International Bozo of Leisure

What's Next?

2008-07-14T13:25:00.001+01:00

This ends the telling of this tale and the end of this blog. Look here now and then to see what I might be up to.

=B^)

Epilogue

2008-07-14T13:19:00.002+01:00

I spent the Christmas of 2005 in the Snowdonia region of Wales with Cyndi, staying at a the Betws Inn near Beddgelert. On Christmas Day we hiked to the top of Mount Snowden. At 1085m, it's the highest point in Wales. From there, looking to the west, we could get a narrow glimpse between the peaks of a patch of the Irish Sea.

How completely unaware I was that two and one half years later I would be sailing north through that very stretch of water, look back east onto this mountain range, being only hours away from finishing a circumnavigation of the globe.

Only a few days later, still in December of 2005, the sequence of events began that have led me to this moment now; sitting on my boat Uniquely Singapore where she gently rocks in her home port of Gosport's Royal Clarence Marina, finishing up the last details of my life towards and, eventually, on the sea.

Everyone's gone. The boat has been empty since Friday, the 11th, when we finished sailing it back here from the race finish in Liverpool. Repeatedly in these last few days I've been just short of being overcome with emotion at the sight of familiar sidewalks, familiar buildings, and familiar people behind the counters in restaurants, some of whom have become good friends.

I haven't been able to bring myself to turn one particular corner, however, one that would bring my old apartment's balcony into view. I so loved living there. I miss it like a friend.

I leave this boat and this town later today, flying out of nearby Southampton tomorrow for Nice, France, then on to Italy by train...and on to so many new adventures.

In that late December of 2005, once back in London after the weekend in Wales, I saw an ad in the Tube (London's subway) for the '07-'08 Clipper Ventures Race, a round the world yacht race for amateurs. Though it mentioned that further information would be available at the upcoming London Boat show just a week away, I think my fate was sealed in that moment alone.

I'd known of this concept: a circumnavigating race sailed by amateurs able to pay their own expenses. I'd heard of it through two sources. My brother had heard of it 16 years ago and half-jokingly suggested that he'd pay my way if I was interested. It was not the time, however. in 1992 I was a single father of a ten year old daughter.

I came across the concept again several years later in Pete Goss' book, "Against The Wind." He writes about his experiences in developing the training program for the BOC Challenge, the first amateur circumnavigating race founded by Chay Blyth (well known to any Brit but probably unheard of by any other nationality). Intrigued again, I thought that one day this would be something I'd want to do.

When I saw that ad in the London Tube for the Clipper Ventures race, the other amateur circumnavigating race (and now the only one, as Chay Blyth's company went bankrupt shortly after I signed up for the Clipper Ventures race), I knew that the time was right. I had the time, the means, and the desire.

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

After our slow and peaceful departure out of Nova Scotia, we ran into our first storm half way across the Grand Bank.

This imposed many cold and wet headsail changes in heaving seas during each of our four hour long watches. The fickle winds also required numerous calls for trim checks, which required at least four of the watch to leave the security of the cockpit and scramble onto the heaving, heeling and slippery deck, one of whom who will become entirely soaked at the bow.

In times like these, all anyone thinks of doing off-watch is seeking the comfort of one’s bunk, but they’re rarely the refuge we’d like it to be in these kinds of seas. Those in the forward bunks (such as myself) are repeatedly launched a few inches into the air as the bows flips up a wave crest before we slam back down, accompanied by a resounding “WHAM!” of the hull doing the same (followed by the nerve-wracking “boing a woing a woing” of the rigging absorbing the torsion loads).

For most of this voyage as I’d lay in my bunk hearing those sounds during passages through rough seas, I’d marvel at the strength of these boat and their rigging. After the two dismastings on the way to Hawaii, however, I'd thereafter lay in my bunk listening to those sounds, wondering if I’ll eventually hear, “boing a-woing a-woing a-wooooooing THWACK crunch ziiiiiiing yerrrrooowww ka-SPLOOOSH!”

Sleep, as one would normally think of it, isn’t to be found at such times. We would just try to get as much rest as we can in a few short hours before returning back into the storm we’d been enduring.

One evening as I laid awake in my bunk while the storm continued to build, I felt the boat “hove to,” the nautical term for setting the head sails and mainsail in opposition to each other to bring the boat to a complete halt in the water, something we normally only do to deal with overwhelming circumstances on deck.

When I came on watch 30 minutes later, I learned that we’d hove to in order to drop our Yankee 3 headsail, our smallest headsail used for the strongest of winds. The foredeck crew found it too difficult to control. The off-going crew had been too exhausted to finish the headsail change and we'd been sailing 'bare headed,' without our primary headsail for the last 15 minutes. We, the on-coming watch, were informed it was now our task to hank on and hoist the storm jib, our last resort headsail, heavily built and laughably small in size.

I followed Koh, our watch leader, and Michelle onto the foredeck. Michelle took up the forward position of standing on the pulpit, facing back to toward the boat to receive the hanks on the leading edge of the sail from Koh, ahead of me, while I assisted him in lifting sections of the sail off the deck. We were positioned as in the picture below, taken during a much calmer headsail change.

At the bow in this pounding storm, it was difficult to get anything accomplished at all. It was quickly obvious why the preceding crew was well content that the watch change brought new energy into the headsail change. Every minute the bow would crest and be flipped up violently by an oncoming wave, tossing us into the air a small distance above the deck. The motion reminded me of how my dog would flip a treat I'd place on her nose into the air to catch and eat it in one quick motion.

Though levitated to only perhaps a hand's width off the deck, we and the bow when then fall and accelerate together a vast distance down to the bottom off the wave's trough, so that we'd slam down much harder at the bottom than our distance elevated of the deck would imply.

Though our time of being airborne each time was perhaps only just over a full second, it seem to give one all the time one needed to check where each appendage was floating in space and to ensure that nothing unfriendly was immediately below them. There are so many 'ankle biters' on the foredeck; folded sails, spinnaker poles, spinnaker pole storage brackets, etc., that I'm amazed we survived the entire circumnavigation without a single sprained or, worse, broken ankle.

All this airborne time is manageable unless waves are also breaking across the deck.

If you are airborne and hit by one, you're set into a backward motion which leaves you unsure of just where you'll land.

