This is what it's all about.
94 hours since race start, and all to play for (almost). I said in my last
post that it finally felt like racing, and that has just risen to a new
level since then.
At one point last night, I counted no fewer than thirteen other boats
around us, including most of the Clipper fleet. Our duel with Seattle
continue, with us overtaking them and Mission. We worked hard on our trim
and sail changes, and it paid off. At the end of our four hours, Matt said
"You guys have smashed that watch," high praise from a skipper who isn't
shy about telling us when we aren't performing to his expectations and very
well received.
I woke this morning to a big sail change, taking down the Code 1, briefly
hoisting the Yankee 1 so we wouldn't run bare headed, then putting up the
Code 3, all really well executed. Even better, we were within two, maybe
three miles of spectacular cliff coastline of Tasmania, illuminated by the
golden light of sunrise, with the same (I assume) thirteen boats around,
now with their spinnakers showing instead of nav lights, and albatross
soaring all around. And the best thing, most of these boats were behind us!
It's continued like this through the day, with great weather, nip-and-tuck
sailing, and great execution of gybes and sail changes by the team. When we
went back from Code 3 to Code 1, we managed the full change in 4:20. Matt
had challenged us to do it in five minutes and afterward said he'd never
actually seen it done in under six.
We have under twenty miles until we round the waypoint, after which we
expect to be tacking up the Derwent(?) River to the finish line. We feel
we're pulling away from the boats behind us and maybe gaining on those in
front. A strong finish is in sight, but it's going to be very close and
there's still time for anything to happen.
Wednesday 30 December 2015
Tuesday 29 December 2015
41 deg 26' S, 149 deg 06' E -- Race 5, Day 4
The sailing has settled down a lot since my last post. Yesterday evening,
we had a spell of really light wind with the windseeker out, barely moving.
I think we were making a knot or two; you could just tell as the jellyfish
(some the size of a soccer ball!) drifted past. Or I guess we were probably
drifting past them. At one point, a big pod of dolphins came swimming
toward us, leaping out of the water as they approached. They got within
about a hundred yards, milled about a bit, seemed to decide we wouldn't be
much fun to play with, and swam away.
We were treated to probably our best sunset since I've been on board,
spectacular colors and just enough cloud to make it interesting. And
silhouetted against it was Visit Seattle, the nearest of the five
competitors we could see.
During the night, I was woken up early for a sail change. When you have
less than 3.5 hours to snooze, getting woken 30 minutes early can be really
annoying. However, when you hoist that spinnaker and proceed to pass the
guys you had been watching just ahead at sunset before they realise what's
happening, it's worth it. We kept under spinnaker for the whole watch,
bringing it down as the wind shifted, but having made the most of what we
had.
They day's sailing was upwind but pretty civilised. We got the windseeker
out early, but then the wind picked up, attributed by some to the magic
powers of the sail. Most of the day was moderate sailing in good weather,
something I was starting to think just didn't happen in ocean racing. (As
an aside: I came into this thinking it would be about 75% nice sailing with
25% of the really hard stuff. And I thought this Australian section would
be some of the nicest sailing. Instead, it's been about 90% really hard, 9%
near dead calm, and about 1% nice. Don't think it's going to catch up to my
expectations, but I hope it balances out a little bit.) I was the first to
spot land, which was pretty cool, if the least epic of all landspottings in
this race, coming barely 72 hours after leaving Sydney.
Frustratingly, we did get passed toward the end of they day by Visit
Seattle. We were actively trimming, doing everything we could, but they
were just a bit faster. Inconceivable! Maybe they weren't using the same
wind as us.
As I finish for the day, the wind has died down and the windseeker has gone
up again. This is pretty much in line with forecast, and everyone in the
fleet (at least the Clippers) are so close that it's still very
competitive. This feels a bit more like racing, and we're looking forward
to being involved in a tight finish.
we had a spell of really light wind with the windseeker out, barely moving.
I think we were making a knot or two; you could just tell as the jellyfish
(some the size of a soccer ball!) drifted past. Or I guess we were probably
drifting past them. At one point, a big pod of dolphins came swimming
toward us, leaping out of the water as they approached. They got within
about a hundred yards, milled about a bit, seemed to decide we wouldn't be
much fun to play with, and swam away.
We were treated to probably our best sunset since I've been on board,
spectacular colors and just enough cloud to make it interesting. And
silhouetted against it was Visit Seattle, the nearest of the five
competitors we could see.
During the night, I was woken up early for a sail change. When you have
less than 3.5 hours to snooze, getting woken 30 minutes early can be really
annoying. However, when you hoist that spinnaker and proceed to pass the
guys you had been watching just ahead at sunset before they realise what's
happening, it's worth it. We kept under spinnaker for the whole watch,
bringing it down as the wind shifted, but having made the most of what we
had.
They day's sailing was upwind but pretty civilised. We got the windseeker
out early, but then the wind picked up, attributed by some to the magic
powers of the sail. Most of the day was moderate sailing in good weather,
something I was starting to think just didn't happen in ocean racing. (As
an aside: I came into this thinking it would be about 75% nice sailing with
25% of the really hard stuff. And I thought this Australian section would
be some of the nicest sailing. Instead, it's been about 90% really hard, 9%
near dead calm, and about 1% nice. Don't think it's going to catch up to my
expectations, but I hope it balances out a little bit.) I was the first to
spot land, which was pretty cool, if the least epic of all landspottings in
this race, coming barely 72 hours after leaving Sydney.
Frustratingly, we did get passed toward the end of they day by Visit
Seattle. We were actively trimming, doing everything we could, but they
were just a bit faster. Inconceivable! Maybe they weren't using the same
wind as us.
As I finish for the day, the wind has died down and the windseeker has gone
up again. This is pretty much in line with forecast, and everyone in the
fleet (at least the Clippers) are so close that it's still very
competitive. This feels a bit more like racing, and we're looking forward
to being involved in a tight finish.
Monday 28 December 2015
38 deg 42' S, 150 deg 42' E -- Race 5, Day 3
We're 48 hours into the legendary Sydney-Hobart Race. So far, it's been
hard, but it's eased up recently and turned into some very pleasant
sailing. Also helps that as of the latest report, we're in fifth among the
Clipper fleet with a good position to improve things (though, to be fair,
we have thought the same thing in the past).
All the reports leading up to the start of the race talked about it being
the worst weather since the disastrous 1998 race where six (I think) died,
though one not particularly reassuring newscaster did say it was "unlikely"
to be as bad as that. Someone from Wild Oats (one of the super-maxi yachts,
and a favourite to win the race) was talking about postponing. Two things
going for us though. However, we're an ocean racing fleet. Sir Robin
(legendary sailor and founder of Clipper) pointed out that we'd already
been through worse than what was forecast, and he planned to give the
owner of Wild Oats a hard time over this. Also, fortunately, the forecast
moderated closer to the start. Still, I remember seeing the crawl on a
newscast Christmas Day saying "Skippers in Sydney Hobart Race just hoping
to survive first night without any major dramas." Spoiler alert: I'd say we
accomplished that.
The start was unbelievable. 106 boats (I think) jockeying for position.
Spectator boars and committee boats adding to the chaos in the harbor. We
had a number of close encounters on the way to the line, many with other
Clipper boats but also with Brindabella, winner of the race about twenty
years ago and still a top-fifteen entry and notable because I met one of
the crew a few days earlier and got shown around. (More on that in my
Sydney post, which I aim to write up in port.) I say "close encounters"
rather than "close calls" because every boat seemed totally in control,
just very, very crowded. These generally involved a friendly wave and yell
of "Good luck". It was hard to tell when we actually crossed the line, but
pretty soon we were tacking toward the Heads, rounding them, and putting up
the kite, all solidly in the middle of the Clipper pack.
As the evening went on, boats spread out a bit, but we kept in touch with a
number of other Clippers for a long time. Eventually, several of them gybed
inshore while we held a more offshore route, expecting better wind there,
supported by the fact the super-maxis and Sir Robin were headed that way as
well.
Around 9, it came time to drop the kite and the wind began to turn on us.
This is where it started to get really hard. Big seas and big winds (we're
not supposed to transmit weather details, but that should be suitably
vague) made for really tough sailing. Several people were out of action,
sick. I wasn't 100% myself and couldn't manage breakfast on the second
morning. Mid-day on day 2, we heard that fifteen boats had retired and
there had been one EPIRB (probably an abandoned boat). Relative to that, we
were in great shape. Relative to any normal standard of comfort, we
weren't. It wasn't too cold, but it was really wet on deck, extremely tough
in the bow but also constantly spraying (or more) into the cockpit. At one
point, we tried to set up for tack, and I must have spent a solid ten
minutes up near the shrouds, trying to rerun a Yankee sheet while
constantly being covered in water. When we tried to sleep, the boat was
constantly crashing through waves. This was also my first significant
attempt to sleep on the high side of the boat, so I was constantly worrying
about falling out. It got slightly better when I actually tried to get out
of bed and found I could barely get between the edge and the ceiling, I had
it cranked up so high. For a while, we sailed without a main. The other
watch had brought it down to fix a batten (fiberglass rods that help
maintain the sail shape) and found we were making better speed without it,
we were so overpowered otherwise.
On the positive side, I did helm for a couple of hours, and I continued to
develop a feel for it. Lots of things to keep track of, lots of things
trying to push you around, but you slowly start to feel natural with it.
You can feel the angle of the wind changing and adjust. You can see the
waves coming and anticipate them with the helm, steering up the face, then
down the back... until one does something unexpected, you have a major
slam, and you have to fight to both hold the wheel and keep your feet.
Great to be able to say I've helmed in the Sydney-Hobart. I'm also
continuing to be more useful in sail changes, reefing, and all the other
stuff that goes into sailing the boat, though the more experienced guys are
still miles ahead of me when things don't go to plan.
For example, today, we had the Yankee 3 in its bag, sitting on the high
side of the boat, just drying out before we put it back down in the locker.
We then tacked, putting it on the low side. Not ideal, but we were sorting
out a few things before putting it away, and it was tied to the rail.
Except the front end wasn't, and when a wave washed over the low side, the
end of the bag dropped in the water. We were now dragging along a very
heave end of a sail at about 10 knots. It was a struggle to get it back in,
and while I was second to it, I didn't really know what to do. Han and
Justin followed and sorted it out well, bringing in some free halyards and
winches to help pull it out of the water and back on board. Lesson learned.
Things have mellowed a lot today, and we seem to actually have some
pleasant sailing weather while also making pretty good time toward Hobart.
We're going to have to stay focused to get the most out of what are likely
to be lighter winds, but life on the boat has gotten a lot easier and
people are motivated by our position and what is looking like a tight race.
*********************************
Two final points. First, I don't know if I'll ever get a "Day 1" blog out.
Maybe not even a "Day 2". The first few days are just really hard with an
early start, lots of action, adjustment to broken sleep, and adjustment to
being on the boat. So, Mom (and others), don't worry. Second, I still
plan to post some pictures from Race 4 as well as something on Sydney,
probably while in Hobart. But a quick summary of Syndey, great time, very
busy with boat stuff, very nice to catch up with as many people as I did
but not nearly enough time to do as much as I would have liked.
hard, but it's eased up recently and turned into some very pleasant
sailing. Also helps that as of the latest report, we're in fifth among the
Clipper fleet with a good position to improve things (though, to be fair,
we have thought the same thing in the past).
All the reports leading up to the start of the race talked about it being
the worst weather since the disastrous 1998 race where six (I think) died,
though one not particularly reassuring newscaster did say it was "unlikely"
to be as bad as that. Someone from Wild Oats (one of the super-maxi yachts,
and a favourite to win the race) was talking about postponing. Two things
going for us though. However, we're an ocean racing fleet. Sir Robin
(legendary sailor and founder of Clipper) pointed out that we'd already
been through worse than what was forecast, and he planned to give the
owner of Wild Oats a hard time over this. Also, fortunately, the forecast
moderated closer to the start. Still, I remember seeing the crawl on a
newscast Christmas Day saying "Skippers in Sydney Hobart Race just hoping
to survive first night without any major dramas." Spoiler alert: I'd say we
accomplished that.
