N 36 deg 04', E 156 deg 38' -- Race 9, Day 11

In order to not cause any unnecessary worry, I will point out at the start
that this story ends with everyone safe and sound and actually never in any
real danger. I want to make that clear, because it starts with someone
shouting "Man overboard!"

Hearing someone shout "Man overboard!" in a non-drill situation is a real
"Oh shit" moment. We're a long way from anything, and the sea is
unforgiving. MOB drills have been a big part of training, but you still
never really expect to use it. It was a relatively calm day, but only
relatively. We had just dropped the Yankee 2 for the Yankee 1. My legs were
under the sail, as after flaking, Ryan, Kat, and I had gone to work
replacing a couple of hanks. So that's my excuse for not jumping to action.
But everything else happened so quickly that I barely would have had time
to do anything anyway.

Calls followed. "Tethered overboard!" Slight relief. This meant the MOB was
tied to the boat and not going anywhere. Clipper acknowledge three MOB
incidents (all safely recovered) in the ten previous editions of the race.
They don't even (as far as I know) count tethered MOB's. I know of several
this year alone. Anyway, she had been throwing some food waste over the
side when a small wave came over or maybe we hit a wave, but she lost her
balance and slipped through the guardrails. But she was tethered in.

Next shouts, "Heave to!" and the helm turned us around without anyone
tacking sails. This basically stops the boat. It also swaps low side and
high side, so our MOB was now a bit higher out of the water and not getting
dragged along any more. Four people were already helping to pull her out,
and it was all over in under sixty seconds.

I watched this all from under the sail. My side had become the low side,
and I was now leaning back against the guardrails. Kat had sprawled out,
giving me one hand and grabbing an A-frame with the other, just in case I
slipped. I thanked her, but assured her I was well set where I was. She
said if I went, I'd probably drag her with me. I told her I was tethered in
and to let me go if it came to that. (Just to be clear, this was all
joking, not high drama. But I have to make this at least somewhat about my
experience. That's the point of having a blog!)

In the end, she drank a bit of seawater, slightly aggravated an old
shoulder injury while being hauled out by her arms, and lost a contact.
Doug, who leads Searvh and Rescue teams up in Canada, checked her
out and confirmed she was OK. Mostly, she was shaken up. Everyone else a
bit as well. But as I said at the start, no harm done and no real danger.

In wildlife news, we've started seeing albatross. A few people thought they
were confined to the Southern Ocean, but I had seen in Wikipedia that there
are North Pacific albatorss. Still really impressive birds. And today, we
saw a seal. I spotted a patch of seaweed with something black near it. On a
closer look, I could see it was a flipper. Then he popped his head up and
had a look as we sailed by. He's a long way away from any land out here.

3510 nm to go.

N 35 dag 23', E 151 deg 53' -- Race 9, Day 10

Eventful last couple of days.

Yesterday, we sailed right into a fairly lively region of low pressure.
Peak gusts of 75 knots, lots into the 50's, plenty of water over the deck.
It came up quickly in the morning and lasted most of the day, another
example of the weather forecasts being not too accurate. I was on mother
duty, so I stayed dry but got to cook and wash up in some inconvenient
conditions. It pretty much settled down by the time I came back on for 2am
watch, though it was still a fair amount of work.

Previous day's highlight was dolphins, lots of them. It started when I
noticed lots of sea birds all around, and I said there must be something
going on below the surface to be drawing them. (I remember this from a
David Attenborough series. Blue Planet?) Soon, we saw fish jumping out of
the water, then dolphins jumping. Pretty soon, there was a fair group of
them around, fifty, maybe more. But then the real fun started. Off in the
distance, we saw a lot more splashing and heard a sound like a waterfall,
slowly getting louder. A huge number of dolphins were coming towards us,
leaping out of the water as they came, across a front hundreds of yards
wide and maybe fifty yards deep. Hundreds of them easily. I guessed a
thousand, though that was the highest guess. In a minute, they had
surrounded our boat. Shortly after, they were gone. Only negative, I
thought I had pressed record on my camera, but I hadn't. I got the very end
of them heading off, but I'll just have to rely on memory.