Such was the case that evening. Repeatedly I'd be tossed up and washed back the full length of my tether, jerked to a halt and snapped back down on the deck at the same time, then crawl back up to my position only to have it happen again.

This late in the circumnavigation and only trying to improve our position from Eighth to Seventh, enduring conditions this harsh to do a racing headsail change seemed a useless exercise. I didn't think it worth the risk of injury to anyone. I turned back to the helm and improvised a hand signal suggesting that I thought we should hove to, just as the previous watch had done when dropping the headsail.

Angie on the helm understood and conveyed my request below to Skipper Mark. I knelt facing her, clinging to the inner forestay, and watched her body language in the ensuing conversation she had with those down below. In a moment she looked up and back at me, shook her head, then shrugged and tilted her head to one side. I knew what that meant; Sorry. Nothing I can do for you. I knew what the skipper had said; Carry on. It's a race. Hanking a sail on in high winds isn't near as difficult as bringing one down.

I accepted this indifferently. I did not feel all that threatened but it was in conditions similar to these that our race's single Man Overboard had taken place. It had occurred in the absolutely worse scenario: at night and in the Southern Ocean.

Someone on the deck, while airborne in the usual way, had been hit by a wave from the side, not the front, and had been high enough in the air that he'd cleared the guardrail and had come down on the other side, hanging on the side of the bow attached only by his safety tether. Those on deck spent unbearably long seconds struggling to haul him back on board but the snap buckle of the crotch strap on his PFD apparently had been damaged and gave way, allowing him to slip out the bottom of his harness and into the rolling waves in the dark without any floation or even the light all our PFD's have to help in a night retrieval.

He kicked off his boots and took off his jacket, which were pulling him down, and tread water in 15C (59F) water wearing nothing more than what you might wear on a brisk fall day, watching the lights of his boat struggle to come to a halt.

He was recovered in nine minutes, thanks to excellent seamanship, teamwork and perhaps mostly to the good fortune that there was a small strip of reflective material on the back collar of his light jacket. This was picked up by someone's flashlight. His chief complaint, aftwards, was that upon recover he wasn't deemed to have been hypothermic. He was not, as he'd anticipated, stripped naked and put into a sleeping back with another naked humang being who he'd presumed would be one of the many beautiful women on his crew.

He recovered fully from the incident. His watch leader did not fare as well, I've been told. A bear of a man capable of immense feats of strength, he'd had a deathgrip on the man's jacket as everyone available had worked to pull the victim back onboard. When the snap buckle failed, his grasp failed as well. For months afterwards he was emotionally haunted merely by the devastating possibilities of what might have happen that night, unable to accept the happy ending as the final act. Had the man not been found, he would have felt responsible.

Life on the water isn't just about the water. It's about the people and how you feel about them.

Michelle, Koh, and I worked as hard as we could to hank on the storm jib that evening, though I'm not particularly sure I made much of a contribution. I seemed to spend more time being washed back and crawling forward than I did actually applying any force to the sail itself. Michelle, standing precariously on the pulpit and clinging to the forestay with one hand while the other worked the sail, fought bravely against the wind and the boat's motion. I felt a sense of admiration for her tenacity. Every time we were launched into the air, she'd drop the sail and apply both hands to the forestay, waiting to land again before resuming her efforts.

It took us 30 minutes to accomplish what otherwise would have been done in five.

My PFD had auto-inflated from all the sea that had poured over me so, once we were all back in the cockpit, I continued down below to replace my CO2 cylinder and to repack my PFD. While I worked below, Michelle came down, too, and moved past me with movements heavier than would have been dictated by the motions the storm imposed on our boat. I thought to tell her how impressed I'd been by her effort but felt it might have been not the thing to say, so I was silent.

After I'd worked on my PFD for yet several more minutes, I looked back into the sleeping quarters and was surprised to see Michelle sitting on her heels on a sail, slumped against a bulkhead with her head down and against the bulkhead as well, her arms falling loosely over her bent legs. I went back and placed a hand on her lightly, asking if she was okay. Almost inaudibly she answered, "I've injured my shoulder. Just give me a minute. I'll be okay."

"You were amazing up there," I said and left her to recover at her own pace.

For two days she was unable to take the helm, so severely had her efforts at the bow sprained both shoulders.

Two weeks later, as we cruised into Liverpool on the morning of July 5th as a fleet, Michelle was at the helm. It hadn't been a conscious choice the crew had made but, as with my being on the helm while crossing the final finish line the night before, simply the random order of turns.

I stood by her, basking in the moment of the end of our adventure. "I can't believe I'm bringing our boat in on this river," she told me. "This is my town. This is my river. I was raised here. I can't believe I'm bringing us in on this river."

The more she spoke aloud, the more emotional she became. "This is my river. This is my river." Congratulations and hugs were being passed around by all and a few of us noticed the emotional depth of the moment for Michelle. We stood back by her, enjoying her emotions as much as our own.

Her eyes grew visibly moist and she was on the verge of tears of happiness as I took her picture, chronicling her great moment as well as all of our own.

I, too, got misty-eyed just taking the picture. It was over.

It Is Finished

2008-07-06T17:24:00.007+01:00

We spent most of the race from Cork, Ireland to Liverpool, England hanging with the two leaders of not only that race, but the race over all: New York and Hull&Humber.

The conditions were beautiful and an absolutely fantastic way to finish this year at sea.

In the final night on the water we managed to pass Hull&Humber but couldn't pull in New York. We finished the final race Saturday morning, July 5th, at 1:38 a.m., crossing the line 2nd, only 300 yards behind New York and only 300 yards ahead of Hull & Humber. I was at the helm, for no other reason that it was my turn in our four hour watch from 10:00 p.m. to 2:00 a.m.

The points we gained from that 2nd place finish moved us up from 8th to 7th overall, which suited us fine. We'd taking to calling ourselves Uniquely Seventh since it seemed to be our finishing position more often than chance (or skill) would dictate.

After milling about all night and the morning at the mouth of the Mersey River, waiting for the rest of the fleet to join up, we sailed as a group up stream, tacking back and forth between each other, giving the crowds lining the shore outside of Albert Dock in Liverpool a bit of a show.

By 2:00 p.m. we'd entered Albert Dock and were moored in the place we'd begun last September 16th.

It is done. I am content and happy. Best yet, I've still got all ten fingers and toes.

In perhaps a week's time I'll write a final entry to be posted here.

