Tuesday, 27 September 2011
Monday, 26 September 2011
Tuesday, 30 August 2011
"There be whales!"
As race end approaches it is becoming more difficult to sleep in the 'off watch'. All minds are focused on the race and keeping the nautical miles smoothly slipping beneath our keel.
Kat (one of my crew mates on Starboard watch) has generously offered to swap 'mother duties' with me for today. The reason I had asked for this is I didn't want to spend the last day of the race in the 'galley'. It would have been a shame to come all this way, and had been washing up as we entered Rio! I'm sure I would have been on deck with everyone else, but I really wanted to be 'sailing' the boat that day and have the opportunity to take 'Welcome to Yorkshire' across the line. Kat being a generous soul offered me this as she will be going on to Leg 2 and 3, so will be seeing a further two race finishes.
During our daily crew meeting, an 'eagle-eyed' crew member spotted a 'fin' poking out of the water about a mile off our starboard beam. It was the unmistakeable fluke of a whale! Almost waving at the boat! The long white fin waved about as it slapped the water (clear behaviour of the Humpback whale). As time went on we spotted a further three Humpbacks in the 'pod'!
The final sighting of the group was that of a huge tail rising into the air, as the giant mammal slipped beneath the surface to begin a huge dive into the deep blue depths!
Regrettably I could not take any photos as my little Fuji-film could not focus on such a range, and the wobbly film I took does not do the event any justice!
We are now sailing dead downwind, under our huge lightweight Spinnaker sail! The hoist went well, and again Jim (our watch leader) ensured I was in the midst of all the action on the bow. Great fun, and very satisfying to see this 'tennis court' sized sail take off into the air over our bow!
Now the really tiring bit will start as we must concentrate on keeping it flying all the way to our next waypoint (a headland called Cabo Sao Tome), which is currently just over 200 nautical miles away. Sounds far, but that is not a long distance in a 68ft ocean racing yacht travelling at 10-12 knots!
The major perk of being on Mother Watch is that you come off the normal 'watch rota'. So once the crew are fed and watered, you have free time. As well as organising your kit and bunk for the next few days, it is also a great chance to catch up on sleep. So tonight I will have a good solid 8-9 hours of kip! Need to make sure the 'batteries' are fully recharged, ready for the last 48 hours of the race! COME ON ‘WELCOME TO YORKSHIRE’!!!!
Kat (one of my crew mates on Starboard watch) has generously offered to swap 'mother duties' with me for today. The reason I had asked for this is I didn't want to spend the last day of the race in the 'galley'. It would have been a shame to come all this way, and had been washing up as we entered Rio! I'm sure I would have been on deck with everyone else, but I really wanted to be 'sailing' the boat that day and have the opportunity to take 'Welcome to Yorkshire' across the line. Kat being a generous soul offered me this as she will be going on to Leg 2 and 3, so will be seeing a further two race finishes.
During our daily crew meeting, an 'eagle-eyed' crew member spotted a 'fin' poking out of the water about a mile off our starboard beam. It was the unmistakeable fluke of a whale! Almost waving at the boat! The long white fin waved about as it slapped the water (clear behaviour of the Humpback whale). As time went on we spotted a further three Humpbacks in the 'pod'!
The final sighting of the group was that of a huge tail rising into the air, as the giant mammal slipped beneath the surface to begin a huge dive into the deep blue depths!
Regrettably I could not take any photos as my little Fuji-film could not focus on such a range, and the wobbly film I took does not do the event any justice!
We are now sailing dead downwind, under our huge lightweight Spinnaker sail! The hoist went well, and again Jim (our watch leader) ensured I was in the midst of all the action on the bow. Great fun, and very satisfying to see this 'tennis court' sized sail take off into the air over our bow!
Now the really tiring bit will start as we must concentrate on keeping it flying all the way to our next waypoint (a headland called Cabo Sao Tome), which is currently just over 200 nautical miles away. Sounds far, but that is not a long distance in a 68ft ocean racing yacht travelling at 10-12 knots!
The major perk of being on Mother Watch is that you come off the normal 'watch rota'. So once the crew are fed and watered, you have free time. As well as organising your kit and bunk for the next few days, it is also a great chance to catch up on sleep. So tonight I will have a good solid 8-9 hours of kip! Need to make sure the 'batteries' are fully recharged, ready for the last 48 hours of the race! COME ON ‘WELCOME TO YORKSHIRE’!!!!
Monday, 29 August 2011
A tall ship, and a star to steer her by...
H Melville's words have been resonating in my ears for the past week. I have done a fair amount of 'night sailing' so far on this race, but crossing into the southern hemisphere has made it a bit more special!I've spent a lot of time trying to get to know some of the constellations and stars here. Any knowledge I have regarding astro-navigation is purely based on the night sky of the Northern hemisphere! Not a great deal of use in the South Atlantic!
