I think I'm doing this.
I just finished Level 1 training for the Clipper Race. This was a week of learning the basics of crewing a big racing yacht. I've done a little bit of sailing before, but nothing like this. This week was all about finding out whether sailing a big boat in bad weather had as much appeal as sailing a 35-footer in the sunny Mediterranean. And the answer is... not exactly. But it has something different, and something I could use just now.
There's much more of a team aspect to this kind of sailing than I expected. That's great when it works, but it also got frustrating at times. Each evening, we did a round robin, "What did you think of the day?" session. Night one and night two, it was all the same. "I really learned a lot. I had fun. I liked this. I liked that." But night three, it got around to me, and I broke form. "Honestly, I found today really frustrating. We're not functioning well as a team. Everyone is jumping to do everything, getting in each other's way, and leaving the last job with nobody doing it. It's like six-year-olds playing soccer, all swarming around the ball. There needs to be one person leading things. When Max (the skipper) is bossing us, we're fine. But when he just says 'go do it', it's chaos. Maybe my expectations are just going up faster than our ability, but it's driving me nuts."
Fortunately, people seemed to take it in the spirit it was intended. Not sure it made much difference, as fundamentally my expectations
were going up faster than our ability. But as we got a few more days of experience working together, our communication got better, and I could see how a team could emerge out of all this.
There was a lot of technical learning as well. Winch handling was key, how to safely and effectively get lines onto winches, grind them on, and ease them off. Hoisting sails, changing them, packing them away. Tacking, gybing, taking in reefs and shaking them out. Rowing around the dinghy. Man-over-board drills every day, sometimes twice. And we were doing this in some weather. It was near freezing much of the time. At one point, as we headed out, it was 30 knots of wind and hailing.
And of course, the people. I really wondered what kind of person would be doing something like this. You'd think that the fact I was thinking about it would be some assurance, but it wasn't that simple in my head. But as it turned out, it was a really good group. A lot of people I could really click with. A few others who, honestly, didn't feel like as much potential for a connection, but I could definitely see working together with them.
A little thinking about the timing of the race, the World Cup, and my notice period, and I think legs 4, 5, and 6 would work for me. I'd come in thinking I wanted to do the whole thing or not bother, but this compromise feels right. It's still about six months. It's the Pacific. It's Australia. And while it would be much cooler to say "I sailed around the world" than "I sailed almost half way around the world", this just works better.