Views of Ireland/The Final Act

2008-07-02T11:18:00.008+01:00

Having arrived on Saturday, the 28th, we spent Sunday deep-cleaning the boat. Normally the following day would be spent doing maintenance but all was well with Uniquely Singapore, so we then had Monday-Wednesday free to do as we pleased.

You'd think that being in the heart of Ireland in the summer would inspire one to break out a bit. That didn't seem to be the case among many. Docked in the small town of Crosshaven a bit down the road from Cork itself, some of us took the bus in yesterday for the day to explore the city a bit.

And that was it.

We're tired. We were content to enjoy Crosshaven...

...and it's delightful Rivers End Cafe.

Tonight, most of the various crews will gather at one more party (we've had four in five days here) sponsored by the Crosshaven Yacht Club (oldest yacht club in the world, we're told, founded in 1720).

The crew of Uniquely Singapore, however, will gather for a quieter evening at a local pub for a few drinks and dinner.

Tomorrow morning, Thursday, we sail for Liverpool. We should arrive fairly closely grouped together at the mouth of the Mersey River in the pre-dawn hours of Saturday to cross the finish line there for Race 14. At that point we'll break down to a skeletal crew on deck and mill about while most sleep until 10:00 a.m. on Saturday, July 5th. After one final fun race (no points toward the overall title) up the river to Albert Dock, we will cross the final final final finish line.

And then it will be done. Ten months, 35,000 miles, one world, many wonderful times (along with a few hard ones), and many many new friends.

All You Really Need In Life, Part 2

2008-07-01T13:23:00.005+01:00

(All You Realy Need In Life, Part 1, can be found here).

Some have asked me what life is like on board below decks. For ten months now the full extent of my personal space as been one bunk.

Any headsail or spinnaker not in use is stored below decks in the sleeping quarters. With a complement of three headsails, three spinnakers, and three other sails to chose from, we rarely ever see the sole boards (floor).
My view whenever not on watch: two watches with three alarms each, set to the three times daily (every eight hours) I need to go on watch; pockets for various items I'd like to have handy (reading glasses, GPS, headlamps, camera accessories, etc.); a net hanging from the bunk above holding gloves, hats, reading material and other necessities.

Beside each bunk we all have three 'cubby holes' used for personal storage.

After a year of living this way, it has become quite acceptable. Living out of a space any larger space would seem luxurious.

Heroics, Part 2

2008-06-30T21:22:00.023+01:00

It’s been almost ten months since we began this voyage around the world by crossing the Atlantic twice; first east-to-west to Brazil (to avoid the widest part of the doldrums off the western coast of Africa) and secondly west-to-east down to the southern tip of Africa. On this race, our 13th of 14, we crossed the Atlantic a third and last time. After a few frigid days of beating into the prevailing winds, we reached the area just off the southern tip of New Foundland known as the Grand Banks (site of “The Perfect Storm”).

We found no storm at all. We were essentially becalmed.

Normally, working at the bow equates to getting soaked in sea water. In those days of low winds, however, the bow remained completely dry. As we crept towards the southern tip of New Foundland, we had a new hazard to deal with: icebergs.

We established a 24 hour a day Iceberg Watch, requiring someone to be stationed at the bow 24 hours a day, scanning the horizon. At night or if fog was present (as it most often was), someone was also deployed down to the Nav Station to monitor the radar screen for any icebergs detectable.

Drifting along in the low winds, occasionally we’ve dropped to only a knot of speed, if that. Frustrating as that might have been in regards to reaching Cork, it nevertheless gave me many magical moments to savor, particularly during night Iceberg Watches. Sitting or even standing on the pulpit, leaning against the forestay, I would feel as if I was hovering a few meters above the glassy water. Before me I saw nothing but a horizonless curve of pearlescent dark gray sea water ghosting beneath my feet. Ahead, the sea merged seamlessly into a fuzzy dirty white overcast above.

Trusting in the security of my safety strap, I’d grasp the forestay with one hand and lean out over the water, feeling like a square rigger’s figurehead. At night it was easy to imagine being at the nose of a spaceship moving through the emptiness of space since there was the enjoyably disorienting lack of a clear horizon and no sound but the quietest of tinkling of the small bow wake below.

At that point we had only two weeks left in the entire circumnavigation, having spent 40 weeks in getting that far. It’s been great but I am ready to move on. Still, moments such as those iceberg watches on crisp nights under a featureless sky and above a whispering sea are some of the things I've treasured in this last year.

After being lulled into a frustrating boredom by the calm seas we initially found, we were to discover we still had two Atlantic storms with which to contend.

The first I’ll write about later, in whatever epilogue I compose once we finish in Liverpool. The second, the lessor of the two, came on slowly in the afternoon of June 25th, when the skies turned gray and the water a slate green color.

When I came on watch at 8:00 p.m. that night, the previous crew had just replaced the mid-weight spinnaker for the heavy weight. The winds were rising and a challenging night was anticipated. It wasn't long before the winds were 30kts or so with gusts up to 35kts, sometimes more. The waves were building and rocking the boat so drastically that it was hard to keep the spinnaker inflated. By the time 10:00 p.m. rolled around and it was approaching my turn to helm, I sat in the snakepit, holding the line controlling the vang with only three turns of it wrapped around the central halyard winch.

The main sheet controls the angle of the boom and, therefore, the angle of the sail (essentially a wing) in relation to the wind. The vang (sometimes called the kicker) is a block and tackle between the base of the mast and the bottom of the boom. When the wind pressure is high on the sail, it wants to pull the boom upwards and form the sail into half a funnel, allowing the wind to dump out of it's trailing edge. The vang resists this motion and keeps the sail shaped more like a wing.

When a boat is threatened with being unexpectedly overpowered by a gust, the quickest way to respond is to release the vang, allowing the sail to curl and loose all it’s power. The second but less effective response is to ease the main sheet, allowing the mainsail to swing out to a less aggressive angle to the wind. Returning to the wing analogy, easing the main would be a bird changing the angle of its wings. Easing the vang would be as if a bird folded its wings.

In certain circumstances (such as that Wednesday night) someone holds the line leading to the vang with only a few turns on the winch, creating just enough friction for a moderate grip to hold it fast. All it takes, then, to dump the vang is to release one’s grip. Someone also stands 'Shotgun,' i.e., by the mainsheet with it also down to three turns on a winch.