The twin stars of 'Centurious' are very clear, and has been my navigational fix for over a week now. As the night moves on I tend to follow 'Scorpius' (I believe is its correct name). It is essentially a giant Scorpion floating in the heavens! The curve of the sting and two sharp pincers can be clearly made out.
The Milky Way can be clearly identified (typically running North to South). With no light pollution from artificial lighting, every star is clearly visible!
We are also treated to a nightly show of shooting stars! It's hard not to miss them as I spend most of my time looking up, trimming the sails!
Over the past few nights our Watch Leader (Jim) has passed responsibility for calling the trim on the head sails to me. This involves standing on the bow, with waves sweeping across the foredeck, attempting to communicate instructions to the rest of the crew who are just behind the mast! It has been a lot of fun, and I have learned so much from this experience. I have now developed 'trim OCD'! Instructions are communicated to the crew on the winches by a mixture of hand signals and shouts. As I walk forward I always 'eye ball' the helm, and ask them not to 'dunk me'! This is frequently ignored, and gives the rest of the watch a good giggle! There is nothing more satisfying than returning from the 'pointy end' of the yacht, having been repeatedly dowsed by the Atlantic for five minutes, and told that the boat speed has increased by 1 knot (that type of increase over a 1,000 nautical mile distance can shorten your race by days)!
Life on board is going well. We are working hard to maintain our position, as well as put pressure on 'Gold Coast Australia' (who currently lead). We receive a race schedule every six hours, so we can clearly identify if we have made any gains or losses on the rest of the fleet. So far we have had lots of good news, as we make steady progress to Rio! The next 'sched' is due soon, so fingers crossed we continue with our 'gains' on the rest of the fleet!
The blessing of King Neptune
It has now been two days since we crossed the equator! Moving from the Northern hemisphere into the warm tropical south! We crossed over at about 18:30 local time, with both starboard and port watch present on deck to witness the occasion! Crossing the Equator by sea for the first time is a very special occasion. We upheld the traditional custom of honouring King Neptune with a small tipple of ship's grog - which came in the form of some plum liquor (made locally by Rupert's family in Somerset). We were warned to expect a visit from King Neptune himself the next day!
As 'predicted' by our Skipper, King Neptune did arrive on deck precisely on time at 16:30! Donned in gold and blue, and armed with his mighty trident, he called the crew to 'court' so he could decide if we were 'worthy' to continue to sail his seas.
We were called out in turn, and a list of 'charges' were brought against us! These were in the form of faux pas committed since leaving Southampton at the end of July. It was very entertaining as we were all passed forward to the 'dip' (a small paddling pool full of out of date UHT milk, and sweetcorn)! Neptune himself took great pleasure in ladling the concoction on the crew, and gave us each a blessing for our onward journey!
The next day, Neptune's blessing was truly fulfilled as the breeze freshened, and allowed us to push the boat faster! ‘Welcome to Yorkshire’ accelerated, and held an average of 9-10 knots!
King Neptune also saw fit to bless us with an escort, in the shape of some bottlenose dolphin! Much larger than the Common Dolphin we had seen in Biscay! They played happily around our bow for over 10 minutes before disappearing off into the distance.
We were visited again later that afternoon by another pod of Dolphin. This time we were sailing in some very heavy seas, with the boat really rolling in the heavy conditions. What was impressive for me was the way the dolphins had seen / heard us some way off and made a 'beeline' for us! They shot out of the rolling surf in a spectacular aerial display as they approached, and manoeuvred effortlessly through the rapid currents that engulfed our bows. It was a truly magical moment!
Whilst on watch, we have been trimming the sails continually. 'Gold Coast Australia' and 'Singapore' seemed to pull away at one stage, but today we have seen the 'fruits of our labour' and have now overtaken ‘Singapore’, and are closing in on our Aussie friends!Our attention is not only on the boats in front, but also on the boats behind us. Whilst we have made some exceptional gains on some of the boats in the rear pack, we are very mindful of those who are chasing us directly, particularly our friends on the ‘New York’ Clipper. She is the one to watch out for after having such a great finish to Race 1. We are attempting to 'cover' her approach in an effort to not only protect our position, but build on our gains on 'Gold Coast'.
Today we have just completed our 'speed trial', which is a timed run between 4 and 5 degrees of latitude. The fastest boat will win an additional point. We have 'sailed the wheels off it' and hope to collect an extra point at race finish!
It is exciting to see Brazil so close on our charts, although we are still very much out at sea. With just under 1,000 miles left, the excitement is building on board 'Welcome to Yorkshire'!
Monday, 22 August 2011
The heat is on!
Since writing last a great deal has happened. Sometimes we have a series of very demanding watches and all you want to do is dry off and collapse in your bunk. So apologies for the delay in posting this.
