One of my best friends in the world, Carrie, has decided to do the full Clipper Ventures Round the World Race as well. She's just finished three weeks here in England undergoing her initial training. By telling her story here, in many ways I'll also be telling my own story of the early days.
Inspired by stories I told and videos I played when I'd stay at her apartment during brief visits back to Virginia, she sent me a text last January 28th, telling me she'd decided apply to join the race. Since that day five months ago, she's been reorganizing her life, arranging finances, and working out all that it takes for someone to put one's normal life on a shelf for a year. For me, as I have no normal life, making my own choice to do the race was simply turning from this path to that path. For people like Carrie and most others participating in the race, it's a huge physical, financial, spiritual, and emotional change of direction, something akin to bringing a freight train to a screeching halt and stepping off of it and onto a spaceship.
All Carrie's efforts of the winter and early spring culminated with her arrival here on May 8th to begin her Part A and B training.
Preparation for the race (whether you're new to sailing or a fully experienced sailor) is divided into three parts; A, B, and C. The final act, C, won't begin until July, once all the professional skippers have been chosen and assigned to particular boats, followed by the allocation of all crew to their respective boats. Once Part C begins, you are training with your actual skipper and actual crew with whom that you'll be sharing the experience.
For Part A, however, you are on a slightly smaller boat (60 ft) than the actual race boat (68 ft). Here one learns (or reviews) the basics.
Before Part A began for Carrie on May 11th, we stopped by a local boat yard where one of our 68's was dry-docked for various repairs. This gave us both a chance to view the hull in a way most people involved in this race will never get a chance to see.The next day Carrie moved onto the 60 ft boat, Ariel, the same one I'd done my initial training in last June.
The following evening, after her first full day on the water, she burst into my apartment in an alm
ost deranged state of happiness. In all the months preceding the actual beginning of her training, she'd been concerned about how she'd feel and how she'd do...and just how much she'd actually enjoy it. She was ecstatic to discover she was thrilled by it. Moreover, she felt comfortable, she felt able, she felt good. Though she'd said all along that she wouldn't commit to the full race until she'd finished Part A and Part B training, I think she knew after only one day that she was in for the long haul.One of the initial tasks all participants are given in their first week on the boat is to climb the mast.
Climbing the mast is a basic part of seamanship. The lines entering the bottom of the mast and coming out the top are used to lift sails and
perform other vital functions. Our racing boats have a total of 17 lines passing down from or around the mast (for greater detail, click on this and any other picture to get a full screen image). On the 68's, the area where the lines gather and are stored is known as the snake pit for obvious reasons.The confidence to be able to reach and deal with whatever malfunction may occur in any one of those lines on any point of a mast, then, is critical.
Climbing the mast also teaches proper teamwork and respect for the winches. Mishandling a huge piece of sail doesn't inspire such concern. The possibility of mishandling a human life does.I tried to avoid visits to Carrie's boat to allow her a fully independent experience. One morning as she whisked by my apartment during her short period of time allocated to cleaning up, she had the chance to tell me that this was to be the day they climbed the mast. I was able, then, to be down on the dock to record the event.
It's one thing to be on the boat looking up a the mast. It's entirely something different to be aloft on only a seemingly insignificant length of rope with nothing but these views below and around you (taken from my own first mast climbing experience last June).
Though I hadn't yet moved to Gosport when I took the above two photos, the apartment I'd eventually move into is the yellow brick building on the horizon on the far left edge.
For the initial days of her training, I'd sometimes get a three minute summary of what was happening if she had the chance to swing by my apartment during her daily ablutions (yeah, that was a new word for me, too). In the middle of her first week on the water, however, I left for London to help deliver one of our 68's back to Gosport (previous blog entry).
Twenty-four hours after I returned, I saw her as she came by my apartment to shower for the traditional final dinner together (the marina has good shower facilities but my apartment is just as close). She looked exhausted and incredibly frazzled in such an adorable way but also so unbelievably happy.Her Part A ended on the 18th and her Part B began on the 21st. This allowed her only two days to rest as much as she could before starting the process all over again.
I'd originally had planned to follow my own Part A training with the Part B as soon as possible but, after completing Part A in June, I delayed my part B until February. I had felt so overwhelmed with so much new information that I felt I needed time to absorb and digest it. Carrie didn't have this luxury.
Robin's final party of all parties for all his team members involved in his own 'round the world race over this last year had been long planned to be held on the 19th, so Carrie got to join me. I rented a car to allow us to reach the party's remote destination at a quaint cottage and drive home that same night, something none of the others planned on doing, so deep into the night was the party assumed to go. Everyone was invited to bring a sleeping 
bag to park on any floor for the night when one's limit had been reached.Having the car led to Carrie's first big adventure on Saturday, the 19th. She got to drive on the wrong side of the road from the wrong side of a car. It was only from my apartment to a parking lot one block away and back, but still I think this experience meant more to her than when she got to meet universally known and celebrated (in England, at least) Sir Robin Knox-Johnston.
In that weekend of rest, she also immersed herself in further study and preparation for the Part B training, often using a model I'd bought to visualize what she wanted to fully understand. In addition, since we had the rental car for the full weekend, we drove around a bit in the immediate area and stopped in at a pub for a traditional Sunday roast. I tried to interest her in my favorite pub beverage, Guinness Stout. She demurred and sipped her lemonade.
Finally the time came for her to head down to the Clipper Ventures office to begin her Part B training on the larger 68.
She was issued her permanent set of "oilies" (foul weather gear that, I'm guessing, takes it's name from the historic use of oiled cotton until more advanced materials were developed).I didn't see near as much of her over that week, as her skipper drove them far harder. There were two other 68's full of Part B students working that week and, many times at dusk when I'd wander by the marina, I'd see those other two boats but not Carrie's. Later, long after dark, Carrie would come staggering in to my apartment for a moment, exhausted and yet happy with all that she was learning.
One night she did not come by at all. I'd thought they'd moored up at another harbor but she came by in the morning, utterly, utterly exhausted. They'd sailed the entire night through on rotating 45 minute watches, which in effect allowed no one to get any sense of rest. I'm not sure of what the logic was, if not to show them how it feels to be sailing under trying and demanding conditions. If that was the intent, it certainly worked.
A few days later, yesterday, she was done. She came home at 3:00 p.m. and collapsed on the futon couch before I'd had the chance to put the freshly cleaned linens back on.
More than four hours later, she hadn't stirred.
Finally, at around 8:00 p.m., just as the twilight sky was giving up it's last light outside, she stirred and moved the computer to check e-mails and bring herself up to date on the world. Outside the window, ships moved on the harbor she had departed each day as either of her boats headed for the Solent (the body of water between us here and the Isle of Wight seven miles distant) or fully out into the English Channel.
Today, as I write this mid day, she's fast asleep on the couch once again (this time with linens) after only a few hours of stirring this morning.
She flies home tomorrow and finishes the monumental task of not only ending one's life in a particular location but putting it on hold altogether. The Part C training begins at the end of the summer and she'll return as much time in advance of that as she can manage.
Because of our close friendship, the Clipper Ventures organization will specifically put us on different boats. Standard company policy even separates married couples. It's a good design with which both Carrie and I agree. While it is an experience that can be shared with those around you, in the end it's about the individual. Pre-formed alliances limit ones ability to grow and learn. I'm utterly delighted that I'll get to share my tales with her in each port of call and get to listen to hers, but I'm also glad that, in the midst of whatever challenges she may face, she will find all the strength she needs from within.
It will be a remarkable adventure for both of us. I can't imagine a better person with whom I'd rather share the entire experience.