Sitting at the vang that night, awaiting my turn to helm, I looked back and was relieved to find Skipper Mark on the helm. Mark never takes the helm except when it’s absolutely necessary. Despite the level of confidence I’ve gained in helming over these last ten months at sea, I wasn’t too keen on taking the helm that night in those conditions.

My watch leader Koh Kok Siong had already spent quite some time on shotgun so I volunteered to relieve him. I moved into the central position in the photo below, poised to release the mainsheet at a moment’s notice.

We were doint 13-15kts in this wind and occasionally surfing down waves a 19 kts. It was exhilarating and we knew we were making great gains on other boats not in this storm, but the drain on the crew and, more importantly, Mark at the helm was severe.

Standing next to Mark with the mainsheet in my hands, I volunteered, “So basically we’re going to fly the kite until you need sleep, right?” He had a short moment to chuckle before muttering an expletive as a wave rolled us so hard to the left that the kite was back winded and began to collapse against the wrap net.

Still muttering obscenities under his breath, Mark fought to maneuver the boat so as to gently re-inflate the spinnaker. If it re-inflates too quickly, it will pop open like the apartment building-sized parachute that it truly is (see the photos in the previous blog entry) and impose huge forces on the lines, halyards, and shackles controlling it. Perhaps a month ago a sudden re-inflation of the kite in similar conditions snapped the metal shank of shackle as thick as my ring finger as easily as if it had been a piece of chalk, setting one corner of the spinnaker free and necessitating an immediate emergency drop of the spinnaker in the worst of conditions.

This is what we were trying to avoid that Wednesday night.

Finally at 11:00 p.m. Mark could take no more. “Prepare to drop the kite,” he shouted over the wind. “It’s too hard to control.” To me he volunteered in a lower voice, “My arms are about to fall off.”

To be safe, we woke the oncoming watch a bit early to have more manpower available. For 30 more minutes, then, Mark still had to fight to control the spinnaker while everyone set up for the what was anticipated to be a brutal effort. As we prepared for the drop, a gust came through and added extra pressure to the sails. The boat, already heeled at a 30 degree angle, leaned harder and harder to port.

Mark shouted, “VANG!!” but nothing happened. Whomever was on the vang (I’ve never learned who it was, it being too dark and I too busy in the aftermath of that moment to see) had somehow gotten the line tangled in something and the mainsail remained fully powered. At the same moment, the urgency of the need being obvious, I’d released the mainsheet fully and let the boom swing out completely towards the water, it almost striking the waves since we were heeled over so far at this point. This helped slow the increasing heel of the boat but it didn’t stop it.

Mark was screaming now in a high pitched voice, “DUMP THE VANG! GET THE FUCKING VANG OFF THE WINCH!”

We were being threatened with a broach; when the boat's heeling to one side becomes so severe that the rudder is pulled up out of the water on the other side and the helm loses all ability to control the boat. Once this happens, the spinnaker will first lay the boat flat onto the downwind side then, with no rudder or keel resisting it, spin the boat in a flash close to 180 degrees to the point upwind where the spinnaker will now completely re-inflate backwards, popping the boat violently upright with the spinnaker tangled in the shouds and spinnaker pole and, most likely, ripped to shreds.

In time (just in time) the vang was released and the boat eased up a bit. The gust died and the boat recovered a bit more. I started the process of grinding the mainsheet back in.

It was only a few minutes later that everyone one was in place for the spinnaker drop and we brought it down. I had moved into the cockpit to join the other three who were pulling it down into the companionway. After it was successfully below decks and no longer a threat to anyone or anything, I asked Mark if I should go back to shotgun, go forward and help with the tidy up of all the lines on the foredeck, or go below and help fold the kite.

“Actually,” he said, “take the helm.”

With no headsails up and nothing more than the main eased out to the shrouds, we were still doing 9 kts. When I took the wheel, Mark slumped down to take a seat by the mainsheet winch, too exhausted to move any further for the moment.

Ahead of us, in the dark under the dim glow of the deck light, the rest of the crew moved about the deck tidying up the spinnaker lines, guys, sheets, and halyards. We were setting up to hoist the Yankee 2 to be poled out "Wing and Wing" as a replacement for the dropped kite. In the heavy rain and air thick with mist, everyone's bright red foul weather gear with day-glo yellow hoods were only moving mounds of dull red with dim white tops to Mark and I back at the helm. Their muffled voices reached us over the wind noise, some rising with directions, some acknowledging, some offering requests, and some moving around silently getting done what needed to be done without any direction at all. No one voice dominated. The group worked fluidly as a team.

I pointed out that representation of teamwork to Mark, adding that witnessing those moments during such challenging times were the times I felt best about being on this boat.

“I was just thinking the same thing,” he said, heaving another exhausted sigh.

I wish I had a picture to offer of the moment, for my own memory's sake if nothing else, but in the rain at night in a heaving sea, none would have been possible. Those moments really aren’t about how they look, however. They’re about how they feel…how they feel to all of us.

Those kinds of moments, be they the thrill of dropping a spinnaker in a storm or quiet Iceberg Watches at night on the very tip of the pulpit on a calm sea...those kinds of moments are the things I’ll miss the most in the times that follow the end of this race.

Standing at the helm while the rest of the crew worked, as we closed in on Cork still three days away, I thought to myself that perhaps, after all, we did deserve to look a bit heroic in some video footage now and then.

A Perfect Birthday for Dennis

2008-06-30T11:04:00.019+01:00

(Many of the images used in the story below were taken by the press boat as we flew across the finish line under full spinnaker)

Dennis O'Sullivan joined our boat for both legs 5 (Hawaii to Santa Cruz) and 7, this last one from Jamaica to Liverpool. Born in the harbor town of Cork, Ireland, he's always been fascinated by the sea and all the classical literature of the sea travel. As his 60th birthday approached, he wondered if he had it in him to endure some of the challenges he'd been reading about all his life.

Though Dennis now lives in England, he still considers Cork his home and spends a few months of each year there. This stopover in Cork, Ireland had not been even rumored until a few months before the race start and not an assured part of this race's schedule until the race had already been a full month underway. When Dennis signed up for the Clipper Ventures race two years ago, then, he could not have fathomed the perfect birthday he was setting up for himself.

