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.