Another highlight of the past few days was sailing in close proximity to a
bunch of other boats. We were within sight of four, part of the lead group.
We were even within about 100 yards of Derry at one point. It's amazing
after this much racing to be so close, and it's great to be in the lead
group. We did separate a bit as the weather picked up. We're still pretty
tightly bunched, but it's not as personal.

One lowlight was me snapping at some crewmates (and the skipper) over food.
Or maybe the real lowlight was their making it necessary for me to snap,
depending on where you want to place the blame. Food is a bit tight on
these boats, and it's tighter on this race than in the past. I think this
is because we've gone from twelve crew (six women) to fourteen (three
women), but we still cook, e.g., 1.5 kg of pasta as standard. Anyway, two
days ago, Tom had cooked a really nice noodle stir fry. I was the last to
get served, so I was still only half done when seconds came on offer.
Pretty much everyone leapt forward like pigs at a trough. Several them
clamoured for bigger seconds when I (and one other) hadn't had any yet.
Some creative swearing ensued. I got my seconds.

Which reminds me of a time back on Race 7 when someone said something about
growing up in a big family teaching you how to be aggressive about getting
food. I answered that I grew up in a family where we put enough food on the
table that we didn't have to act like animals to have a meal. Touche.

One other lowlight. My bunk has developed a leak, or maybe a condensation
drip, right over my face.

3730 nm to go.

N 34 deg 05', E 145 deg 18' -- Race 9, Day 8

A lot has happened since my last post.

First, we destroyed our medium-weight spinnaker. Now, "we destroyed" is
probably not an entirely fair use of the active voice. I don't think we did
anything wrong this time.* It's just one of those things that happens when
you push a sail to its limits. Overall, I think we still have a much better
record on sail damage than most boats. Anyway, about 3m below the head,
there's a horizontal tear in from the luff. Partway along, it T's off
downward, and a massive tear runs all the way to the clew. It's bad, but
we're working on repairing it. Matt said it's not the worst tear he's ever
had to repair at sea, but he said it in that way that makes me suspect he's
possibly not being entirely honest in the interest of keeping us motivated.
We'll see how it goes. Even with that, his estimate is five days of round-
the-clock work to get it fixed.

* I did spend most of my time in Qingdao re-doing or reinforcing old
repairs to this sail. And I did say that if these repairs didn't hold, we
should just fly the thing until it exploded. I did say "if", and my repairs
did hold, so I refuse to take the blame for a jinx.

We have also had a lot of sail changes. This highlight was a drop of the
Yankee 1 (the biggest headsail) when it was gusting to 50. The thing is, as
the wind changes, it's much easier to adjust your main (reef in and out)
than change a headsail. So, if you think the wind is going to peak at a
speed where your current headsail is OK, you keep it up and reef. Then,
when the wind dies down, you can shake out reefs, and you would have saved
a lot of effort and maintained a lot of boat speed. But if the wind builds
more than you expect, you can end up with a really tough takedown. Matt is
generally pretty conservative this way, but this time the wind got away a
bit. He might be pushing a bit harder with the better crew we have now. The
last really big Yankee 1 drop I can remember was back in Leg 4. The last
leg, we went to smaller sails pretty quickly. And we have the crew to
handle it safely. It's just a lot of work.

That said, I report on most of this second-hand, because I was laid out
with a stomach bug. Two days ago, I started the 2-6am watch on the helm.
About 45 minutes in, I felt a bit faint, called Tom to take over, and sat
down. Within a couple of minutes, I felt better, but by the end of watch,
my stomach was cramping up. I'll spare you the details, but I blame the
day-old prawn curry I had supplemented my lunch with the day before. I
slept for almost 30 hours straight, which blew my track record of having
shown up to every watch, which was pretty disappointing. But I'm feeling
much improved now, and I've been up for the last two watches. I'm not 100%
strength, but I did take two trips up to the bow for sail changes before
declining a third to take a cockpit job instead.