The start was unbelievable. 106 boats (I think) jockeying for position.
Spectator boars and committee boats adding to the chaos in the harbor. We
had a number of close encounters on the way to the line, many with other
Clipper boats but also with Brindabella, winner of the race about twenty
years ago and still a top-fifteen entry and notable because I met one of
the crew a few days earlier and got shown around. (More on that in my
Sydney post, which I aim to write up in port.) I say "close encounters"
rather than "close calls" because every boat seemed totally in control,
just very, very crowded. These generally involved a friendly wave and yell
of "Good luck". It was hard to tell when we actually crossed the line, but
pretty soon we were tacking toward the Heads, rounding them, and putting up
the kite, all solidly in the middle of the Clipper pack.
As the evening went on, boats spread out a bit, but we kept in touch with a
number of other Clippers for a long time. Eventually, several of them gybed
inshore while we held a more offshore route, expecting better wind there,
supported by the fact the super-maxis and Sir Robin were headed that way as
well.
Around 9, it came time to drop the kite and the wind began to turn on us.
This is where it started to get really hard. Big seas and big winds (we're
not supposed to transmit weather details, but that should be suitably
vague) made for really tough sailing. Several people were out of action,
sick. I wasn't 100% myself and couldn't manage breakfast on the second
morning. Mid-day on day 2, we heard that fifteen boats had retired and
there had been one EPIRB (probably an abandoned boat). Relative to that, we
were in great shape. Relative to any normal standard of comfort, we
weren't. It wasn't too cold, but it was really wet on deck, extremely tough
in the bow but also constantly spraying (or more) into the cockpit. At one
point, we tried to set up for tack, and I must have spent a solid ten
minutes up near the shrouds, trying to rerun a Yankee sheet while
constantly being covered in water. When we tried to sleep, the boat was
constantly crashing through waves. This was also my first significant
attempt to sleep on the high side of the boat, so I was constantly worrying
about falling out. It got slightly better when I actually tried to get out
of bed and found I could barely get between the edge and the ceiling, I had
it cranked up so high. For a while, we sailed without a main. The other
watch had brought it down to fix a batten (fiberglass rods that help
maintain the sail shape) and found we were making better speed without it,
we were so overpowered otherwise.
On the positive side, I did helm for a couple of hours, and I continued to
develop a feel for it. Lots of things to keep track of, lots of things
trying to push you around, but you slowly start to feel natural with it.
You can feel the angle of the wind changing and adjust. You can see the
waves coming and anticipate them with the helm, steering up the face, then
down the back... until one does something unexpected, you have a major
slam, and you have to fight to both hold the wheel and keep your feet.
Great to be able to say I've helmed in the Sydney-Hobart. I'm also
continuing to be more useful in sail changes, reefing, and all the other
stuff that goes into sailing the boat, though the more experienced guys are
still miles ahead of me when things don't go to plan.
For example, today, we had the Yankee 3 in its bag, sitting on the high
side of the boat, just drying out before we put it back down in the locker.
We then tacked, putting it on the low side. Not ideal, but we were sorting
out a few things before putting it away, and it was tied to the rail.
Except the front end wasn't, and when a wave washed over the low side, the
end of the bag dropped in the water. We were now dragging along a very
heave end of a sail at about 10 knots. It was a struggle to get it back in,
and while I was second to it, I didn't really know what to do. Han and
Justin followed and sorted it out well, bringing in some free halyards and
winches to help pull it out of the water and back on board. Lesson learned.
Things have mellowed a lot today, and we seem to actually have some
pleasant sailing weather while also making pretty good time toward Hobart.
We're going to have to stay focused to get the most out of what are likely
to be lighter winds, but life on the boat has gotten a lot easier and
people are motivated by our position and what is looking like a tight race.
*********************************
Two final points. First, I don't know if I'll ever get a "Day 1" blog out.
Maybe not even a "Day 2". The first few days are just really hard with an
early start, lots of action, adjustment to broken sleep, and adjustment to
being on the boat. So, Mom (and others), don't worry. Second, I still
plan to post some pictures from Race 4 as well as something on Sydney,
probably while in Hobart. But a quick summary of Syndey, great time, very
busy with boat stuff, very nice to catch up with as many people as I did
but not nearly enough time to do as much as I would have liked.
Tuesday 22 December 2015
Albatross!
If you didn't get the initial reference, you probably won't find this funny. And if you did get the initial reference, you've probably already YouTubed this. But since I couldn't YouTube from the boat and I just have now, I figured I'd share the link.
Retroactive post
I just realized that my first post from the boat didn't go up due to technical issues. Specifically, I sent it to the wrong address. I've posted it retroactively. If you're a Blogowitz Blog completist (and why wouldn't you be?), you can find it here.
I'm also working on getting some photos from the race put together, and I hope to have them up in the next day or so. And there will be a brief post on my time in Sydney, but for now, just know it has been fun and relaxing.
I'm also working on getting some photos from the race put together, and I hope to have them up in the next day or so. And there will be a brief post on my time in Sydney, but for now, just know it has been fun and relaxing.
Monday 14 December 2015
34 deg 32' S, 151 deg 01' E -- Race 4, Day 14
Fuck.
It was a small joke of mine in the early days of this race that I was going
to have to get more creative with my swearing. I kept going to the same
limited set of options every time the boat slammed and I spilled something
or I struggled to move a few feet because the boat was heeled over so far
or my tether was caught under something so I couldn't move or or or.... It
got a bit monotonous, and I started thinking I should branch out. But some
situations, such as this, call for the classics.
We have been retired, and we're motoring up to Sydney. As I write this,
we've been motoring about nine hours. When I woke this morning, we were
almost completely becalmed, no closer to Sydney that we had been the night
before and lucky to make a knot or two in boat speed. The light winds 24
hours earlier had been forecast, but it was supposed to build back up and
stay steady. This wasn't supposed to happen. Now, the forecasts were
telling a different story, with light air for a while. With corporate
events and major maintenance scheduled for Sydney, as well as a view that
this had been a particularly tough, if short, race, the Clipper Race Office
decided to retire the fleet from the back. PSP accepted twelfth place. We
accepted eleventh. Two boats ahead of us were still racing last I heard but
are likely to be retired shortly, if they haven't been already. I think
everyone on board welcomed the decision, with varying levels of annoyance
that it was necessary. Then again, we had talked about using this as a
development race, planning to focus on the next two, so plenty of time to
redeem ourselves.
And personally, I joined a team that had come in last, and with my help,
we've moved up to not-quite-last. So I have that going for me, which is
nice.
Highlight of the day was that I made my own mayonnaise for the first time.
I was on mother duty. I wanted to make a pasta salad, but the boat mayo had
been confiscated by Australian customs in Albany and not replaced. I'd
wanted to try this for a while, and it worked! I got a lot of amazed
comments about the whole idea of home-made mayo, and the salad itself was
very well received.
I have said many times that the food effort on board is out of proportion
to the results, but it's a lot easier when you're motoring. And anyway, if
that game is going to be played, then I'm going to play it to win.
We should get to Sydney around 2am. There will be beers. There will
probably be a night out. There will then be a lot of work around the boat
as well as some corporate events with sponsors, but I'm looking forward to
seeing a lot of friends around all that. Not sure how much of that will
make for interesting blogging, but I'll definitely be back for the next bit
of sailing, the famous Sydney-Hobart Race, starting on Boxing Day.
It was a small joke of mine in the early days of this race that I was going
to have to get more creative with my swearing. I kept going to the same
limited set of options every time the boat slammed and I spilled something
or I struggled to move a few feet because the boat was heeled over so far
or my tether was caught under something so I couldn't move or or or.... It
got a bit monotonous, and I started thinking I should branch out. But some
situations, such as this, call for the classics.
We have been retired, and we're motoring up to Sydney. As I write this,
we've been motoring about nine hours. When I woke this morning, we were
almost completely becalmed, no closer to Sydney that we had been the night
before and lucky to make a knot or two in boat speed. The light winds 24
hours earlier had been forecast, but it was supposed to build back up and
stay steady. This wasn't supposed to happen. Now, the forecasts were
telling a different story, with light air for a while. With corporate
events and major maintenance scheduled for Sydney, as well as a view that
this had been a particularly tough, if short, race, the Clipper Race Office
decided to retire the fleet from the back. PSP accepted twelfth place. We
accepted eleventh. Two boats ahead of us were still racing last I heard but
are likely to be retired shortly, if they haven't been already. I think
everyone on board welcomed the decision, with varying levels of annoyance
that it was necessary. Then again, we had talked about using this as a
development race, planning to focus on the next two, so plenty of time to
redeem ourselves.
And personally, I joined a team that had come in last, and with my help,
we've moved up to not-quite-last. So I have that going for me, which is
nice.
Highlight of the day was that I made my own mayonnaise for the first time.
I was on mother duty. I wanted to make a pasta salad, but the boat mayo had
been confiscated by Australian customs in Albany and not replaced. I'd
wanted to try this for a while, and it worked! I got a lot of amazed
comments about the whole idea of home-made mayo, and the salad itself was
very well received.
I have said many times that the food effort on board is out of proportion
to the results, but it's a lot easier when you're motoring. And anyway, if
that game is going to be played, then I'm going to play it to win.
We should get to Sydney around 2am. There will be beers. There will
probably be a night out. There will then be a lot of work around the boat
as well as some corporate events with sponsors, but I'm looking forward to
seeing a lot of friends around all that. Not sure how much of that will
make for interesting blogging, but I'll definitely be back for the next bit
of sailing, the famous Sydney-Hobart Race, starting on Boxing Day.
Sunday 13 December 2015
35 deg 39' S, 150 deg 25' E -- Race 4, Day 13
Tonight, we sit about 140nm from Sydney, making inconsistent progress. The
wind comes and goes, driven partly by a high pressure system off the coast,
partly by they day/night cycle of temperature differences between land and
water. Either way, it's coming pretty much straight from the north, the
direction we want to go. Our boat is designed for downwind sailing, not
upwind. The engineer in me really wants to know what the difference is, but
for now, what matters is that we can go about 45 degrees off the wind, no
closer. So to do 10nm north, we basically have to do 7nm NE, then another
7nm NW, which cuts a bit chunk off our effective speed. The sailing term is
'velocity made good' or 'distance made good'. So we might be doing 7 though
the water but only 5 VMG. And it often isn't even that good. That assumes
you're actually going straight NE, then straight NW, but there's no chance
of keeping the boat going that straight when the wind is gusting and waves
are pushing you around. This is where having good people on the helm makes
a big difference.
We're now in the lee of mainland Australia. The weather is getting warmer
and the sea state has settled down a lot. While sailing upwind is still
tough, especially down below, the reduced slamming around is welcome.
The day's highlight was a pod of dolphins that visited us twice (or
possibly two separate pods). They were all around us, probably fifty or
more, including some that must have been young ones. They swam beside the
boat for a while, throwing in a few spectacular leaps as if to show off for
us. It was great to have them around, a definite boost to everyone's
spirits as we near the end of what has been an often tough two weeks.
As for the sailing itself, I've been on the helm a bit, and I think I'm
developing a feel for it. It is completely unlike driving a car. You're
very constrained in where you can point the boat. As I mentioned, there are
all sorts of things pushing you around. The boat reacts slowly to moves in
the wheel. And many of the instruments (which you sometimes have to rely
on, for example when it's a cloudy night out and there's nothing else to
see) react with a delay as well. Today, Regina taught me about how to helm
by watching the sail, to see how well it was filling with breeze and
balancing that against the angle we wanted to be at. There's also an
element of just feeling the boat slow down or speed up slightly that also
tells you you're not pointing quite right. Then, you need to feel these
things early so you can adjust your wheel before you overshoot. In the
beginning, I was actually doing the opposite, having been warned so much
about making small movements on the helm that I was underreacting. Watching
others helped me fix that. It reminds me learning to drive stick, when my
dad had warned me so much about not riding the clutch that I was pulling my
foot off way too fast until I watched how he did it.