All is going well on ‘Welcome to Yorkshire’. We have led the race for quite a few days heading into the dreaded 'Doldrums'! A windless band of ocean stretching from east to west, which likes to leave boats in 'wind holes' for days on end. This particular area sees high and low pressure systems colliding, giving birth to the hurricanes and storms that rocket through the Caribbean Islands and south east states of North America. Many of our views on what we expected did not transpire (thankfully!) and we only spent less than half a day 'bobbing' around in a windless part of ocean!
We are now through and currently beating into the winds we have, desperately trying to pick up the trade winds that will blow us all the way to Rio!
As for the race itself it has been pretty full on. We have led for much of the way, but it seems that some of the other boats strategies on getting through the ‘Doldrums’ have paid off a bit better than ours! We are currently in third place behind 'Singapore' (2nd place) and ‘Gold Coast Australia’ (1st). We keep reminding ourselves that this is a marathon and not a sprint. Everything is still very much up for grabs over this last stretch of 2,000 miles.
Life on board has taken on a more customary 35 degree tilt as we 'beat' into the wind using our white sails. I for one am pleased to see the end of the downwind sailing under the huge spinnaker sails from our wardrobe. Spinnakers take an awful lot of management to keep flying, not to mention the concentration on keeping that fine balance of the sail stalling and flying to attain the perfect speed.
We have seen some amazing sights over the past few days. On the evening of regaining our wind from the ‘Doldrums’ we witnessed the amazing sight of phosphorescence given off in our bow wave, lighting our way for miles! I can only describe it as a carpet of stars stretching as far as the eye could see! We also saw huge mysterious balls of luminescent light all around the boat. As far as we could determine we believe that these were huge Jelly Fish, migrating across the Atlantic! You can begin to understand why the original mariners came back to land with tales of 'strange' creatures or ghosts flying past their ships!
Flying fish have been a common sight since we left Madeira. The only difference now is that they are getting bigger the more south we go! They jump out of the water and seem to fly for ages! I wonder if a 'school' of flying fish become a 'flock' of flying fish once they take flight?
As a crew we are definitely entering the 'endurance' part of our trip. Life is made difficult below decks with our little fibre-glass world taking on a new angle of 30 degrees. Actually being on deck is the easy part. Manoeuvring from your bunk to the galley is a challenge to say the least! Watch change-over seems to resemble a team game of 'Twister'!
We are also enjoying the daily increase in temperature as we continue to sail south. On deck seems to be fine, it's only when you go below deck and the sweltering heat hits you. We have a few fans, but on this current point of sail, we can’t have any hatches open other than the main companionway located in the cockpit.
Despite all these challenging conditions we are working well together as a crew. I am on Starboard watch, and am very lucky to be working with some people who are very committed to sailing, but do it in great humour! Our recent chat involved describing who would be your all-time top four people you would have dinner with! There were some very interesting parties suggested, but I went for Nelson Mandela, Eric Morcambe, Horatio Nelson and Bill Beaumont!
As a watch we have had a very demanding 72 hours, as we have had to undertake a great number of sail changes (mostly at night). This has often resulted in a good dunking when on the foredeck! The saving grace is that the water is warm and the wind dries you off within 10 minutes! Totally different from our old training ground, the English Channel!
Going to turn in for a few hours now, so I can be fresh on for my next watch (22:00 - 02:00), keen to hunt down our Austrailian / Singaporian quarry!
All is going well on ‘Welcome to Yorkshire’. We have led the race for quite a few days heading into the dreaded 'Doldrums'! A windless band of ocean stretching from east to west, which likes to leave boats in 'wind holes' for days on end. This particular area sees high and low pressure systems colliding, giving birth to the hurricanes and storms that rocket through the Caribbean Islands and south east states of North America. Many of our views on what we expected did not transpire (thankfully!) and we only spent less than half a day 'bobbing' around in a windless part of ocean!
We are now through and currently beating into the winds we have, desperately trying to pick up the trade winds that will blow us all the way to Rio!
As for the race itself it has been pretty full on. We have led for much of the way, but it seems that some of the other boats strategies on getting through the ‘Doldrums’ have paid off a bit better than ours! We are currently in third place behind 'Singapore' (2nd place) and ‘Gold Coast Australia’ (1st). We keep reminding ourselves that this is a marathon and not a sprint. Everything is still very much up for grabs over this last stretch of 2,000 miles.
Life on board has taken on a more customary 35 degree tilt as we 'beat' into the wind using our white sails. I for one am pleased to see the end of the downwind sailing under the huge spinnaker sails from our wardrobe. Spinnakers take an awful lot of management to keep flying, not to mention the concentration on keeping that fine balance of the sail stalling and flying to attain the perfect speed.