One final note. It looks like we're currently at almost the exact latitude
of Channel Islands Harbor. Hi Mom and Dad!. For the wider audience, that's
just north of LA. Point being, I shouldn't be getting too comfortable with
the thoroughly bearable temperatures we've had so far. It's a long way
north to Seattle. It's also a long way east. When I zoom all the way out on
our nav computer, it still won't show both our position and Seattle on the
screen. Of course, 4050 nm to go sums it up pretty neatly as well.

N 32 deg 08', E 136 deg 26' -- Race 9, Day 5

Another quick one, since it's 10PM, I just got off watch, and I need to
grab some sleep while I can.

You may have noticed (I have) a lot of recurring themes in this blog.
Today's: Wow, the weather changes fast out here.

Two nights ago, we rounded Japan (actually the southern tip of Kyushu(?))
in second place. Unlike some previous races, this was a legitimate second
for us. We weren't off on some course of our own that flattered our
apparent position while being poor for the long-term. We were right within
sight of the "traditional" race leaders, just in front of most of them,
after making the most of several days of light but steady sailing.

By the time morning rolled around, we were in the Pacific proper, and
things were a lot more lively. The wind was up, and we were headed straight
into it (or as straight into it as you can sail this boat). The swells were
picking up too and the ride was getting pretty bouncy. By the afternoon, we
were getting 40 knot winds steady with gusts in the 50's (compared to a
forecast of 25). Reefs were in, and we were down to the Yankee 3, our small
headsail. We broke a batten, and had to drop the main to replace it. During
the night, the wind eased a bit, and we shook out some reefs, but we
snapped the third reefing line in the process. This morning, I was among
those woken up an hour early (brutal when you only have four hours off) to
help take in a reef again, as the wind had built up. Over the course of our
morning watch, we then shook out all the way to full main. At lunch the
combined watches changed up to the Yankee 1. During the afternoon watch,
the other guys shifted to spinnaker, then to windseeker. And over the past
four hours, we've been trying to get what we could out of 3-6 knot puffs of
air from no consistent direction. We've dropped a bit to around sixth,
partly because of the damage and partly just not being as good beating
upwind as we are downwind (I think), but still right in the thick of a
closely packed fleet.

We do expect the wind to pick up again soon, and it should be from a better
direction, allowing us faster, more pleasant, and better (for us relative
to the fleet) downwind sailing. We'll see if it delivers. Just over 4500 nm
to go. A long way, a lot can happen.

=?utf-8?Q?N 32 deg 02', =C2=A3 127 deg 38' -- Race 9, Day 3?=

Not a lot new to report since yesterday. Sailing conditions remain pretty
relaxed. The wind has come up and down and shifted around a bit, leading us
to change sails a number of times -- Yankee 1, Code 1, Code 2, windseeker,
back and forth -- but it's all gone smoothly, and it looks like we're
making the most of what wind we have. We remain within sight of LMAX,
overall race leader, covering their moves and even closing the gap slowly.
The temperature, while not exactly warm, is reasonably comfortable, as
long as I'm wearing a lot of clothes (though I still have a fair amount in
reserve). We're still picking our way around a lot of fishing boats,
floats, and nets, which can be fairly tense, but we've kept clear so far.

Still early days -- total remaining distance just ticked under 5000 nm
today -- but all good so far.

***************************************

Two notes for anyone meeting (or thinking of meeting) me in Seattle. First,
the finish line is off an island way out off the Olympic Peninsula,
basically (I think) at the entrance to Puget Sound. Just too much traffic
and too little space in the Sound itself, so we motor about 120 nm from
there to Bell Harbor Marina. This means that seeing the actual finish will
be even harder than I had expected. You'd have to be ridiculously dedicated
to head all the way out there to see us cross an arbitrary line at an
unpredictable time, after which I'd just sail past anyway. On the other
hand, it does mean that my actual arrival at the Marina should be more
predictable, with (I'd guess) about 15 hours lead time during which a drop
in the wind wouldn't slow us down. (I'm told to boat sat bobbing in the
water immediately outside Rio for hours, unable to make the finish line in
dead air.) I'll have immigration and customs to clear at the Marina,
but that should be pretty quick.