I've been doing more mast work as well and loving it. I'm becoming a
regular up there and even managed a night-time reef when things didn't go
quite right (some tangle in the handy billy, which is a rope and pulley
arrangement) and I sorted it out. I also got sent to the bow to check the
trim. I took a minute up there just to soak it all in, the bioluminescence
in the foam being stirred up as the prow crashed through the waves, the
lights of Canberra (maybe?) off to port in the distance, a few other ships'
lights scattered around, the sky full of stars.
wind comes and goes, driven partly by a high pressure system off the coast,
partly by they day/night cycle of temperature differences between land and
water. Either way, it's coming pretty much straight from the north, the
direction we want to go. Our boat is designed for downwind sailing, not
upwind. The engineer in me really wants to know what the difference is, but
for now, what matters is that we can go about 45 degrees off the wind, no
closer. So to do 10nm north, we basically have to do 7nm NE, then another
7nm NW, which cuts a bit chunk off our effective speed. The sailing term is
'velocity made good' or 'distance made good'. So we might be doing 7 though
the water but only 5 VMG. And it often isn't even that good. That assumes
you're actually going straight NE, then straight NW, but there's no chance
of keeping the boat going that straight when the wind is gusting and waves
are pushing you around. This is where having good people on the helm makes
a big difference.
We're now in the lee of mainland Australia. The weather is getting warmer
and the sea state has settled down a lot. While sailing upwind is still
tough, especially down below, the reduced slamming around is welcome.
The day's highlight was a pod of dolphins that visited us twice (or
possibly two separate pods). They were all around us, probably fifty or
more, including some that must have been young ones. They swam beside the
boat for a while, throwing in a few spectacular leaps as if to show off for
us. It was great to have them around, a definite boost to everyone's
spirits as we near the end of what has been an often tough two weeks.
As for the sailing itself, I've been on the helm a bit, and I think I'm
developing a feel for it. It is completely unlike driving a car. You're
very constrained in where you can point the boat. As I mentioned, there are
all sorts of things pushing you around. The boat reacts slowly to moves in
the wheel. And many of the instruments (which you sometimes have to rely
on, for example when it's a cloudy night out and there's nothing else to
see) react with a delay as well. Today, Regina taught me about how to helm
by watching the sail, to see how well it was filling with breeze and
balancing that against the angle we wanted to be at. There's also an
element of just feeling the boat slow down or speed up slightly that also
tells you you're not pointing quite right. Then, you need to feel these
things early so you can adjust your wheel before you overshoot. In the
beginning, I was actually doing the opposite, having been warned so much
about making small movements on the helm that I was underreacting. Watching
others helped me fix that. It reminds me learning to drive stick, when my
dad had warned me so much about not riding the clutch that I was pulling my
foot off way too fast until I watched how he did it.
I've been doing more mast work as well and loving it. I'm becoming a
regular up there and even managed a night-time reef when things didn't go
quite right (some tangle in the handy billy, which is a rope and pulley
arrangement) and I sorted it out. I also got sent to the bow to check the
trim. I took a minute up there just to soak it all in, the bioluminescence
in the foam being stirred up as the prow crashed through the waves, the
lights of Canberra (maybe?) off to port in the distance, a few other ships'
lights scattered around, the sky full of stars.
Saturday 12 December 2015
37 deg 17' S, 150 deg 16' E -- Race 4, Day 12
A few times, I mentioned phosphorescence visible in the water at night. I
should have called it bioluminescence. There may be phosphorescence
involved in the light generation, but 1) there may not and 2) even if there
is, that isn't really the salient point. This has been gnawing at me.
*************
It continues to surprise me how quickly conditions change here. One watch
we started with just the slightest breeze from behind us, playing with
trim, trying to eke out an extra 0.1 knot of boat speed. Within a few short
hours, the wind had eased further, fluttered around a bit, picked back up
from ahead, and built to the point where were were taking in the third reef
with a real sense of urgency. Another day, we started watch bashing upwind
through waves, cold, and rain but by the end we had beautiful, sunny,
downwind sailing. Someone said this was due to the lack of land at these
latitudes, with the uninterrupted ocean making the weather move faster. We
shall see if it settles down as we move north.
***************
I got my first work at the mast yesterday. NOT, I hasten to add, anything
like climbing the mast to the top. As much as I'd like check out that view
at some point, that job generally goes to people who are, shall we say,
easier to winch up. Still, there is a lot of action at the base of the mast
and the boom, working with lines, especially as we reef in and out, i.e.
partially lowering or raising the mainsail. Your feet are off the deck at
bit, and as the boat heels over, you can look straight down and see the
water rushing past. Fun stuff.
****************
I was on deck as we sighted mainland Australia today. There was an actual
call of "Land ho!" Saw a few spectacular looking isolate beaches that I'll
have to research and visit someday. Maybe. When Tony joked about anchoring
off there and having our own private beach, Matt's answer was "There's got
to be a reason nobody's there."
*****************
Special "Hey" to the gentlemen, ladies, and Sumo of Hampstead Rugby Club on
the day of the Carol Crawl. First one I've missed since joining the club.
Have a good one.
should have called it bioluminescence. There may be phosphorescence
involved in the light generation, but 1) there may not and 2) even if there
is, that isn't really the salient point. This has been gnawing at me.
*************
It continues to surprise me how quickly conditions change here. One watch
we started with just the slightest breeze from behind us, playing with
trim, trying to eke out an extra 0.1 knot of boat speed. Within a few short
hours, the wind had eased further, fluttered around a bit, picked back up
from ahead, and built to the point where were were taking in the third reef
with a real sense of urgency. Another day, we started watch bashing upwind
through waves, cold, and rain but by the end we had beautiful, sunny,
downwind sailing. Someone said this was due to the lack of land at these
latitudes, with the uninterrupted ocean making the weather move faster. We
shall see if it settles down as we move north.
***************
I got my first work at the mast yesterday. NOT, I hasten to add, anything
like climbing the mast to the top. As much as I'd like check out that view
at some point, that job generally goes to people who are, shall we say,
easier to winch up. Still, there is a lot of action at the base of the mast
and the boom, working with lines, especially as we reef in and out, i.e.
partially lowering or raising the mainsail. Your feet are off the deck at
bit, and as the boat heels over, you can look straight down and see the
water rushing past. Fun stuff.
****************
I was on deck as we sighted mainland Australia today. There was an actual
call of "Land ho!" Saw a few spectacular looking isolate beaches that I'll
have to research and visit someday. Maybe. When Tony joked about anchoring
off there and having our own private beach, Matt's answer was "There's got
to be a reason nobody's there."
*****************
Special "Hey" to the gentlemen, ladies, and Sumo of Hampstead Rugby Club on
the day of the Carol Crawl. First one I've missed since joining the club.
Have a good one.
Thursday 10 December 2015
43 deg 37' S, 147 deg 20' E -- Race 4, Day 10
First thing first: If you've been following the wider race, you may have
seen that a boat diverted to Hobart because a crew member suffered some
broken ribs. After yesterday's post mentioning a winch in the ribs, I want
to be clear that wasn't me. Sounds like it wasn't hugely different though.
He just got a bigger wave. While there's a bit emphasis on safety here, it
is tough, physical, and unpredictable. Still, I think it's probably on a
par with the rugby I've been playing for years.
On a happier note, it looks like our boat isn't in as bad shape as it
looked last post. The vang is repaired. We've come up with another kludge
for the main that seems to be working well. And we're flying our Yankee
from a spinnaker halyard, which isn't ideal, but it works. Again, a lot of
jargon, but you shoudl get the generally positive picture.
When I say "we" came up with a fix for the main, credit really goes to
Nick, sometimes called "Nickgyver" for his ability to improvise solutions
to all kinds of issues. He's a former design consultant, and at one point
he took me through a list of the huge range of products he worked on. You
can see that creativity at work here.
The sailing has been good. Today, we sighted Tasmania and rounded Great
Mewstone Rock, the major mark in the race. We actually had some warm and
sunny conditions and a very relaxed sail downwind for much of the day.
The Tasmanian coat, aside from being a nice sign of progress, made for
some pretty amazing scenery, mixing it up a bit after days and days of
ocean. We almost got the kite up again, but then the wind shifted, and now
we're headed upwind again. We think it's going to be the 14th for Sydney,
and we might manage to reel in one or two of the boats in front of us on
the way.
seen that a boat diverted to Hobart because a crew member suffered some
broken ribs. After yesterday's post mentioning a winch in the ribs, I want
to be clear that wasn't me. Sounds like it wasn't hugely different though.
He just got a bigger wave. While there's a bit emphasis on safety here, it
is tough, physical, and unpredictable. Still, I think it's probably on a
par with the rugby I've been playing for years.
On a happier note, it looks like our boat isn't in as bad shape as it
looked last post. The vang is repaired. We've come up with another kludge
for the main that seems to be working well. And we're flying our Yankee
from a spinnaker halyard, which isn't ideal, but it works. Again, a lot of
jargon, but you shoudl get the generally positive picture.
When I say "we" came up with a fix for the main, credit really goes to
Nick, sometimes called "Nickgyver" for his ability to improvise solutions
to all kinds of issues. He's a former design consultant, and at one point
he took me through a list of the huge range of products he worked on. You
can see that creativity at work here.
The sailing has been good. Today, we sighted Tasmania and rounded Great
Mewstone Rock, the major mark in the race. We actually had some warm and
sunny conditions and a very relaxed sail downwind for much of the day.
The Tasmanian coat, aside from being a nice sign of progress, made for
some pretty amazing scenery, mixing it up a bit after days and days of
ocean. We almost got the kite up again, but then the wind shifted, and now
we're headed upwind again. We think it's going to be the 14th for Sydney,
and we might manage to reel in one or two of the boats in front of us on
the way.
Wednesday 9 December 2015
42 deg 31' S, 141 deg 58' E -- Race 4, Day 9
It has been... eventful since my last post, thus the missed day.
Shortly after my last post, the wind shifted, as we'd been waiting for.
Suddenly, the boat flattened out, the bouncing died down, and we were
making good time sailing downwind! That lasted about two hours. The wind
then died off before picking up as a headwind again.
Just after I went off watch, the other watch was putting in a reef when a
small section of the mainsail track pulled off the mast. (The main runs up
the mast on sliders along this track.) When I next went on watch, they had
kludged a fix that basically involved cutting out the bent bit of track but
required hand feeding sliders in when working with the main.
But the bigger news was that the spinnaker was up! We were properly sailing
downwind, making good time on a course directly to our waypoint. This was
what we'd been waiting for. As Matt said, it was the day we would find
out whether our race strategy would pay off. We sailed the whole watch
under the kite, but just as we were going off watch, the wind started to
build, and we had to take it down, a big task, which I'll talk about more
another time. After we got it down, we still had to wool it (basically how
you pack away the kite), which ate into my off-watch time, which meant no
post yesterday.
We came back on watch at 10pm, and the wind was way up, 60 knots stead with
gusts in the 90s, I'm told. We had to drop the Yankee 2, which was far too
much sail for the conditions. Initially, the idea was go go to Yankee 3,
but we ended up with the storm jib. Getting a big sail in with that much
wind blowing, water splashing over the bow, and in the dark of night is
hard work. But it's pretty exhilarating as well. (And actually fairly safe.
Everyone keeps well tethered in. But, like a roller coaster, your adrenalin
doesn't necessarily know this.) Meanwhile, as they were taking in the main,
the kludge failed, so there was a lot of work necessary to secure that.
Four hours of intense work under tough conditions, but kind of what I
signed up for.