Dennis' birthday is June 28. At the slow pace we started off out of Nova Scotia (more about that in a later blog), it seemed unlikely we'd be in Cork by July 3rd, to say nothing of any day in June. We caught the a tail end of a low pressure system 750 miles from the finish, however, and blew in under the heavyweight spinnaker, logging 250 miles a day.

We flew that heavyweight spinnaker right down to the finish line as we found the Clipper boat Jamaica on our tails when the sun rose on the 28th, only a few miles back and seemingly closing in. We were confident we could hold them off for the last 80 miles into Cork, but it wasn't certain.

With 20 miles to go and still every opportunity available to blow our slim lead over Jamaica, Skipper Mark shouted over the wind noise, "Dennis!" Up by the grinder, working the winch controlling the spinnaker sheet, Dennis turned around.

"Take the helm," Mark said.

A spontaneous cheer arose among those on deck for we all knew what was unfolding: Dennis, at the helm, on his 60th birthday, racing into the port of his birth, with his wife, family and friends waiting. I had nothing to do with anything about it all but even I was beside myself with excitement. I could only imagine what Dennis must have felt.

"Couldn't get any better," he muttered under his breath to me as the miles to the finish line wound down one by one. "Couldn't get any better."

The second we passed the lighthouse on one side of the narrow entrance to the harbour, a cannon fired from the other shore where the race committee sat at a pub (no doubt drinking pints of Murphy's stout).

One second later Mark shouted "SPIKE!"...

...and someone already hoisted up to the end of the spinnaker pole on a halyard jammed a thin spike into the releasing mechanism of the shackle holding the upwind corner of the spinnaker...

...allowing it to fly free like a flag behind the mainsail.

Four crew (two on the winches in the snake pit, two on the lines themselves in front of the mast) worked hurriedly to ease both of the two spinnaker halyards out as fast as possible and yet still under control. Four more crew gathered around the companionway to haul the spinnaker down below decks and out of the wind.

Being able to manuever the boat to use the mainsail to block any wind trying to re-inflate the spinnaker is a key aspect to dropping a spinnaker, a luxury we sacrificed inside this narrow harbor to ensure we held onto our narrow lead over Jamaica until the very last moment.

We got the spinnaker down safely and Mark took the helm so that Dennis was free to stand just ahead of the mast as we motored to our dock, waving to friends and family either in boats motoring beside us or gathered on the shore.

Couldn't get any better," he'd say from time to time.

Heroics

2008-06-17T19:53:00.002+01:00

Position 46 08N, 58 01W. At the pre-race crew briefing before this final 2300 mile ocean crossing, we previewed the first installment of the ten segment TV production covering our race. In the US and Canada, it will eventually be shown on the Outdoor Life Network. Watching it, I was struck by how heroic our exploits look when shown in slow motion with dramatic background music.

Below decks during a passage through rough seas, feeling like you're being tossed around like a towel in a dryer just seems like a challenge to endure, nothing more. Seeing the helicopter footage of the same moment, however, with the bow piercing wave after wave and the foredeck crew awash in sea water while the music builds suitably...well, it was hard not to feel some tinge of pride in what we're doing.

That's an emotion I've fought hard to avoid, for all around me I see that each of us are little different than anyone you'd meet on the street, except that we're here, not there.

The people around the world that I've spent this time with have the most to do with what I've treasured in this voyage. The work of sailing is the vehicle, not the journey. One of the reasons I've chosen to take part in this circumnavigation was to confirm my belief that people all around the world are the same: they are good.

Such has been my experience...particularly so, it would seem, in Nova Scotia.

One last bit of Nova Scotian Hospitality

2008-06-15T21:04:00.005+01:00

The local tourist board arranged for one last delight for our stay in Nova Scotia. Any member of my boat's crew willing to get up early and brave the cold was treated to a private lobster harvesting trip.

We all had the chance to handle the catch and band the claws. Most were one to two pounds but we did haul in a five pounder. The largest they'd ever caught in these waters, we were told, weighed 11 pounds.

After gathering enough for us all, we dropped them in a pot of boiling water setting on the ships heater down in the hold while we motored back to the dock. Once the lines were secure, we ate them as fresh as could possibly be.

I really am loving this place...but it is time to go. We're all eager to see this voyage to it's final end and get on with our lives afterwards.

Most of this last crossing of the Atlantic promises to consist of spinnaker work. I'd made two videos about spinnakers during the Santa Cruz to Panama trip but haven't had the chance to post them yet. I wanted to show how much work a spinnaker is, both flying off the mast and collapsed below decks. You'll find these videos below.

We leave for Cork, Ireland tomorrow at noon. It should take about two weeks.

Nova Scotia

2008-06-15T00:41:00.018+01:00

Jamie left this morning at 6:00 a.m. We had so much fun here together, people think she's my girlfriend. Where to start...or, more accurately, could I ever finish describing the great time we've had in Nova Scotia. I'm definitely coming back.

It all began with meeting Michelle, a woman standing on the dock above our boat, looking so full of enthusiasm. I had the time so I stopped and asked if she'd like to have a tour of the boat. I'd just given one to a old, pot-bellied man only 15 minutes before so, even though Michelle was beautiful, I figured I'd pre-balanced the karma and wasn't playing favorites.

She was thrilled to have a chance to look the boat over and, more to the point, turned out to be as gracious a host to a traveler as could possibly be imagined. All the days I was in Halifax she was a fountain of advice on where to go, what to do, where to eat, and more. She also offered to take anyone I could gather along out on her friend's boat in a club race that Wednesday evening, two days away.

I knew Jamie, flying in that night, would be thrilled to actually get out on the water to view this beautiful landscape from a vantage point she wouldn't otherwise have, so I readily accepted for both of us.
The next morning I sent an e-mail to Michelle, beginning:

...you'll think me silly and absurd, I'm sure, but last night's sail with you and your friends and the evening as a whole was truly one of the highlights of this ten month voyage for me. It's all very natural that good human beings enjoy fellow good human beings but I still find it inspiring and uplifting whenever I experience it as I did last night.

Wouldn't you know, that was only the beginning.

The fleet was to spend Thursday and Friday moving the boats from Halifax to Syndey. It was billed as a race for the press but was actually just a delivery. No points would be awarded towards our round-the-world race. Knowing this, I left a message at my skipper's hotel room that I was jumping ship and that I'd met up with them in Sydney. When I saw him in Sydney, he'd thought I'd done the right thing.