Second, I don't know much about the activities planned for Seattle. I
should be able to show you around the boat pretty much any time. There will
be a prize-giving party though I don't know the date or if friends and
family will be invited. Word is the skipper of the Seattle boat will be
throwing out the first pitch at a Mariners game and that he can't throw, so
that could be funny, but I don't know the date. I'll let you know more as I
know, but Clipper is not particularly good at keeping us informed in
advance.

N 33 deg 48', E 124 deg 16' -- Race 9, Day 2

Actually our third day on the water, but only the second day of racing. As
I mentioned in the last post, we opened with a Potemkin start. Conditions
around Qingdao are terrible for racing, with loads of fish traps and a lot
of commercial traffic. However, the city is an important partner for
Clipper, and appearances matter, so after the speaches and departure
ceremony (broadcast on live TV!), we faked a race start. Most boats,
including us, didn't seem to be trying very hard, as absolutely nothing was
on the line. A few boats hoisted kites for the downwind leg. I can't
imagine why. After sailng out a few miles, we dropped headsails, turned on
engines, and motored along the shipping channel through the night.

The next day, at 9am, we started the actual race. It was a Le Mans start,
something invented by Clipper, where the boats line up with mains up, crew
near the stern, and engine running. With one minute to go, you cut engine.
At race start, crew can move forward and hoist sails. For ten minutes, you
maintain course and sails, but you can get ahead through better trim. After
that, you're free to do whatever you want. We had a pretty good start, with
sails up really quickly, but we then lost a bit of ground, probably due to
trim. A few boats hoisted kites early but had to bear away to keep them. We
waited, but eventually a wind shift came and our kite went up too. Initial
racing went well. I was driving as we passed Ichorcoal. (They seemed to
have put someone on the helm who couldn't hold a straight course.)

Night watch got a bit more complicated, as we came into a region full of
fishing nets. We were just a little way behind Da Nang as they got caught
in one. We offered assistance, but they said they were managing OK and
seemed to be moving again after 30 minutes or so. Meanwhile, we picked our
way through, not really sure what the lighting conventions were (if any),
sometimes spotting unlit lines of floats just a few feet from the boat and
turning to avoid. Winds were light, the sea was calm, and the moon was
bright, which all helped. No idea how we made it through here on the way
up.

I've been on mother duty today, cooking and washing up, but the sailing has
remained pretty quiet. We're moving, but not fast, and the sea is nearly
flat. Actually not a bad way to start, as we've had four people in various
stages of getting over stomach flu, plus Matt with a head cold. Easing
people in without seasickness problems as well, but we'll see how that
holds as conditions pick up. We're expecting 25 knots or so tomorrow, from
a good direction. The long-range forecast is looking promising for when we
round Japan, but we're not counting on that at all.

With the light winds and the move south, the cold hasn't been too bad yet.
By "not too bad", I mean 10C (50F) down below this morning (we now have a
thermometer) and maybe 5C (40F) on deck. So definitely not warm, but not as
cold as on the way up. And, unfortunately, not as cold as it's going to be.
We have a "virtual beach" at N 45 latitude for much of the course, but
that's still about 700 miles north of where we are now, and I expect we're
going to be going that way faster than spring does. But that's Future
Mark's problem. For now, I can sit in medium-weight thermals, a mid-layer,
and wool socks in relative comfort... as long as I'm below deck.

One final note for today. Words can't express how much better the
atmosphere is now than on the last leg, and I like to think I'm pretty good
at expressing things with words. It's still early, and we haven't been
tested, and I'm sure that as things get tougher, some cracks will appear.
But I'm as confident as I can be that they won't be serious. The new and
returning guys are all looking very good. People are not only pulling their
own weight, but they're actively looking for places to pitch in. People may
be slightly rusty after a while away, but they're all much sharper than
some people on the last leg after a month and a half of sailing. Sure,
there's still a range of capability, but overall it is much, much better.
And with that comes much better inter-personal relationships as well. In an
environment like this, if someone doesn't earn your respect with their
work, it's pretty much impossible to look past that to how them might be a
nice enough person in a different context.