This morning, we were again sailing downwind in 40-60 knots. It was wet and
cold when we started, but eventually the sun came out and it turned into an
awesome day, with 4-5m swells all around and lots of albatross visiting.
The cockpit was even a fairly pleasant place to be. Until the first wave of
the day came crashing over just as I was on my feet helping to set up for
a gybe. It knocked me over, and I think I took a winch in the ribs. Nothing
worse than I've had on the rugby pitch many times, but it was another good
reminder about keeping tethered in, even when the sailing has been
relatively civilised.
So, it has been some great, if demanding, sailing.
On the downside, our boat is not in good shape. The kludge on the main
means we can sail at third reef (which is OK for current conditions) or
full main (when/if the wind is low), but nothing in between. We've also
lost two Yankee halyards up the mast, and there's no real hope of getting
them back until Sydney, so we're very limited on headsails. And just a few
hours ago, we snapped the vang, though that should be repaired fairly
shortly. Lots of jargon there, but you get the picture. We're going to be
sailing conservatively for a while and likely losing ground. Even worse,
apparently all this was down to preventable errors. Let's see how we learn
from them.
By the way, I'm sending all these updated by email, so I'm not getting a
chance to see any comments or questions on the blog. But you are able to
post, and I'll catch up when I'm on shore. It will be great to hear from
you!
Also great would be to see some progress on my charitable fundraising
effort, which I have woefully underpromoted so far. I'm raising funds for
GiveDirectly, who help some of the world's poorest people by the simple
approach of giving them money and trusting them to know how best to use it.
It's a great concept, and there is good research supporting its
effectiveness. I THINK the page is at
www.youcaring.com/SailingForGiveDiretly. But if that doesn't work, there is
a link in the sidebar on the blog. I'll even be matching donations!
Shortly after my last post, the wind shifted, as we'd been waiting for.
Suddenly, the boat flattened out, the bouncing died down, and we were
making good time sailing downwind! That lasted about two hours. The wind
then died off before picking up as a headwind again.
Just after I went off watch, the other watch was putting in a reef when a
small section of the mainsail track pulled off the mast. (The main runs up
the mast on sliders along this track.) When I next went on watch, they had
kludged a fix that basically involved cutting out the bent bit of track but
required hand feeding sliders in when working with the main.
But the bigger news was that the spinnaker was up! We were properly sailing
downwind, making good time on a course directly to our waypoint. This was
what we'd been waiting for. As Matt said, it was the day we would find
out whether our race strategy would pay off. We sailed the whole watch
under the kite, but just as we were going off watch, the wind started to
build, and we had to take it down, a big task, which I'll talk about more
another time. After we got it down, we still had to wool it (basically how
you pack away the kite), which ate into my off-watch time, which meant no
post yesterday.
We came back on watch at 10pm, and the wind was way up, 60 knots stead with
gusts in the 90s, I'm told. We had to drop the Yankee 2, which was far too
much sail for the conditions. Initially, the idea was go go to Yankee 3,
but we ended up with the storm jib. Getting a big sail in with that much
wind blowing, water splashing over the bow, and in the dark of night is
hard work. But it's pretty exhilarating as well. (And actually fairly safe.
Everyone keeps well tethered in. But, like a roller coaster, your adrenalin
doesn't necessarily know this.) Meanwhile, as they were taking in the main,
the kludge failed, so there was a lot of work necessary to secure that.
Four hours of intense work under tough conditions, but kind of what I
signed up for.
This morning, we were again sailing downwind in 40-60 knots. It was wet and
cold when we started, but eventually the sun came out and it turned into an
awesome day, with 4-5m swells all around and lots of albatross visiting.
The cockpit was even a fairly pleasant place to be. Until the first wave of
the day came crashing over just as I was on my feet helping to set up for
a gybe. It knocked me over, and I think I took a winch in the ribs. Nothing
worse than I've had on the rugby pitch many times, but it was another good
reminder about keeping tethered in, even when the sailing has been
relatively civilised.
So, it has been some great, if demanding, sailing.
On the downside, our boat is not in good shape. The kludge on the main
means we can sail at third reef (which is OK for current conditions) or
full main (when/if the wind is low), but nothing in between. We've also
lost two Yankee halyards up the mast, and there's no real hope of getting
them back until Sydney, so we're very limited on headsails. And just a few
hours ago, we snapped the vang, though that should be repaired fairly
shortly. Lots of jargon there, but you get the picture. We're going to be
sailing conservatively for a while and likely losing ground. Even worse,
apparently all this was down to preventable errors. Let's see how we learn
from them.
By the way, I'm sending all these updated by email, so I'm not getting a
chance to see any comments or questions on the blog. But you are able to
post, and I'll catch up when I'm on shore. It will be great to hear from
you!
Also great would be to see some progress on my charitable fundraising
effort, which I have woefully underpromoted so far. I'm raising funds for
GiveDirectly, who help some of the world's poorest people by the simple
approach of giving them money and trusting them to know how best to use it.
It's a great concept, and there is good research supporting its
effectiveness. I THINK the page is at
www.youcaring.com/SailingForGiveDiretly. But if that doesn't work, there is
a link in the sidebar on the blog. I'll even be matching donations!
Monday 7 December 2015
42 deg 08' S 134 deg 10' E -- Race 4, Day 7
More high winds, with sustained winds near 40 and a peak gust of 57 knots.
Decent seas as well, with swells that I'd guess to be 4-5m at times. Even
the guys who saw 80+ knots just outside Cape Town are saying that these are
tough conditions, not just high winds but sustained.
The waves are rather short and confused rather than nice long rolling
swells. This means we're slamming around a lot, flying off the tops of
waves like Sheriff Roscoe P Coltrane is chasing us and Waylon Jennings is
offering commentary. (That was Waylon Jennings, wasn't it? And are we still
allowed to have fond memories of the Dukes of Hazard, or have protesters at
Swarthmore gotten that banned as well?)
Just to mix things up, we drove right through one wave. I got to truly
eat my first wave, as this happened while I was on the bow with Tony,
securing the Yankee 3 to the stanchions so it wouldn't wash away. I got
swept back about 6-8 feet. (Don't worry Mom, I was tethered in and wasn't
going any further than that.) When the water cleared, I was laying on my
back, holding onto a sail tie, with my life jacket having automatically
inflated. The guys back at the helm later said we'd totally disappeared
under a wall of water. Meanwhile, Tony barely moved, the skill of having
been doing this from the start.
If the first few posts have seemed a bit up and down, that's because,
honestly, my mood has been as well. It's been a tough start, and I was
starting to adjust just as we had a really calm day, so I wasn't sure how
much was that vs. getting used to things. Today, though, was my favorite
watch so far, and it was plenty tough conditions, so I'm feeling a lot
more optimistic. Still, expect to read more about the lows as well as the
highs, like the fact that there is a persistent drip onto my bunk (where I
am now headed), whenever we're on a port tack. And I estimate we've been on
port tack for about 132 of the 141 hours we've been racing so far.
Decent seas as well, with swells that I'd guess to be 4-5m at times. Even
the guys who saw 80+ knots just outside Cape Town are saying that these are
tough conditions, not just high winds but sustained.
The waves are rather short and confused rather than nice long rolling
swells. This means we're slamming around a lot, flying off the tops of
waves like Sheriff Roscoe P Coltrane is chasing us and Waylon Jennings is
offering commentary. (That was Waylon Jennings, wasn't it? And are we still
allowed to have fond memories of the Dukes of Hazard, or have protesters at
Swarthmore gotten that banned as well?)
Just to mix things up, we drove right through one wave. I got to truly
eat my first wave, as this happened while I was on the bow with Tony,
securing the Yankee 3 to the stanchions so it wouldn't wash away. I got
swept back about 6-8 feet. (Don't worry Mom, I was tethered in and wasn't
going any further than that.) When the water cleared, I was laying on my
back, holding onto a sail tie, with my life jacket having automatically
inflated. The guys back at the helm later said we'd totally disappeared
under a wall of water. Meanwhile, Tony barely moved, the skill of having
been doing this from the start.
If the first few posts have seemed a bit up and down, that's because,
honestly, my mood has been as well. It's been a tough start, and I was
starting to adjust just as we had a really calm day, so I wasn't sure how
much was that vs. getting used to things. Today, though, was my favorite
watch so far, and it was plenty tough conditions, so I'm feeling a lot
more optimistic. Still, expect to read more about the lows as well as the
highs, like the fact that there is a persistent drip onto my bunk (where I
am now headed), whenever we're on a port tack. And I estimate we've been on
port tack for about 132 of the 141 hours we've been racing so far.
Sunday 6 December 2015
41 deg 43' S, 132 deg 45' E -- Race 4, Day 6
The wind is back, and it's serious (at least by my standards). Yesterday
afternoon, we were sitting in nearly still air with our windseeker and a
full main. As of this evening, we had worked all the way down to the storm
jib and third reef, as the wind was 35 knots with gusts to 45 and forecast
to build. It's very wet on deck and some waves wash over and water pours
down the hatch. Some swells look to be 3-4 meters and there's a fair amount
of chop on top of that, so the boat is bouncing around a lot. It's still
not epic weather, but it is serious.
I spent most of the day below decks on what we call 'mother duty',
basically cooking and washing up. Not a good day for it. My co-mother,
Ryan, took an ambitious lead on cooking, and we made scrambled eggs for
breakfast; lentil, rice, and chorizo soup for lunch; and enhanced leftover
soup and meat pies (from frozen) for dinner. Ended up with it all over the
stove and the walls, but everyone appreciated it. I still think meal bars
are the way to go, at least in these conditions, but other people swear hot
food is critical to morale. Apparently one boat last year did a leg on
freeze dried food only and almost had a mutiny.
I did take a break from washing up at one point to help with a sail change.
I'm getting more comfortable in these conditions and integrating more with
the team, and I think we're doing a lot of things well, even if it's not
quite showing in the standings.
By the way, I mentioned in my last post that I'd been acting as navigator.
Just to be clear, I wasn't actually navigating. The skipper handles that,
sometimes bouncing ideas off the more experienced crew members and other
times consulting the wider crew if there's a choice among options. My job
was just to fill in hourly entries in the log book -- position, speed,
course, sail plan, etc. Also to check and pump the bilges. Yesterday, my
job was to check the engine and clean the heads. The romance of sail!
One of the benefits of being on mother duty is that you get pulled out of
regular watch duties, i.e. sailing the boat. That means extra sleep. I
actually have about 8.5 hours before I'm next on watch, so I'm going to go
take advantage of that... at least as much as I can on a heeling, bouncing,
slamming boat.
afternoon, we were sitting in nearly still air with our windseeker and a
full main. As of this evening, we had worked all the way down to the storm
jib and third reef, as the wind was 35 knots with gusts to 45 and forecast
to build. It's very wet on deck and some waves wash over and water pours
down the hatch. Some swells look to be 3-4 meters and there's a fair amount
of chop on top of that, so the boat is bouncing around a lot. It's still
not epic weather, but it is serious.
I spent most of the day below decks on what we call 'mother duty',
basically cooking and washing up. Not a good day for it. My co-mother,
Ryan, took an ambitious lead on cooking, and we made scrambled eggs for
breakfast; lentil, rice, and chorizo soup for lunch; and enhanced leftover
soup and meat pies (from frozen) for dinner. Ended up with it all over the
stove and the walls, but everyone appreciated it. I still think meal bars
are the way to go, at least in these conditions, but other people swear hot
food is critical to morale. Apparently one boat last year did a leg on
freeze dried food only and almost had a mutiny.
I did take a break from washing up at one point to help with a sail change.
I'm getting more comfortable in these conditions and integrating more with
the team, and I think we're doing a lot of things well, even if it's not
quite showing in the standings.
By the way, I mentioned in my last post that I'd been acting as navigator.