This allowed me to spend those two days (the last Jamie had in Nova Scotia) driving across the country side with her. We also took along Vic, wife of the skipper of the Clipper boat Western Australia and the photojournalist who'd joined Uniquely Singapore for the Jamaica-New York run.

Among our adventures across Nova Scotia, we found a German ex-patriot who started a coffee roasting business in the middle of nowhere, and offered us free espressos to sample his beans (I had three espressos and bought four lbs. for our boat).
Friday morning we'd planned to kayak but the winds were too strong. Our kayak guide Angelo, however, invited us to hear him join two others musicians that evening for a performance at the Keltic Lodge in Ingonosh, an unbelievably spectacular coastal setting. After only a few minutes of conversation and a brief CD sampling of the artist he'd be joining, Jamie and I knew that whatever else we did that day, we were going to BE THERE that night.

Doing so involved quite a sacrifice on Jamie's part. As her flight left at 6:00 a.m. this morning and the performance began at 8:00 p.m. last night at a locale two hours from Sydney, we could only stay until 10:00 p.m. so she'd have two hours to drive me back to the boat in Sydney and still have enough time to drive all night to cover the four hours back to Halifax to turn in the rental car and make her 6:00 a.m. flight.

It was worth it. We got two hours of great music, personal dedications, and new friendships being formed.

I love this place.

Angelo, Jamie, Cyril, and Harold

Angelo even brought over his guitar during a break to let me indulge in a bit of playing. Jamie, a friend of six years, only learned at that moment that I played the guitar. It was only a few days before that we discovered both our degrees are in music.

These two key experiences made this stopover one of the most memorable I've had in this entire voyage. Add a few roadside bald eagles (look just off of Jamie's shoulder in the first photo) and you'd have to agree it's pretty hard to beat Nova Scotia.

Pics from Jamie

2008-06-13T11:42:00.004+01:00

Here's a few more pics from Jamie's blog. She does this kind of stuff staying up late at night while I'm already sound asleep in bed.

If you can't tell, the white and brown dot in the tree is a bald eagle.

Off to kayak for the morning.

B&B'n in Halifax

2008-06-12T14:59:00.004+01:00

Too busy to blog lately, so take a quick look at Jamie's too-busy-to-blog-lately entry she's put in over breakfast at our B&B.

Entering Halifax, Eh?

2008-06-09T14:15:00.017+01:00

The fleet left the North Cove Marina in Manhattan as a group (above) to allow a helicopter photo opportunity in front of the Statue of Liberty. A morning fog grounded the helicopter, however, so we simply motored out into the ocean. We kept motoring as a fleet all night towards the north, waiting for enough wind to develop to allow a race. It did not appear until noon the next day.

The race proceeded heartily for two days with Uniquely Singapore in 1st place much of that time. It wasn't long, however, until the entire fleet entered a wind hole and our speeds dropped from 10 kts to .2 kts, if that. We could see nine of the ten boats around us all at all times, bobbing and swaying, all of us gaining then losing position against each other as the various currents and occasional small breeze moved us about like drifting toy boats on a pond.

After more than a full day of this, the race was terminated to allow us to motor to Halifax in time to make our scripted fleet entrance into their harbor yesterday, Sunday, June 8th, as part of a festival. In the time we spent drifting in the windless sea, we'd fallen from 1st to 8th.

The parade and entrance into Halifax, timed down to the minute much like our entrance into Singapore, required a pre-stop to allow the fleet to gather. It was perhaps 5:30 a.m. yesterday morning when all ten boats straggled one by one over twenty minutes time into a small marina a few miles south of Halifax. The local sailing club had free beers and a free BBQ waiting for all 150 or so hungry mouths (we were too tired, dirty, and hungry to care about consuming beer and burgers at 5:30 a.m). The yacht club seemed quite pleased to be given the opportunity to offer this hospitality.

Even in my sleep deprived daze (having gotten off watch at 2:00 a.m. and back out of my bunk at 5:00 a.m. to prepare to dock), I was aware of and enjoying their sense of human giving simply for the joy of it.

I've felt it many times on this voyage, for we seem to be treated like celebrities wherever we go. To counter that unfounded admiration, I like to point out to whomever is eagerly asking the questions I'm answering in whatever marina we find ourself that my inquisitor is probably ten times the sailor I was before I began this race, and is probably still so. Though I like to think of myself as perhaps our boat's ambidextrous wizard in our snake pit (see video below), this ability applies only to this one particular boat. On a more practical level useful for day to day sailing, I don't know bupkiss about anchoring, dealing the international procedures of fog, dead reckoning navigation, and other far more useful skills. Right now perhaps I'm perfectly primed to learn them, yes, but learn them still I must.

After a bit of boat clean up at this nameless south-of-Halifax marina (no time for a personal clean up), followed eventually by a true breakfast at 11:00 a.m., we slipped our lines again at 1:00 p.m. for our grand entrance into Halifax proper (below), overwhelmingly drowsy from our lack of sleep combined with our full stomachs.

The city had a full day of activities scripted for us but I sneaked away after the 5:00 p.m. clam chowder party and before the 6:30 brewery tour and 9:00 p.m. party in the local bar. I needed a shower, damnit, and enchanting hosts or not, I was going to take one.

I took two...just because I could. Then I took another one this morning. I'm contemplating taking another one right now and might take my third one today later this evening (the fifth in 24 hours) just before I leave to I pick up Jamie at the airport. You never realize what a luxury a true shower is until you spend almost a full year yearning for them.

Jamie was due to fly in at 10:51 p.m. last night but some storm in the midwest stranded her in Chicago (here's her brief story). On my own unexpectedly, I was content to simply watch a movie (in my hotel room, an indulgence I allowed myself only because Jamie was coming) and then drifted into that happy kind of sleep that only cotton sheets and a large bed that doesn't move can give you.

Even though I still woke up at 4:30 a.m. this morning as if I needed to go on watch, I did have the luxury of rolling back over and spreading my arms full length on either side of me and drifting back to sleep again with my cheek turned to sink into a cotton pillow case. I'll spend a bit of today doing laundry while I delight in the feel of jeans and a cotton t-shirt on my body for once. Ah...cotton!