So, feeling very positive. Looking forward to it continuing.

Qingdao, pre-departure

We set sail today. Fourteen crew, which is a bit lighter than initially expected. Nick, a former round-the-worlder who left in Albany and rejoined in Da Nang, re-left here. It took him about two days to confirm that this was not how he wanted to spend his time. Paul, who also joined us in Da Nang because issues with his Viet Nam visa had kept him from joining another boat in Airlie Beach, isn't leaving with us because of issues with his Chinese visa. Seems to be a bit of a pattern.

I am very optimistic about the crew we do have. Ryan and Justin are back after missing the last race. Three others joining have done previous legs. And the other two new joiners come with experience and great attitudes. One, Tom, I sailed with during training, and I've been looking forward to his joining for a while. The deadest of the dead weight from the last leg is gone. Overall, a massive improvement in quality despite the modest increase in numbers.

Unfortunately, we do have three guys currently laid low by a stomach bug. I ate dinner with them the last two nights before they all got it, but so far seem to have dodged the bullet. Hope it clears quickly for them. We don't actually expect to start racing for about 24 hours, as we'll motor out of the busy, fishing-gear-filled waters immediately around Qingdao after a ceremonial start. Might give everyone a chance to get back to full strength.

We expect the Pacific to be our biggest test, certainly the biggest since I've joined the boat. I'll admit to being a bit nervous. I'm not really worried about the wind or the waves. I know they'll be huge, but I feel well enough prepared to them (though maybe that just shows I don't really know how huge they'll be!). Mostly, I'm worried about the cold. It really gave me trouble the last few days coming up here, and we'll be going even further north, for longer. Spring is advancing rapidly, but not rapidly enough. I have a lot of warm gear, but I wasn't able to add as much here as I would have liked. Not much to be done about ti now though.

Hope to blog this race reliably, so keep checking for updates!

N 36 deg 4', E 120 deg 24' -- Race 8, finish

That's the location of my hotel room at the Crown Plaza :)

Just a quick post to say that I've made it to Qingdao. It was a tough race, upwind most of the way, some heavy weather, lots of fishing boats to keep clear of, lots of things breaking on the boat. The cold the last few days nearly broke me. But we're here now. The hosts seem really happy to have us, and the locals have been very welcoming. Like, I think, much of China, Qingdao is a shockingly big city for something that would be completely unknown if not for the beer.

I'll post something in the coming days with a bit more about how the race went. We have a new keyboard coming, so I should be able to report more regularly from the Pacific crossing. Meanwhile, facebook (among other things) is blocked here, and my phone is still not working, so other communication out will be limited.

Off now to the prize giving ceremony and a few drinks!

N 25 deg 18', E 124 deg 02' -- Race 8, Day 9

Quick update. The keyboard is now completely broken, so I'm using the nav
computer. Not sure I'm really supposed to be doing this, but since it's
midnight and things are very quiet, I think nobody will mind.

Biggest personal news is that I've come down with a cold. There's a bit
going around. Not too many people to catch things from out here, but two
people got on with colds, and I think it was inevitable it would spread
eventually. In normal life, I'd work from home for a couple of days and
that would be it. Out here though, it's hard to "dial in" to a sail change.
I'm determined to answer the bell for every watch, but I'm definitely not
100% effective. My comparative advantage is grinding winches and lifting
heavy things, and this has sapped my energy. But these things still have to
be done, and I still end up in the half of the crew doing them, just more
slowly than normal.

Conditions have gotten quiet. It's a welcome respite, though it comes with
the significant downside that we aren't making much progress toward
Qingdao. Still in with a chance of arrival on the 11th, though things will
have to pick up a bit, as they should in a couple of days. I think we
should be using this to rest people a bit more, but Matt has had other
ideas. We put the Code 1 (the big spinnaker) up at the 2am watch last
night. This is a huge piece of work, both hoisting it and wooling/packing
it away when done. It stayed up for 30 minutes. Then, at lunchtime today,
he wanted us to pull up and wash floorboards and clean out bilges. I can't
deny the boat is now cleaner, but I'm not sure that was the best use of
time and energy from a tired crew.