Just to be clear, I wasn't actually navigating. The skipper handles that,
sometimes bouncing ideas off the more experienced crew members and other
times consulting the wider crew if there's a choice among options. My job
was just to fill in hourly entries in the log book -- position, speed,
course, sail plan, etc. Also to check and pump the bilges. Yesterday, my
job was to check the engine and clean the heads. The romance of sail!
One of the benefits of being on mother duty is that you get pulled out of
regular watch duties, i.e. sailing the boat. That means extra sleep. I
actually have about 8.5 hours before I'm next on watch, so I'm going to go
take advantage of that... at least as much as I can on a heeling, bouncing,
slamming boat.
Saturday 5 December 2015
? S, ? E -- Race 4, Day 5
What a difference a day makes. The wind eased yesterday, but enough stayed
for some really good sailing. It also shifted direction, so we tacked for
the first time since race start, followed by a few more in quick
succession. During the night, the wind then really died off. We woke to
this morning's watch with the boat only making about 2 knots in fog. The
wind picked up again briefly and faded again, though we expect it back in a
few hours.
Last night, with the moon not yet up and clouds in the sky, it was black as
could be as we sailed, except for some more phosphorescence in the water
and an occasional flash of lightening in the distance. We executed a nice
headsail change around midnight, which is a lot more work than I'm used to
doing at that hour.
We're officially in eleventh place now after being in twelfth for a bit.
That said, we think we're better off than that. Other boats are closer, but
no one gets to sail a straight line. We think the wind will give us a
better line when it shows up, and the boats that are closer will have to
take a longer, indirect approach. We'll see how it plays out.
We saw a lot of the legendary albatrosses (albatross? albatrice? albatri?)
over the past few days, six at once at one point! The are pretty
impressive, huge birds that soar over the swells, hundreds of miles from
land, never even seeming to flap their wings. On a slightly less
enlightened note, I keep thinking of a cross-dressing John Cleese shouting
"What flavor is it? It's bloody albatross flavor!"
Also had a few tiny jellyfish off the side of the boat as we were barely
moving today. Tony was throwing out a bucket trying to haul one in, though
no success.
Still not sure what the position is. I was actually navigator yesterday,
entering position in the log book every hour, but I can't remember. And
while I have a lot more energy than yesterday, it still seems like a long
way back to the nav station for information you can get off the race
viewer. Maybe next post. I think we're about 38S, 128E. And we're not
further north than yesterday, so I definitely had that wrong.
That's all for now. Nap time.
for some really good sailing. It also shifted direction, so we tacked for
the first time since race start, followed by a few more in quick
succession. During the night, the wind then really died off. We woke to
this morning's watch with the boat only making about 2 knots in fog. The
wind picked up again briefly and faded again, though we expect it back in a
few hours.
Last night, with the moon not yet up and clouds in the sky, it was black as
could be as we sailed, except for some more phosphorescence in the water
and an occasional flash of lightening in the distance. We executed a nice
headsail change around midnight, which is a lot more work than I'm used to
doing at that hour.
We're officially in eleventh place now after being in twelfth for a bit.
That said, we think we're better off than that. Other boats are closer, but
no one gets to sail a straight line. We think the wind will give us a
better line when it shows up, and the boats that are closer will have to
take a longer, indirect approach. We'll see how it plays out.
We saw a lot of the legendary albatrosses (albatross? albatrice? albatri?)
over the past few days, six at once at one point! The are pretty
impressive, huge birds that soar over the swells, hundreds of miles from
land, never even seeming to flap their wings. On a slightly less
enlightened note, I keep thinking of a cross-dressing John Cleese shouting
"What flavor is it? It's bloody albatross flavor!"
Also had a few tiny jellyfish off the side of the boat as we were barely
moving today. Tony was throwing out a bucket trying to haul one in, though
no success.
Still not sure what the position is. I was actually navigator yesterday,
entering position in the log book every hour, but I can't remember. And
while I have a lot more energy than yesterday, it still seems like a long
way back to the nav station for information you can get off the race
viewer. Maybe next post. I think we're about 38S, 128E. And we're not
further north than yesterday, so I definitely had that wrong.
That's all for now. Nap time.
Friday 4 December 2015
40S, 126E (I think) -- Race 4, Day 4
So much for my plan for daily blog updates.
My plans to read Moby Dick, finish my podcast on the Civil War, and think deep thoughts are doing even worse.
This is the first time I've had the energy to do anything other than sleep while off watch. We're sailing upwind, generally 20-30 knots of wind, so we spend a lot of time heeled over pretty far. just moving around is a lot of work. The approximate position in the title is because the nav station is all the way at the back of the boat, and I really can't be bothered to go there.
The sailing itself is going OK. We had a good start and were in second for a bit, but we've since dropped back to eleventh. Part of that is tactics. We're in a group taking a slower route than some others, but it's shorter, and we think the weather looks positive in the long run. But we're also going slower than some of the others on the same route. We're deliberately spreading work around to get everyone up to speed on all roles, then really targeting the next two races. Still frustrating not doing better, but it feels like we're executing OK as a team.
The night sailing has been pretty spectacular. Some nights, we've had clear skies full of stars with a number of shooting stars. Last night was cloudy and inky black, with the only light coming from the phosphorescence of the water as we churned it up.
One thing I've been reminded of is that I don't like being the new, inexperienced guy. During training, I'd say I was as good as anyone, better than most, at least of the inexperienced sailors. Now though, some of those inexperienced sailors have crossed oceans. It's actually cool to see how far some of the guys I know have come and think I'll get there when I'm done with this. My watch leader, Barnaby, says he's one of those previously inexperienced sailors, but I don't believe him. He's really calm and measured and certainly seems to know his stuff cold. His only questionable decision so far came as victualler, when he planned pavlova for dessert the first night out. Very tasty, but it left him and Nick whipping cream with a fork for 45 minutes.
Time to prep for the next watch. Next update will come... when it comes.
My plans to read Moby Dick, finish my podcast on the Civil War, and think deep thoughts are doing even worse.
This is the first time I've had the energy to do anything other than sleep while off watch. We're sailing upwind, generally 20-30 knots of wind, so we spend a lot of time heeled over pretty far. just moving around is a lot of work. The approximate position in the title is because the nav station is all the way at the back of the boat, and I really can't be bothered to go there.
The sailing itself is going OK. We had a good start and were in second for a bit, but we've since dropped back to eleventh. Part of that is tactics. We're in a group taking a slower route than some others, but it's shorter, and we think the weather looks positive in the long run. But we're also going slower than some of the others on the same route. We're deliberately spreading work around to get everyone up to speed on all roles, then really targeting the next two races. Still frustrating not doing better, but it feels like we're executing OK as a team.
The night sailing has been pretty spectacular. Some nights, we've had clear skies full of stars with a number of shooting stars. Last night was cloudy and inky black, with the only light coming from the phosphorescence of the water as we churned it up.
One thing I've been reminded of is that I don't like being the new, inexperienced guy. During training, I'd say I was as good as anyone, better than most, at least of the inexperienced sailors. Now though, some of those inexperienced sailors have crossed oceans. It's actually cool to see how far some of the guys I know have come and think I'll get there when I'm done with this. My watch leader, Barnaby, says he's one of those previously inexperienced sailors, but I don't believe him. He's really calm and measured and certainly seems to know his stuff cold. His only questionable decision so far came as victualler, when he planned pavlova for dessert the first night out. Very tasty, but it left him and Nick whipping cream with a fork for 45 minutes.
Time to prep for the next watch. Next update will come... when it comes.
Monday 30 November 2015
34° 58' S, 117° 52' E -- Pre Leg 4, Albany, WA
I made it to Albany in time... which is more than I can say for my boat. After some problems early on out of Cape Town, the team had climbed back to ninth place, fighting for eighth, when they took a gamble, broke away from the rest of the fleet, and tried to get around an area of light winds. It didn't work. Instead, they ended up completely becalmed and had to fire up the engine just to get in two days before the start of the next race and a day-and-a-half behind the next-to-last boat. At the time, I liked the idea of taking the risk, and while I know hindsight is 20/20 and all that, when something fails this spectacularly, you have to wonder if it was foreseeable. In any event, I wasn't actually out there. Talking to people when they got in, opinion was mixed. The move doesn't seem to have had full buy-in from the crew, and a few people think they didn't even have a say, much less a chance to get out-voted. Other people are just looking at it as one of those things that happens and a learning experience. It remains to be seen how it actually plays out in the next races.
As mitigation, I told the guys they didn't really need more than two days in Albany anyway. It's a nice enough town, but there isn't a lot to it. We had the prize giving and a bit crew party my first night here. I hiked up one of the 'mountains' in town to the Desert Mounted Corps Memorial. Part of the road was lined with trees, each dedicated to an Australian who died in WW1, WW2, Korea, or Viet Nam. I didn't manage to make it to the ANZAC museum, but there are lots of markers around town about ANZAC and its role in Gallipoli.
We went out one day for a refresher sail. Most of it came back really well, but I know nothing is quite going to prepare me for being out in the open ocean except actually getting out there to do it. We had some dolphins alongside for a while, which was fun. We were out with LMAX, who have won two of three races so far, and I was hoping to get some sense from the skipper of what they were doing. Well, whatever they're doing, it wasn't apparent on that trip. He was pretty casual about everything, still getting us up to speed, but nothing that really stood out.
The race does seem to be a pretty big event in town. Sometimes local people would just strike up conversation about the race. Some people were spontaneously offered rides from the airport. When we were about to head out on the refresher sail, a woman stopped by with a box of pastries for our tea!
When our boat did get in, we spent a fair part of the last two days getting it ready to go out again. They had done a lot of cleaning while motoring back, but we had some to do to finish up. Then today there was more maintenance and packing up all the food for the next leg. For example, I spent about two hours peeling the labels off cans of food, then writing on them what's inside. The boat gets so wet sometimes, you can't rely on the labels staying on.
There was also disappointing news from two of the guys on the team, both of whom I knew from Level 4 training and really like, that they were cutting their race short despite originally planning to do the whole thing. Nick, an experienced sailor, decided he just didn't like the racing aspect that much, and it was too much time away from his wife. Even more, Tony has a five-year-old daughter that he was missing. He had been wavering back when we were training and had actually decided to cut back to Legs 1-4 before he even started. Both understandable decisions given their family situations -- I was more surprised they'd planned a year away in the first place than that they decided to cut it short -- but I'm sorry not to have them around.
One last note before heading out. Here's a picture of my bunk. One of my favorite comments on this trip, from James Ruthven, "Your cabin must not be very big." Well, no.
As mitigation, I told the guys they didn't really need more than two days in Albany anyway. It's a nice enough town, but there isn't a lot to it. We had the prize giving and a bit crew party my first night here. I hiked up one of the 'mountains' in town to the Desert Mounted Corps Memorial. Part of the road was lined with trees, each dedicated to an Australian who died in WW1, WW2, Korea, or Viet Nam. I didn't manage to make it to the ANZAC museum, but there are lots of markers around town about ANZAC and its role in Gallipoli.
We went out one day for a refresher sail. Most of it came back really well, but I know nothing is quite going to prepare me for being out in the open ocean except actually getting out there to do it. We had some dolphins alongside for a while, which was fun. We were out with LMAX, who have won two of three races so far, and I was hoping to get some sense from the skipper of what they were doing. Well, whatever they're doing, it wasn't apparent on that trip. He was pretty casual about everything, still getting us up to speed, but nothing that really stood out.
The race does seem to be a pretty big event in town. Sometimes local people would just strike up conversation about the race. Some people were spontaneously offered rides from the airport. When we were about to head out on the refresher sail, a woman stopped by with a box of pastries for our tea!
When our boat did get in, we spent a fair part of the last two days getting it ready to go out again. They had done a lot of cleaning while motoring back, but we had some to do to finish up. Then today there was more maintenance and packing up all the food for the next leg. For example, I spent about two hours peeling the labels off cans of food, then writing on them what's inside. The boat gets so wet sometimes, you can't rely on the labels staying on.