Other than that, I'll probably achieve virtually nothing else today and be most content with that. I am so...so tired, and not just physically.

Jamie comes in tonight, 24 hours later than planned.

Below is the video mentioned above on the snakepit, my favorite position on the boat. It was produced by Vic, our visiting videophotographer on the Jamaica-New York race.

Corporate Cruising in New York

2008-06-03T14:09:00.003+01:00

Nobody got hurt. Everybody kept all ten fingers and toes.

Out From Behind The Camera

2008-06-03T03:10:00.002+01:00

We had a video photographer join our boat for the race from Jamaica to New York, giving me a break from the often laborious task of creating two short and concise videos each week as we race. Furthermore, I had the chance to be in front of the camera.

There are two videos below. The first is of me explaining what a Le Mans race start is (which the fleet used 24 hours after leaving Jamaica and motoring all night as a group to find enough wind). The second is of the becalmed conditions that ended this last race. In that one you'll get a brief glimpse of me in the background getting my mohawk haircut.

Hot Date Burning Down The Avenue

2008-06-02T20:10:00.007+01:00

We arrived at the marina adjacent to Ground Zero in Manhattan at around 3:00 a.m. last night. One question that seemed to be on everyone's mind was who I might have waiting for me here.

Due to the various friends who've met me at ports of call around the world, whether they'd traveled 1000 miles or three blocks to do so, I've gained the predictable reputation of having a woman in every port. Someone even joked last night as we motored by the Statue of Liberty, "What if all those women showed up in one place, huh? I bet you'd be in a pickle then!"

Actually, not really. One, they're all just friends and, two, they all pretty much know each other. Jamie (Panama, Jamaica), Daphne (Rotterdam) and Claudia (Salvador) have all known each other for years, each of them being among the elite women hanggliding pilots of the world (which is how I met them). And Gay (Australia) knows Jamie, too. If they all got together, it wouldn't be anything new and they'd be having a great time together with or, possibly, most likely without me.

My hot date for New York, however, was my mom. I hadn't known she was coming, thinking that her trip to Santa Cruz took the place of her planned visit to New York. I only learned just this morning from my daughter that she'd actually still be here, leaving my 'woman in every port' reputation intact.

We had a great time this evening, strolling down the streets in the unexpectedly wonderful night air along Manhattan's waterfront, being decadent and having some ice cream before dinner, and enjoying a great dinner outside within view of all the Clipper fleet and their flapping flags and penants.

I'll be part of a skeletal crew tomorrow for a corporate sail, something that gives current or potential sponsors the ability to boast that they've sailed a bit at the expense of our peace of mind. My job will be to coach and guide them during various maneuvers and to intervene before they have the chance to treat a line capable of ripping their hand off as if it offered no more tension than a strong willed dog on a short leash.

We slip lines Wednesday morning for Nova Scotia.

Wing and Wing

2008-06-01T00:17:00.003+01:00

...and, wouldn't you know, now that the race to New York was terminated due to a lack of winds, we've now got 30 kts pushing us along. We can only motor at 7-8 kts in the best of conditions so we've shut the engine down and resumed sailing, cruising along now at 10-12 kts under an widely eased out main and poled-out headsail. Ah...I see here in the Nav Station where I'm writing that we just hit 18 kts surfing down a wave. I felt it first and looked up at the guages to see that speed.

If we keep this up much longer, our ETA to New York will be moved up from Monday morning to Sunday night.

Sailing in this configuration is called 'wing and wing' or 'goose winged.' Picture a book open in front of you. Our mainsail is the right page and our headsail is the left page, held out in that unnatural manner by a spinnaker pole. It's great fun and, in this crisp spring air, drenched in bright but not hot sunlight, all of us are remarking that this is some of the most enjoyable sailing we've had the chance to do in quite a while.

With the main so far out, however, the potential for disaster is great. If a disoriented helmsman lets the wind get behind the main, it could possibly snap the preventer (a heavy line running from the bow to the end of the boom to stabilize the extended boom) and cause the boom to forcefully swing from fully right to fully left of the boat, possibly taking with it some vital rigging (such as our running backstays).

For that reason, we're cautious about letting any crew who just joined this leg take the helm. When I handed the helm over to a "legger" earlier today, he was allowed on only because the skipper came up to sit right beside him to coach him though his first session of sailing with this configuration, ready to leap in to grab the wheel before anything too severe could take place.

The Last of the Mohicans

2008-05-31T18:16:00.003+01:00

Position 34 56.74N 074 15.10W. We'd hit a patch of water that had no wind for three days and, needing to meet sponsors schedules in New York, the race was terminated in our present rank (7th for us, a finish so common that we call ourselves Uniquely Seventh). We're now motoring up to New York. We'll be there in 48 hours.

Right now we're about 60 miles off of Cape Hatteras on the border between North Carolina and Virginia. My old residence in Northern Virginia, the area which has been my home for most of my life, is just 275 to the north northeast.

In some ways, then, you could say I'm close to completing a circumnavigation of sorts of the globe, having moved to England a few years ago, then having continued on to the east on this boat to find myself back so close to home.

In truth, however, all these details of distance, time, and supposed accomplishments are meaningless to me. The world is my home and its contents, in both people and other natural beauties, are my rewards. The only accomplishments I concern myself with are whatever difference I make to those I meet.

On a lighter note, bored as we were drifting in a windless sea these last few days, when I started to give myself a haircut with the hair trimmer, someone asked if she could give me a mohawk and I conceded. It seemed fitting for New York. Truly now I do in fact look just like this:

=B^)

Groveland

2008-05-29T07:07:00.002+01:00

Position 30 27.41N 74 42.27W When people I've met over the last year ask me where I'm from, I tell them I'm currently homeless and live on a boat. The longer answer is that I've lived in England for the two years preceding this race. Before that my home was in northern Virginia, though I was rarely there. If I had a place I'd call a second home, it would be Groveland, Florida (an hour west of Orlando).

I've never been particularly enthused about any location where it never snows but this area of Florida has a few merits (great friends and great hang gliding, to name two) that have drawn me back again and again. I even own a small trailer there.

We're opposite this region now and will remain so for perhaps two days, having hit a wind hole we've long known was in our path. Jamie just e-mailed me to say she noted on the Clipper Website that we were opposite her home just south of Cape Canaveral and was waving as we sailed by, 300 miles off the coast. Unfortunately I was below decks at the time and missed it.