We've seen a few pods of dolphins over the last days, though we seem to be
too slow for them to bother playing around with us much. There were some
other mystery leaping fish this evening as well as occasional remaining
flying fish, but wildlife is pretty thin overall. Shipping traffic, on the
other hand, it thick. At one point last night, we had no fewer than seven
other ships in sight. One tried to signal us in Morse by light rather than
radio for some reason. We decided to avoid, ducking behind but still
passing very close. It was ENORMOUS. Earlier tonight, the other watch say
they saw a US aircraft carrier. Not surprised there's one around, but I am
surprised we got that close.

We passed by Okinawa earlier today. That was pretty cool. We've seen a few
other picturesque islands off Taiwan as well and some nice sunsets. Right
now, we have a clear sky and lots of stars.

The boat keeps falling apart, but we keep fixing it... mostly. We have a
fix for the mast track, again a bit of a kludge, but it's enough that we're
sailing with a main again. We're having some problems with the connection
from the pedestal to the port primary (i.e. the thing that allows up to
four people to grind a winch together for big jobs connection to one of the
big winches), but it is partially fixed. We were having trouble with the
generator (which I really like to point out, as Clipper Race Office
censored an earlier mention of generator problems from the Skipper blog),
but that seems to be fixed now. Our one remaining problem is the inner
forestay. A split pin sheared, leaving the connecting pin to partially slip
out and the bracket to bend before it was caught. Fortunately, it was
caught before it leg go completely, but several repair attempts have been
unsuccessful, and it probably just has to wait for a new bracket in
Qingdao. This means we can't fly a staysail (a smallish headsail that hangs
from the inner forestay). This costs us a bit of speed, but it does making
tacking simpler and frees up some winches for reefing, so glass half-full
and all that.

That's all for now. I'll try post more updates if I can, but it will
continue to be hit-and-miss until the keyboard gets replaced in Qingdao.

N 21 deg 02', E 118 deg 22' -- Race 8, Day 6

Apologies for the lack of blogs, especially to my mom, my most loyal
reader. Three issues: we're REALLY short-handed, conditions have been
tough, and (the big one)the keyboard is broken.

We're down to twelve crew now, the absolute minimum we're allowed to sail
with. We lost five from the last race Three were sick/injured most of that
race, so we don't really miss them. But two others, Ryan and Justin, are
big losses. And Ryan had a good music collection. He set me up with
all-Rush playlists a few times for helming and mother watch, though his
Van Halen selection is a bit heavy on Sammy Hagar era. Fortunately,
they'll be back for the next leg. We also picked up Nick (a returning
crewmember) and Paul and Kat from other boats. But still, some crew are
not super useful. Others are good but limited. I'm one of six, maybe seven,
who get called in for any big, physical job, even if it's in the middle
of our already short downtime. Result. tired.

And there has been a lot of physical work. We've been sailing upwind,
always tough. We've seen 40+knots and 5m swells. We were planning to be
conservative about sail changes so as not to burn people out. But then we
found ourselves in the lead, so that plan got chucked. And a modification
to the main that the race office insisted on to stop reefing lines
snapping but nobody thought would work didn't work, so we had to drop the
main, re-rig it, and re-hoist, all while at sea. Then the repair to
the main track from the problem we had shortly after I joined failed, so we
had to drop the main again, and we've been sailing without it for two days
now, though we might have a fix in mind. In short, it's been hard.

But the keyboard may be the biggest problem. Just this little bit has taken
nearly an hour to type, and hours are just really hard to come by these
days. I'll try to get in some more updates as I can, but it's going to be
lighter than previous races. Again, apologies. You can get some news
(though lacking my flair and personal touch) from the skipper reports and
official crew diaries. Hope to be back to regular reporting for the Pacific
crossing.