We have seen some amazing sights over the past few days. On the evening of regaining our wind from the ‘Doldrums’ we witnessed the amazing sight of phosphorescence given off in our bow wave, lighting our way for miles! I can only describe it as a carpet of stars stretching as far as the eye could see! We also saw huge mysterious balls of luminescent light all around the boat. As far as we could determine we believe that these were huge Jelly Fish, migrating across the Atlantic! You can begin to understand why the original mariners came back to land with tales of 'strange' creatures or ghosts flying past their ships!
Flying fish have been a common sight since we left Madeira. The only difference now is that they are getting bigger the more south we go! They jump out of the water and seem to fly for ages! I wonder if a 'school' of flying fish become a 'flock' of flying fish once they take flight?
As a crew we are definitely entering the 'endurance' part of our trip. Life is made difficult below decks with our little fibre-glass world taking on a new angle of 30 degrees. Actually being on deck is the easy part. Manoeuvring from your bunk to the galley is a challenge to say the least! Watch change-over seems to resemble a team game of 'Twister'!
We are also enjoying the daily increase in temperature as we continue to sail south. On deck seems to be fine, it's only when you go below deck and the sweltering heat hits you. We have a few fans, but on this current point of sail, we can’t have any hatches open other than the main companionway located in the cockpit.
Despite all these challenging conditions we are working well together as a crew. I am on Starboard watch, and am very lucky to be working with some people who are very committed to sailing, but do it in great humour! Our recent chat involved describing who would be your all-time top four people you would have dinner with! There were some very interesting parties suggested, but I went for Nelson Mandela, Eric Morcambe, Horatio Nelson and Bill Beaumont!
As a watch we have had a very demanding 72 hours, as we have had to undertake a great number of sail changes (mostly at night). This has often resulted in a good dunking when on the foredeck! The saving grace is that the water is warm and the wind dries you off within 10 minutes! Totally different from our old training ground, the English Channel!
Going to turn in for a few hours now, so I can be fresh on for my next watch (22:00 - 02:00), keen to hunt down our Austrailian / Singaporian quarry!
Tuesday, 16 August 2011
Day 2 - Race 2 - Madeira to Rio
Madeira is a long way behind us now, as are the Canary Islands. 'Welcome to Yorkshire’ has made excellent progress since our brilliant start from Madeira.
The hard part of crewing a racing yacht is getting used to the Watch System. Fatigue is a common factor, and we combat this in a number of ways; good conversation, littered with very bad jokes! It also helps that our 'champion' victuallers have supplied us with plenty of Haribo and Jelly Babies to ensure a steady series of 'sugar rushes' to get us through the dark hours!
I for one am glad to get back into the Watch System. The land doesn't move in the same way! I'm sure that innocent passers-by in Madeira must have confused some of the Clipper crews as participants in a 'Ministry of Silly Walks' seminar! After a certain amount of time at sea, it is true that you do take on a certain stroll to ensure balance when moving around a boat on a rolling sea!
Food is so important for morale on any boat involved in a long journey. Some of the best dishes have been curry or chilli so far. One thing we have recently had to start doing for ourselves is baking bread. This has proved a challenge for most of us. I do feel that some of the previous baked efforts which have found their way 'over the side' should have been accompanied by a collision warning, radioed to the rest of the fleet about a possible dangerous object floating in their path!
Having said that, optimism is high on today's Mother Watch as Ann had produced some fantastic dough, which is currently baking. Ann has had the foresight to go on a 'French bread baking day' prior to race start with a leading French Baker! I for one cannot wait, and banish the memory of 'cement loaves' to the depths permanently!
The hard part of crewing a racing yacht is getting used to the Watch System. Fatigue is a common factor, and we combat this in a number of ways; good conversation, littered with very bad jokes! It also helps that our 'champion' victuallers have supplied us with plenty of Haribo and Jelly Babies to ensure a steady series of 'sugar rushes' to get us through the dark hours!
I for one am glad to get back into the Watch System. The land doesn't move in the same way! I'm sure that innocent passers-by in Madeira must have confused some of the Clipper crews as participants in a 'Ministry of Silly Walks' seminar! After a certain amount of time at sea, it is true that you do take on a certain stroll to ensure balance when moving around a boat on a rolling sea!
Food is so important for morale on any boat involved in a long journey. Some of the best dishes have been curry or chilli so far. One thing we have recently had to start doing for ourselves is baking bread. This has proved a challenge for most of us. I do feel that some of the previous baked efforts which have found their way 'over the side' should have been accompanied by a collision warning, radioed to the rest of the fleet about a possible dangerous object floating in their path!
Having said that, optimism is high on today's Mother Watch as Ann had produced some fantastic dough, which is currently baking. Ann has had the foresight to go on a 'French bread baking day' prior to race start with a leading French Baker! I for one cannot wait, and banish the memory of 'cement loaves' to the depths permanently!
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