There was also disappointing news from two of the guys on the team, both of whom I knew from Level 4 training and really like, that they were cutting their race short despite originally planning to do the whole thing. Nick, an experienced sailor, decided he just didn't like the racing aspect that much, and it was too much time away from his wife. Even more, Tony has a five-year-old daughter that he was missing. He had been wavering back when we were training and had actually decided to cut back to Legs 1-4 before he even started. Both understandable decisions given their family situations -- I was more surprised they'd planned a year away in the first place than that they decided to cut it short -- but I'm sorry not to have them around.
One last note before heading out. Here's a picture of my bunk. One of my favorite comments on this trip, from James Ruthven, "Your cabin must not be very big." Well, no.
 |
| I have top bunk |
Western Austtralia
Strictly speaking, this isn't about the race. But what the hell, I'll throw in a bit of a general travel writing.
I didn't spend a lot of time in Perth itself. Seemed like a nice enough town, but I really just took the first afternoon recovering from a 20 hour trip, most of it in a middle seat.
The second day, I took a day trip north along the coast. I stopped for a swim at Hangover Bay, though without a hangover I felt I wasn't doing it quite right. The main destination was Pinnacles Desert, a spot where there are hundreds, maybe thousands, of stone formations sticking up out of the sand. It's really weird, not exactly spectacular but definitely interesting. Apparently, researchers aren't even quite sure how the formed, but they are pretty sure it has something to do with trees. They also suspect they've been buried by dunes for a few thousand years and only resurfaced in the last hundred or so.
I saw my first wild kangaroos every as I was driving back that night, two varieties -- one live, one roadkill. I saw loads more during the rest of the trip, probably 70% roadkill, 20% near-roadkill (e.g one that went out if its way to trip hop in front of me), and only about 10% frolicking about at a sensible distance from the road. Hardly seems like a ratio that's made for long-term success.
The next day, I headed south toward Margaret River. I stopped in Busselton on the way, home to the longest wood-piled jetty in the Southern Hemisphere at 1.8km. It was long, but still not an amazing claim to fame. I later heard a radio commercial saying "There's more to Busselton that they longest wood-piled jetty in the Southern Hemisphere!" -- there is also a music festival -- and I was about 80% sure they were taking that seriously.
Margaret Riven involved a day of wine tasting as well as some chocolate and olive oil makers. It was mostly small scale, less developed that wine tasting I've done elsewhere. At several, I was the only person there. At one, Ashbrook, I just chatted with the woman on the front desk while they were bottling in the back room. I eventually made my way to Cape Naturaliste Lighthouse and caught sunset from Canal Rocks, so-called because natural erosion has left what look like canals in the rock formation.
I then headed south. There are a lot of caves in the region, and I managed to explore two. Calgardup Cave had a lot of cool crystal formations. Giants Cave was a lot bigger and deeper and was set up as an "adventure cave", which involved climbing ladders through narrow spots and scrambling along sections of fallen rock. I got down to Cape Leeuwin, the most south-western point in Australia and the meeting point of the Southern and Indian Oceans. Finally, I headed over to Albany via Denmark through some forests that just seemed to go on forever.
I liked WA a lot. If ti were closer, I'd come back for the wine country alone. Given the beaches, the deserts, the forests (and the diving, which I heard good things about but didn't manage to try), it could be worth a return trip despite how far away it is from everything.
I didn't spend a lot of time in Perth itself. Seemed like a nice enough town, but I really just took the first afternoon recovering from a 20 hour trip, most of it in a middle seat.
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| Selfie at Hangover Bay |
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| In among the Pinnacles |
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| Looking down Busselton Jetty |
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| Sunset at Canal Rocks |
Margaret Riven involved a day of wine tasting as well as some chocolate and olive oil makers. It was mostly small scale, less developed that wine tasting I've done elsewhere. At several, I was the only person there. At one, Ashbrook, I just chatted with the woman on the front desk while they were bottling in the back room. I eventually made my way to Cape Naturaliste Lighthouse and caught sunset from Canal Rocks, so-called because natural erosion has left what look like canals in the rock formation.
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| Crystals inside Calgardup Cave |
I liked WA a lot. If ti were closer, I'd come back for the wine country alone. Given the beaches, the deserts, the forests (and the diving, which I heard good things about but didn't manage to try), it could be worth a return trip despite how far away it is from everything.
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| Cape Leeuwin Lighthouse |
Thursday 26 November 2015
Thanksgiving 2015
I'm not going to lie, this wasn't a great Thanksgiving.
This is not, of course, to say it was a bad day. I met up with a few of the other people who are joining my boat here in Albany. And I got to catch up with a bunch of people from other boats who I met during training. It was great to hear their stories of the trip so far, even though a lot of them revolved around how much hard work the trip from Cape Town had been and how cold and wet everything was. There was the prize giving ceremony for the last leg and a big party that went late into the night.
But it wasn't Thanksgiving.
Thanksgiving is one of my favorite holidays, and it's meant to be spent with friends and family. I knew with the timing of the race that wasn't going to happen this year. I was thinking it would at least be spent with my team, which would have been in the right spirit and would also have brought a few other Americans, but they're running really late (more on that later) and aren't expected in for a few more days.
Anyway, I can be thankful that a "not great" Thanksgiving can still be this good. And thanks for all the support and good wishes for this trip from family and friends, even if I couldn't celebrate with any of you in person.
This is not, of course, to say it was a bad day. I met up with a few of the other people who are joining my boat here in Albany. And I got to catch up with a bunch of people from other boats who I met during training. It was great to hear their stories of the trip so far, even though a lot of them revolved around how much hard work the trip from Cape Town had been and how cold and wet everything was. There was the prize giving ceremony for the last leg and a big party that went late into the night.
But it wasn't Thanksgiving.
Thanksgiving is one of my favorite holidays, and it's meant to be spent with friends and family. I knew with the timing of the race that wasn't going to happen this year. I was thinking it would at least be spent with my team, which would have been in the right spirit and would also have brought a few other Americans, but they're running really late (more on that later) and aren't expected in for a few more days.
Anyway, I can be thankful that a "not great" Thanksgiving can still be this good. And thanks for all the support and good wishes for this trip from family and friends, even if I couldn't celebrate with any of you in person.
Wednesday 25 November 2015
What are the odds?
I recently realised that I'm starting this race in Albany, WA and finishing in Seattle... WA!
Coincidence? Well, yeah.
Coincidence? Well, yeah.
Saturday 7 November 2015
What am I doing?
As I finished work last week, as I'm less than a week away from leaving London, as I'm less than a month away from starting sailing, and as I'm reading about yet another tough start to a leg, I've been asking myself that question quite a bit. That is not, however, the point of this post. Instead, I've realised that while people generally know that I'm going sailing for a while, a lot of people don't know more that that. So I figured it would make sense, as I'm now getting ready to go and promoting this blog, to share that background, or at least the elevator pitch....
I'm crewing a racing yacht on part of a round-the-world race, going from Albany (south of Perth, Western Australia), to Seattle, via Sydney, Hobart, Airlie Beach (Queensland), Da Nang, and Quingdao. I'll be sailing about 16,000 miles over five months. It's a crew of twenty amateur sailors (except the skipper, who's a very experienced professional). The crew range have a wide range of experience, from some who have done a lot of fairly serious sailing to 'never sailed before in their life'. I'm somewhere in the middle, having always been interested in sailing, but never having done much before getting into this.
Yes, it's a race. Or maybe it's more of a race series, as it isn't as simple as 'fastest boat around the world wins'. Points are awarded for each individual port-to-port race. There are bonus points for hitting scoring gates and for being the fastest through sprint sections. There are penalty points, mainly for damage to the boat. Winning team gets bragging rights. There might be a trophy. Twelve boats are racing, all identical design.
I didn't pick my crew, though I've met a number of them through training. The race organisers put the crews together, balancing the experience levels, the legs people are looking to do, and other skills (e.g. I understand they try to distribute doctors around the boats as much as possible). They also seem to group on nationality -- ours is a very North American boat, with some other boats appearing to skew Australian, French, etc.
I was drawn into this by the posters on the Tube. Apparently, it's a hugely successful advertising campaign for them. If you're in London, you've probably seen them, people with half the picture in their normal clothes, half in race gear. I got on their mailing list probably five years ago. I went down a two-and-a-bit years ago to see the boats at St Katherine's Dock and talk to some people who had done it. Early this year, I was thinking that the stars of my personal and professional life were lined up about as well as they would ever by for something like this, so it was time to give it a serious look. In March, I did a training week to see what it was really like. It was cold. It was hard work. But I decided it was time to do it.
Initially, I had thought I would do the full round-the-world or not do it at all, but I dialed that back a bit. My notice period at work and my desire to stick around for the World Cup aligned nicely to a start with Leg 4 from Western Australia. Legs 5 and 6 looked like some great sailing and meant I would get to cross the Pacific. I would really have liked to do Leg 7 as well, go through the Panama Canal, and be able to claim a nice round 'half way around the world', but it was fully booked. And so my race was planned. I probably could have burned some professional bridges, skipped a few World Cup games, and started earlier, and it would have been cool to go to Cape Town and sail the Southern Ocean, but I felt that as long as I had the Pacific crossing, I had the super-heavy sailing aspect covered.
One other reason I backed off doing the full thing. Initially, I thought it would mean I would be at sea for the full Presidential campaign. Once I realised I'd be back on land for the worst of it regardless, I gave up. Trump. Clinton. Ugh.
One last thing in what at this point would only be an elevator pitch in the Burj Dubai, I am using this as a hook to raise some funds for GiveDirectly, an organisation that focuses on poverty relief in Kenya and Uganda. I will be matching donations, with an increased match based on how well our boat does. Please check out my fundraising campaign page for details.
I'm crewing a racing yacht on part of a round-the-world race, going from Albany (south of Perth, Western Australia), to Seattle, via Sydney, Hobart, Airlie Beach (Queensland), Da Nang, and Quingdao. I'll be sailing about 16,000 miles over five months. It's a crew of twenty amateur sailors (except the skipper, who's a very experienced professional). The crew range have a wide range of experience, from some who have done a lot of fairly serious sailing to 'never sailed before in their life'. I'm somewhere in the middle, having always been interested in sailing, but never having done much before getting into this.
Yes, it's a race. Or maybe it's more of a race series, as it isn't as simple as 'fastest boat around the world wins'. Points are awarded for each individual port-to-port race. There are bonus points for hitting scoring gates and for being the fastest through sprint sections. There are penalty points, mainly for damage to the boat. Winning team gets bragging rights. There might be a trophy. Twelve boats are racing, all identical design.
I didn't pick my crew, though I've met a number of them through training. The race organisers put the crews together, balancing the experience levels, the legs people are looking to do, and other skills (e.g. I understand they try to distribute doctors around the boats as much as possible). They also seem to group on nationality -- ours is a very North American boat, with some other boats appearing to skew Australian, French, etc.
I was drawn into this by the posters on the Tube. Apparently, it's a hugely successful advertising campaign for them. If you're in London, you've probably seen them, people with half the picture in their normal clothes, half in race gear. I got on their mailing list probably five years ago. I went down a two-and-a-bit years ago to see the boats at St Katherine's Dock and talk to some people who had done it. Early this year, I was thinking that the stars of my personal and professional life were lined up about as well as they would ever by for something like this, so it was time to give it a serious look. In March, I did a training week to see what it was really like. It was cold. It was hard work. But I decided it was time to do it.
Initially, I had thought I would do the full round-the-world or not do it at all, but I dialed that back a bit. My notice period at work and my desire to stick around for the World Cup aligned nicely to a start with Leg 4 from Western Australia. Legs 5 and 6 looked like some great sailing and meant I would get to cross the Pacific. I would really have liked to do Leg 7 as well, go through the Panama Canal, and be able to claim a nice round 'half way around the world', but it was fully booked. And so my race was planned. I probably could have burned some professional bridges, skipped a few World Cup games, and started earlier, and it would have been cool to go to Cape Town and sail the Southern Ocean, but I felt that as long as I had the Pacific crossing, I had the super-heavy sailing aspect covered.
