this race. So far so good, we're in a good position and as long as the wind does what we expect and nothing goes wrong, we should achieve our goal. Our motto is "What can possibly go wrong!"

The new leggers seem to be settling in well and I think losing their just joining nerves. Peter has some wonderful video of dolphins on his camera and Jeff, as always, has some great photos of the first two days.

All is happy on the good ship Singapore.

East of New York - 8 June

We had a lovely sunny day for leaving New York, which made the view over Manhattan even better than we arrived under cloudy skies. The leaving took about half a day, with a lot of media stuff going on, a parade of sail with lots of photos of the boats with the Manhattan skyline and the Statue of Liberty in the background.

Slipping out of the marina

Parade of sail on the Hudson

Crew to their positions

Having been up at 6.45, it was a long day, as got to bed a midnight. It was really hard, then being woken at 2.30, but once up it was great night sailing.

I had a terrific time in NYC. I didn't manage to see all I would have liked, but there were always limitations by the time. I'll just have to go back sometime. Steve and Chris, who came out to be with me during the stop-over, were able to see a lot more. About a week after my arrival, I think the adrenalin finally stopped flowing and my body just felt as though it had been hit by a bus. The cure was two early nights followed by lying in until lunchtime and I felt recovered and ready to go on the next leg.

They bought a Shuttle to add to the spectacle

A famous lady

The race started out to sea, beyond the channel approach to New York, so a “le mans start”, where the boats line up along an imaginary start line. The fore sails can be hanked on, but all the crew have to be behind the coffee grinder at the one minute gun. At the start signal the crew rush forward to hoist the foresails and off you go. This time we had the added spice of needing to hoist the spinner, which is allowed ten minutes after the start.

However all the boats had the pole plugged in ready to at the start. It was quite a sight seeing all the spinnakers go up, almost in unison, but unfortunately for them, the New York boat had hanked theirs on sideways so I think they will have lost a lot of ground. It did look funny seeing it fly sideways, but I felt for them. It is so easy to make a mistake.

All thought the night the boats have been pretty close so we are very aware of needing to keep sharply focused during this very short race to Halifax. Time lost due to a mistake will be much more difficult to make up.

We are all of a like mind to push fairly hard to hopefully raise our position in the overall standings and a podium place would be good.

New York, New York, what a wonderful town

Our arrival was spectacular. We approached from the sea, up a marked channel and under a bridge, the Verrazano Narrows, I think. Then right past the Statue of Liberty and into the Hudson River, with a fabulous view of lower Manhattan. We then turned left into a small channel off the Hudson in New Jersey, where we docked in the Liberty Marina, which is on the edge of Liberty State Park. As always, a lovely welcome awaited us. First photos, lots of hugs and greetings. Roberto, a New Yorker and Singapore crew from legs 3 & 6, arrived with a cart full of beer and champagne. More photos, this time on the transom, with a couple of crew from other boats, including Rich Hewson, the skipper of Gold Coast, putting on a red shirt to join team Singapore. Just a short walk away, we then had a wonderful meal, at the restaurant close to the marina, where Greg eats regularly as, when not sailing with Clipper, he lives on his boat in this marina. He had booked a table for us, so although it was packed, being Saturday night, a table appeared for us. A good steak just tastes devine after being at sea. In the garden, a walled fireplace held a large fire, with people toasting marshmallows, and from this garden we had an amazing view of Manhattan, now at night, with all the coloured lights of the buildings looking so pretty. 

Afterwards Phil, Sarah and I went off to the apartment we were staying in New Jersey, right on the smart waterfront, with again a great view of Manhattan. The next day Greg and his marina friends and neighbours did a barbecue for us and it was very relaxing to just sit around and chill, with cold drinks and tasty meat to eat. Then two days of working on the boat and helping M with the victualing for the next leg.

I love New York and I love New Yorkers. My first day in the city, I walked around Soho and Greenwich, with Chantal. We did a bit of clothes shopping in between, then met up with Jeff, who is Chinese but lives in Tokyo, at a restaurant in Chinatown. Then we walked up 5th Avenue to Central Park, where in the early evening about 50 of the Clipper Crews were doing a 6k run in the park in celebration of the Queen's Jubilee and to promote Britain 2012. I had only heard about it too late to apply but not sure my tired body could have done it anyway. I was amazed to see several people finishing, having run in their deck shoes.

On our journey back to New Jersey, via the subway and the Path, a local train network, we again were treated to the kindness of the locals. It has happened at least once a day, that you are just standing looking at the map and someone says "Where do you want to go". They then help you out, either with directions or even walking you to your destination. On the subway, people ask to check you are on the right train. Not at all like London, much more friendly! I moved my stuff over to the hotel in NYC we are currently staying. In the evening I met up with five others and we went for a meal at a Michelin started pub in Greenwich, The Spotted Pig. Having waited 2 1/2 hours for table, we did have a very tasty meal. Coming out at midnight, with rain hurtling down, we were lucky enough to get a taxi back. Apparently taxis are hard to get in Manhattan in the rain. Steve and Chris then arrived at the hotel and we all crashed out exhausted, me from general sailing and sight-seeing fatigue and they from the journey. Now we have walked across Brooklyn Bridge and been up the Empire State Building. Two more days to enjoy here and then a day of boat preparation and we'll be off.