One other reason I backed off doing the full thing. Initially, I thought it would mean I would be at sea for the full Presidential campaign. Once I realised I'd be back on land for the worst of it regardless, I gave up. Trump. Clinton. Ugh.
One last thing in what at this point would only be an elevator pitch in the Burj Dubai, I am using this as a hook to raise some funds for GiveDirectly, an organisation that focuses on poverty relief in Kenya and Uganda. I will be matching donations, with an increased match based on how well our boat does. Please check out my fundraising campaign page for details.
Friday 30 October 2015
Sailing 101: Kitemares, spinnakers, and sailing downwind
If you've been following the race diaries so far, you will have seen a few reference to 'kitemares', including (but by no means limited to!) on my boat, Telemed. And, if you're not up on sailing jargon, you might be wondering what the hell that means, though you've probably figured out it isn't good. Thus this bit of Sailing 101....
The biggest, coolest, most powerful sail is not actually the main. It's the spinnaker, also known as the 'kite', also known as the 'Code'**. If you've seen a picture of a sailboat and said "Oooo, that's pretty!", odds are it was flying a spinnaker. They are big, billowy sails that fly out in front the boat. They tend to have more design work on them. (Other sails are generically referred to as 'white sails'.) And they are tricky. When things go wrong with a kite, they go wrong fast. And that's a kitemare.
** Code 1 is the biggest, Code 2 the medium, Code 3 the smallest. You don't really hear Code without the number, while kite gets used more generically. Similarly, the jibs are Yankee 1 to Yankee 3. Bad enough everything on a boat has a different name, often they have several!
Next question then: Why are spinnakers tricky? First, they're big and powerful. While that's good for making the boat go fast, it also means that all that force from the wind in a huge sail can make a real mess of things if it isn't rigged right, e.g. if a line is running inside something it should be outside of.
That brings us to the second reason, which is that spinnakers are rigged differently from the other sails. The main and the other headsails are attached to something solid along the whole of the leading edge, or luff. The spinnaker is just attached at the three corners. This lets it get a lot more curve in it, but it also makes it less stable. If you lose wind in your main or jibs, they'll flap around. At the most, you might get the Yankee a bit hung up on the inner forestay.** But they'll always be well supported and fairly easy to untangle. But there's a lot of extra spinnaker, and it's not attached to anything solid, so it can get wrapped around things much worse. There's a typical 'hourglass' where the middle part wraps around the forestay while the top and bottom stay open (you get the picture), but it can get wrapped around other things too. Or it can fall in the sea. Or it can come loose. Many, many ways for it to go wrong.
** The forestays are two metal cables that run from the mast to points in the bow. There is an inner and outer forestay. These are the "something solid" you attach the jibs to, with the luff of the Yankee on the outer forestay and the luff of the staysail on the inner forestay. At some point, I'll figure out how to explain all the jargon without just referring to more jargon.
Bigger picture, this is all linked to sailing downwind. You only use the spinnaker when you're going downwind. Upwind, you stick to the white sails. And sailing downwind is tricky. (Or, as the Clipper website describes it, it is "the most technically demanding point of sail".) Why? I'm not entirely sure. Part of it, I'm sure, is that you're flying the kite and dealing with all the related complications. There is also the fact that it's more difficult to gybe (come across the wind when the wind is behind you) than to tack (turn across it when it's coming from ahead). It might seem that turning straight into the wind is a bad thing, and it's true that you wouldn't want to head that way for long. But it also means that the headsails are being kept off the forestays by the wind. And the boom is nearly centered when you're heading upwind, so it doesn't have far to move in a tack. But when you gybe, the headsails get blown onto the forestays, and you have to be more careful about bringing them around to the other side of the boat. And the boom tends to start well out to the leeward side, so you have to bring it all the way back in, keeping it under control, then ease it back out. An even bigger issue is the accidental gybe. An accidental tack isn't great, but it's more embarrassing than anything. If you accidentally gybe, so you're coming across the wind without all that careful control of the headsails and the boom I mentioned earlier, things can really fly around violently.
The Clipper race is planned around a lot of downwind sailing. Why focus on "the most technically demanding point of sail" with amateur crews? I don't know. Maybe to test us. Maybe because it's fast. Whatever the reason, that's how we're doing it.
The biggest, coolest, most powerful sail is not actually the main. It's the spinnaker, also known as the 'kite', also known as the 'Code'**. If you've seen a picture of a sailboat and said "Oooo, that's pretty!", odds are it was flying a spinnaker. They are big, billowy sails that fly out in front the boat. They tend to have more design work on them. (Other sails are generically referred to as 'white sails'.) And they are tricky. When things go wrong with a kite, they go wrong fast. And that's a kitemare.
** Code 1 is the biggest, Code 2 the medium, Code 3 the smallest. You don't really hear Code without the number, while kite gets used more generically. Similarly, the jibs are Yankee 1 to Yankee 3. Bad enough everything on a boat has a different name, often they have several!
Next question then: Why are spinnakers tricky? First, they're big and powerful. While that's good for making the boat go fast, it also means that all that force from the wind in a huge sail can make a real mess of things if it isn't rigged right, e.g. if a line is running inside something it should be outside of.
That brings us to the second reason, which is that spinnakers are rigged differently from the other sails. The main and the other headsails are attached to something solid along the whole of the leading edge, or luff. The spinnaker is just attached at the three corners. This lets it get a lot more curve in it, but it also makes it less stable. If you lose wind in your main or jibs, they'll flap around. At the most, you might get the Yankee a bit hung up on the inner forestay.** But they'll always be well supported and fairly easy to untangle. But there's a lot of extra spinnaker, and it's not attached to anything solid, so it can get wrapped around things much worse. There's a typical 'hourglass' where the middle part wraps around the forestay while the top and bottom stay open (you get the picture), but it can get wrapped around other things too. Or it can fall in the sea. Or it can come loose. Many, many ways for it to go wrong.
** The forestays are two metal cables that run from the mast to points in the bow. There is an inner and outer forestay. These are the "something solid" you attach the jibs to, with the luff of the Yankee on the outer forestay and the luff of the staysail on the inner forestay. At some point, I'll figure out how to explain all the jargon without just referring to more jargon.
Bigger picture, this is all linked to sailing downwind. You only use the spinnaker when you're going downwind. Upwind, you stick to the white sails. And sailing downwind is tricky. (Or, as the Clipper website describes it, it is "the most technically demanding point of sail".) Why? I'm not entirely sure. Part of it, I'm sure, is that you're flying the kite and dealing with all the related complications. There is also the fact that it's more difficult to gybe (come across the wind when the wind is behind you) than to tack (turn across it when it's coming from ahead). It might seem that turning straight into the wind is a bad thing, and it's true that you wouldn't want to head that way for long. But it also means that the headsails are being kept off the forestays by the wind. And the boom is nearly centered when you're heading upwind, so it doesn't have far to move in a tack. But when you gybe, the headsails get blown onto the forestays, and you have to be more careful about bringing them around to the other side of the boat. And the boom tends to start well out to the leeward side, so you have to bring it all the way back in, keeping it under control, then ease it back out. An even bigger issue is the accidental gybe. An accidental tack isn't great, but it's more embarrassing than anything. If you accidentally gybe, so you're coming across the wind without all that careful control of the headsails and the boom I mentioned earlier, things can really fly around violently.
The Clipper race is planned around a lot of downwind sailing. Why focus on "the most technically demanding point of sail" with amateur crews? I don't know. Maybe to test us. Maybe because it's fast. Whatever the reason, that's how we're doing it.
Monday 26 October 2015
We have a new skipper
Never in the history of the Clipper race have all the skippers who started the race finished it. I suppose there's no reason to have thought that this year would be any different. At the same time, it was a huge surprise to hear that it was our skipper who would be withdrawing.
I don't really know anything more than is in the official announcement. Diane sent a note around to the crew, and while it's a bit more personal, there isn't really anything more to it. Maybe that's because there isn't anything more there. "Personal reasons", while vague, could easily be all there is to it. Leaving everything behind for a year is a huge commitment, and it could be as simple as after two months at sea with the prospect of nine more ahead, she decided it wasn't worth it.
On the positive side, I know our new skipper, Matt. He was an instructor on my Level 2 and Level 3 training weeks, and I thought he was excellent. He skippered a boat round-the-world two years ago. He knows his shit. He's a great teacher and a great leader. You never want to have disruption like this, but given that we have it, I couldn't imagine anything that would leave me more comfortable with the situation.
I don't really know anything more than is in the official announcement. Diane sent a note around to the crew, and while it's a bit more personal, there isn't really anything more to it. Maybe that's because there isn't anything more there. "Personal reasons", while vague, could easily be all there is to it. Leaving everything behind for a year is a huge commitment, and it could be as simple as after two months at sea with the prospect of nine more ahead, she decided it wasn't worth it.
On the positive side, I know our new skipper, Matt. He was an instructor on my Level 2 and Level 3 training weeks, and I thought he was excellent. He skippered a boat round-the-world two years ago. He knows his shit. He's a great teacher and a great leader. You never want to have disruption like this, but given that we have it, I couldn't imagine anything that would leave me more comfortable with the situation.
Sunday 30 August 2015
Race start
Went by race start today and saw off Telemed and the others. Big turnout down at St Katherine's Docks. It was pretty cool seeing all the ceremony, and it would have been nice to have been on the boat, going up and down the Thames and under Tower Bridge.
Soon enough. For now, I can just with them all good luck until I meet up with them in Albany.
Soon enough. For now, I can just with them all good luck until I meet up with them in Albany.
Tuesday 18 August 2015
Sailing tan
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| "Tiger tan" |
But after that, things are going to get cold. Word is that once the fleet rounds Taiwan and turns north, the temperature drops quickly. We can expect freezing temperatures around Quingdao, and last race even saw snow. Then the month across the Pacific will continue to be really cold, dark, and stormy. I'll be heavily bundled up, and by the time I get to Seattle, that tan is going to be gone. I'll be as pasty white as if I'd spent the whole winter sitting behind a desk in London. Just dirtier.
Monday 10 August 2015
Level 4 training
Level 4 training is where you finally get to sail on your boat, for your skipper, with your team. It was also the first chance for me to sail on a 70, since our Level 3 had been on 68s. My understanding was that we'd sail out on the Monday and just sail all week, maybe back and forth to France, only coming back in on Sunday (though it turned out I had this a bit wrong, both in theory and in practice). I'd been waiting for this for a while, and I was really ready to go.
Here is a video shot during the training week by Canadian Mark. You can see me relaying winch instructions while Linda is up doing her rig check. I'm also the swimmer going in during the MOB drill. I did give a few short interviews, but that seems to have been left on the cutting room floor!
I was also slightly hungover and incredibly exhausted. I had just come off a week of Level 3 training. And while my grand plan had been to head to my hotel for an early night, I had instead ended up at The Castle with two guys from the prior week of training, Tony (also from Telemed) and Terence. There were a few other Telemed people there, so I got to meet them early. Then there was a late curry, a very late arrival at the hotel, and an early alarm. Not the ideal start.
There were twelve boats full of crew for this final week of training, and I ended up running into loads of people from all the way back to my Level 1. There was a great buzz around, lots of people meeting or catching up as we queued to get our official race kit. I then got down to the boat and started to meet people. The first thing that hit me was that we had four Marks on the boat -- Canadian Mark (also known as Cameraman Mark, as he was shooting for Discovery), Irish Mark, English Mark, and American Mark (me). Somehow, only English Mark managed to get reliably called by a nickname over the course of the week, Jenko. I think the crew allocation folks might want to think about this name issue in the future. Alternatively, the Telemed crew can get better about nicknames.
I also got to meet Diane, our skipper, for the first time. She’s very enthusiastic, very positive, very… Canadian. She has a ton of experience, though a lot of it is in solo racing. I’ll admit, over the course of the week, I found her to be a bit too positive for my taste. That’s definitely better than the alternative, but I did get to feel a bit more push would get more out of us. But then, that could just be me, and maybe her style is will be perfect for most of the crew. And she did maintain that positive approach through a few incidents, of which more later.
The first day was pretty straightforward. There was a cool synchronised start of all the boats, and we headed out into the Solent to cruise around for a few hours, practicing basic tacks, gybes, and reefs as a crew. We also did an MOB drill, where I volunteered to be the swimmer, i.e. the rescuer. (The rescued is referred to as the ‘casualty’.) It was the first time I’d done that, and while we did retrieve the casualty pretty smoothly, I really needed to get myself lowered in quicker. After a bit more sailing, we anchored for the night.
Things got a bit more complicated the next day. We had a bit of trouble getting the anchor up. I'll spare you the detail, but we basically had to use the halyards to pull chain way up, then swap to another halyard and repeat. Took a long time. At one point, I managed to get myself between the chain and the guard rail. More embarrassing than anything, and I did think for a moment I was going into the water, until I managed to get out from under it. We then went off to do some practice racing. We started with a practice Le Mans start (never mind what that means), which went OK, though we weren't as prepared as a many of the other boats.
We then went for a normal start to kick off a practice race to France and back. In a regular start, there is a starting line between two points (generally a buoy and an official's boat) that you can't cross before a given time. There is a lot of maneuvering beforehand to a) get to the line immediately at that time and b) be in a good position relative to the other boats. We got in a pretty good start and made our way to the first mark, a buoy we needed to round before working our way back up the Solent and turning south once we cleared the Isle of Wight to head down to France.
Except we hit the buoy. And it was… somewhat my fault.
In short, I was on the main sheet, which controls how much the boom is centered or out wide. The call was to tack, then bear away. When bearing away, I needed to ease out the main sheet. Diane had been telling me I needed to do this faster, and I picked the wrong time to over-correct, easing immediately after we tacked when we really needed to sail for a bit first. This took the power out of our sail and the tide took us into the buoy. Better communication could have prevented this, or quickly getting the engine started, or (I think) immediately bearing away at the cost of missing the mark instead of trying to make it regardless, all of which is why I don’t consider it entirely my fault. But I definitely had a role. That said, no fingers were pointed, and it wasn’t until the end of the week that I discussed it with Diane, and I was the one who brought it up. She said we should share responsibility, which felt right. Still, the fact that I had to bring it up reinforced my “maybe too positive” opinion of her. I’ve been debating whether to give her that feedback. For now, it’s just for you readers! We’ll see how things go when we’re racing.
Anyway, the buoy put a small hole in the fiberglass of the boat, so we had to go back into the marina to get it checked out. (It wasn’t close to going all the way through. There is a foam core, but you don’t want the foam getting wet, so we wanted to repair the fiberglass.) This meant we were out of the race and out of action for a few hours. But we did get headed out in the evening with a plan to head part way across the Channel and rendezvous with the other boats on their way back the next day.
As the sun was setting and we headed south through some chop, I noticed one of the forward hatches wasn’t well closed. I made my way forward to sort it out and got a little taste of what it was like in the bow under rough conditions as we bounced around with occasional swells washing over the deck. I then got a much bigger taste of seawater as we crashed through a bigger one, not enough to knock me down, but enough to soak me head to toe.
The next day, the chop continued. It wasn’t huge, but it was bouncy, and probably half the crew were sick. I was feeling pretty rough myself, though whether it was borderline seasickenss or just exhaustion, I don’t know. Fortunately, I was on mother watch, which meant I was pulled out of regular duty to cook, but I could sleep when I wasn’t cooking. I took partial advantage of this, but also spent a fair amount of our watch up on deck just to get the air. Credit to Han, who probably did 75% of the mother work while Jo and I were feeling rough. And credit to Jo, who despite feeling like hell, peeled potatoes for the night’s mash as she lay in her bunk. Fortunately, by the next day, people were getting used to it and feeling a bit better.
We caught up with the rest of the fleet the next day and started a second practice race. This one went a lot better for us. We were a bit slow getting the spinnaker up, but it all went smoothly for us, which is more than some of the other boats could say. We rounded a mark off the west end of the Isle of Wight and headed down toward France in fourth place, maintaining that position and some decent speed until I went off watch at 8pm. But when I came back on at midnight, the wind had died and we were barely moving. Tom, one of the more experienced sailors in the crew, got our watch trying a bunch of new things with the sails. We dropped the staysail to give the Yankee unobstructed wind. We eased the main way out. We tried wing-on-wing, with the main to port and the Yankee to starboard. All of this got us a few knots of boat speed, but we still weren’t doing much. At least we could see the Normandy coast, but as we finished watch at 4am, we were still a long way away from the mark we were supposed to be rounding. When we came back on at 8am, it was dead calm. We were actually moving backward with the tide. Most of the boats were in similar conditions, though one had managed to make the mark. Apparently, the skipper really knew the area and made good use of the tidal currents. Anyway, word came in shortly after that we were abandoning the race to motor back up to the UK.
Along the way, we rendezvoused with Mission Performance and Derry-Londonderry to practice towing and ship-to-ship transfers. We also went for a swim in the middle of the Channel. The water was cold but really refreshing, and it was pretty cool diving in when you couldn’t see land anywhere around. That night, we ran another MOB drill, my first at night. Coincidentally, I ended up as rescue swimmer again, but I didn’t actually get put in the water. Don’t want to make these drills any more complicated than they have to be! As we were pulling up the anchor the next day, we had another minor incident, as Alex got hit in the head with the anchor. Not nearly as bad as it sounds, as it wasn’t a very hard knock, but it was a sharp, muddy edge, so we went back in to port so he could get it cleaned up at stitched at A&E. So, despite the plan to stay out for seven days straight, we ended up with a few return trips.
Our final night at anchor, we played a fleet-wide trivia game, posing questions over the radio. Our first question, “How many bones in the human foot?” When nobody got the answer, we realised that the answer, 26, was the same as our boat number, CV-26, and used that as a clue. We then made a theme of this. “How many letters in the alphabet?” Or my contribution, “If you have a Jefferson, and Lincoln, and a Washington, how many dollars do you have?” What can I say? It was the end of a long week.
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Here is a video shot during the training week by Canadian Mark. You can see me relaying winch instructions while Linda is up doing her rig check. I'm also the swimmer going in during the MOB drill. I did give a few short interviews, but that seems to have been left on the cutting room floor!
Monday 3 August 2015
Level 3 training
Honestly, Level 3 got off to a disappointing start.
First, there was a full day ISAF course. It was dull, dull, dull. Yes, all the safety lessons are important, but almost everything we were told, we'd heard before. What kind of new information did we get? Well, I did learn that you get a flow rate of 500l of water per minute through a three-inch hole... but what does that change? I would have known that a three-inch hole -- hell, any hole -- was bad news. There was some talk of how to improvise a mast fix or a rudder, but that would really all depend on the specific of the circumstance, what broke, and what you had left. Maybe the point was really just to reassure us that all this was possible, so we won't panic if something were to happen? Long day, lots of stories, one graphic picture of a 'de-gloved' finger, but really not sure what I got out of it all.
Next disappointment was finding out we weren't going to be on the 70's. We'd all been waiting to get on those boats, the ones we'll actually be racing, to learn what they're like. The main new lesson was supposed to be the spinnaker, and we were still going to learn that on the 68’s. But there's also a lot to learn about how the 70's are laid out -- winches are in different places, lines run differently, the whole layout below is different. Plus, we just really wanted to get on the cool new boats. It certainly wasn’t the end of the world, but but it was disappointing.
On a more positive note, it was great to see Christian, Banno, and Sam from Level 2. I started to feel a bit of that sense of “community” with these familiar faces. Also, when we got to the boat, it turned out Matt was going to be one of the instructors again, and I was really looking forward to sailing with him again. The other instructor, Al, seemed good as well, more low-key, but he was feeling a bit under the weather.
Again, the crew was a really interesting mix of people. I finally met my first teammate from Telemed, Tony, a Canadian who had been born in Viet Nam and is doing the full round-the-world in honor of the boat people. Aside from being a really nice guy, he seems like he’ll be an excellent guy to have along when we get to Da Nang! Dan is a UFC commentator and ex-fighter who goes by “The Animal” professionally. He talked a bit about the challenge of moving from an individual sport to a team sport, but turned out to be a great teammate and just a really nice guy. Terrance is a property developer and an owner of a few Brasilian BBQ places in Yorkshire. Karim is a wind farm engineer who was, ironically, going to be on a boat sponsored by a coal mining company. One guy (I’m drawing a blank on his name just now) was from Aruba, adding to the small country list from my Level 2 training. His sister is an Olympic sailor. I tried to impress him with my Aruba knowledge by mentioning Andruw Jones, the baseball player… who turned out to be from Curacao. Rich is the official cameraman for the race. He’ll be along on one boat or another for the whole race. Overall, another nice bunch of people, if a bit less banter than we’d had on the last training week.
I will say that this week I met the first person who didn’t pull their weight. To this point, I’d occasionally had issues with people who were too ‘Type A’, they wouldn’t listen to other people, they’d jump to get involved in everything, often leaving whatever they were doing unattended. It didn’t happen a lot, but there would maybe be one-in-ten who got like that. This person, on the other hand, just didn’t get involved. On the last day, when everyone else was cleaning the boat, she had an excuse to leave. And I understand she’d done the same on other training weeks. I only mention it because it was unique. Literally every other person I’ve met on Clipper has been really good about doing their share and looking for more.
The first day was some pretty basic sailing, just reefs in and out, some tacking, some gybing. It wasn’t really slick, but it was the first time working together as a crew, and it takes a while to learn to work together. The second day was similar, but at the end we got a bit of a kick in the ass from Matt and Al, telling us that we weren’t as sharp as we should be for this stage in our training and we were a bit lackadaisical about things. Personally, I put some of that down to Al’s low energy. But at the same time, we really could have been pushing ourselves more.
And the following day, we did. Things picked up a lot. We eventually got the spinnaker up, which was very cool and meant we were finally learning new stuff. It’s a tricky sail, for a number of reasons, which I’ll get into in another post. It also needs to be wooled after use. Wooling is a process of rolling it up from the three corners, tying the rolled up bits with light wool thread, so you turn the triangle of the sail into a ‘Y’. Then, when you hoist it, the wind fills it and pops the wool thread. Anyway, wooling is pretty hard work, and it happens down below, where conditions are hot and stuffy. Not the most fun part of sailing, but everyone got stuck in. By the end, I felt like we were pretty good with the spinnaker, gybing smoothly, keeping it trimmed, wooling and bagging it when were were done. Still would have been nice to have done it on the 70’s though!
Another thing that occurred to me this week was that I hate cooking on these boats, despite the fact that I normally like to cook. But the galley is just not a good kitchen, and we don’t have good tools, and cooking for 15+ people at a time is never going to be good anyway. The stove is too small to get much going. Water takes forever to boil. The knives are dull. The sink is too small to get the big pots in. And you’re trying to do this all while everything is tilted 30 degrees and you’re bouncing around. We were supposed to be making some stir fry, but we ended up basically just stewing the beef and vegetables together then pouring some jar sauce over. I was thinking if we would accept slightly worse food, we could save an enormous amount of effort. We could do a few hot meals with freeze dried pouch food, like from back in my backpacking days and do a lot of meal bars. Maybe after four straight weeks of that, not to mention several months overall, I’d come to a different conclusion on the effort/quality tradeoff.
We were all staying around to do Level 4 immediately afterward. Tony, Terrance, and I got in a few beers at the local pub, where we also met a few other Telemed folks, then finished off with a curry. So much for getting in a good night’s sleep before Level 4! But still a good way to finish another good week of training.
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