Since we'll be here a while, I've pondered asking G.W. to jump in his sailboat and motor out to bring us a case of beer. As gracious as he may be, however, I'd have to admit that the 600 mile round trip that would entail might be considered unreasonable.

We'll just have to make do with our usual powdered fruit drinks, tea, and coffee until we hit New York in a few days (hopefully).

Views of Jamaica

2008-05-24T15:16:00.002+01:00

My Jamaican Posse

2008-05-24T13:03:00.004+01:00

Besides Jamie, I've also have my daughter and three of her friends here, something they've been planning for almost a year. Standing at the dock the other night (it was probably 1:00 a.m. when we eventually got in), they all were there. A friend on another boat leaned over as we docked next to him and said, "Tim, you've got to write a book."

"On what," I asked.

"On how you do that," he said, gesturing towards the five screaming, waving, shouting, enthusiastic women calling my name over and over.

These last two days here, many of my friends (and strangers, too) have passed us and then stopped to turn around and stare in wonder as I and five women walk down the street.

I'm back on the boat in a few hours and should be in New York at the North Cove (www.thenorthcove.com) on June 1st or so. We'll be there only two or there days. Stop by if you're in the area.

Transiting the Panama Canal

2008-05-17T22:05:00.004+01:00

There's very limited internet access here, not to mention so little time, so pics of the transit across to the Atlantic will be all I can post.

We head for Jamaica tomorrow evening, Sunday, once the remaining clipper boats make the transit. It's only 500 miles but expected to be all upwind.

We should arrive Wednesday evening, the 21st.

Hot Shoe Burning Down The Avenue

2008-05-17T15:46:00.008+01:00

…which actually is the title of the first of Jamie’s blog entries about her trip down here to see me. Reading it off her laptop as she composed the blog entry, I started chanting, “Panama! Panama ah ah ah AH ah.”

“You get it!” she exclaimed.

Well, of course I did. Do any of you?

We only had 36 hours on the Pacific side of the canal before we were scheduled to start the transit at 8:00 a.m. on May 16th, so Jamie and I spent a rushed day touring the canal museum (at the first lock on the Pacific side)...

...and strolling the old town before finishing her visit at one more (again) party that night at the marina.

She had so much fun with us here that she bought a ticket to Jamaica and will meet me there in a few days.

The Milky Way

2008-05-17T15:45:00.005+01:00

Although it might be hard to imagine that any clear night out here at sea could be more spectacular than another, I do in fact think that we were given some of the clearest field of stars I've ever seen in my life over the span of a couple of consecutive nights in early May off the coast of Mexico. I was on the helm one of those nights and noted that up to my right was the first cloud I'd seen in the sky all night. Upon further observation, however, I saw that it was no cloud. It was the section of the Milky Way around Scorpius so bright and clear that it looked like a cloud.

Almost every time I see the Milky Way, I recall the time my uncle George (who was there in Santa Cruz) told me about how, when he once took some inner city kids from L.A. out into the desert for an overnight trip, they were all awestruck to see the Milky Way for the first time in their lives, something many of us take for granted.

All around me that night in May perhaps a collection of five dolphins popped to the surface now and then, tracing their glowing wakes in the sea that we often see in the dark, taking audible breaths that sounded like the gasps they are. They seem so human when you listen to their breaths that analytically.

Yesterday we saw the largest collection of dolphins ever during this voyage. As all of us on deck stood dumbfounded by the sight we were witnessing, I asked the skipper if he'd agree with my estimation of fully 1000 dolphins around us, whipping the water up in deep play. He said, "Easily."

I've just finished reading Jacques Cousteau's first book, 'The Silent World,' about his early adventures in and under the sea. He estimates that there are more dolphins in the oceans than there are humans on earth. Considering the relation of water to land (maybe 4:1), it's quite conceivable.

Every hour one of us enters a string of data into the ship's log; heading, wind, barometer, etc. One of the data inputs is the water temperature, and it's been delightful to note how warm the water became as we headed south. Leaving Santa Cruz, it was 15C (59F). When it reached 30C (86F) a few days out of Panama, I grabbed a bucket out of storage and tied it’s rope to the railing before tossing it over. This is a standard precaution since it’s easy to underestimate the force the water flowing past the boat at 7 or 8 kts will exert on the bucket once it flips and catches water. What I failed to consider, however, was that the knot attaching the line to the bucket might have worked loose. I tossed the bucket over, it caught water, tore loose, and sat there floating as we sailed away with it's rope dangling from our guardrail.

I’ve yet to take a saltwater bucket shower.

Below is a video I made during this leg about working on top of the mast while at sea.

Race to Panama Shortened

2008-05-08T16:26:00.003+01:00

Position 13 24.86 N, 095 57.83 W. Due to the complete lack of wind in these latitudes off the coast of Mexico (something we all had anticipated from the start), the race was terminated at a pre-determined gate drawn across the sea and we all are now motoring to the Panama Canal. It will take us six days.

This morning I entered our remaining route into my GPS and was quite surprised to learn we've only just under 6,000 miles left in our voyage (with 29,000 miles completed). The longest sail will be from Syndey, Nova Scotia to Cork, Ireland: 1750 miles. From Jamaica to New York will be only 1200 miles. Everything else between here and Liverpool will be even shorter sails.

It's as if we're done with the marathons and have nothing but two 10Ks, one 5K, and a few 400m sprints to do. Personally, I'd rather run a marathon than a 10K. In a 10K, you have no excuse but to push hard right from the start, and so it will be in many of our races left.

In terms of time, it's only 58 days until our July 5th arrival in Liverpool. On one hand, I've certainly felt the weight and effect of all that time passed on the sea, but on the other, I am surprised there's so little left.

What do I miss the most? Running, biking, and even swimming for hours on end simply because I CAN.

What have I enjoyed the most? That's obvious: the people I love, whether in this race or on the lands we've visited.

Santa Cruz

2008-04-25T15:26:00.007+01:00

After we crossed the finish line and began dropping sails and setting to enter the harbour, amidst all our celebrations on the boat I failed to notice that my mom and uncle were on the small launch that had come out to greet us and lead us into the harbour. They’d been up since 2:00 a.m. (our original estimated time of arrival) and had been out on that small, rolling, and not particularly comfortable boat for an hour. I knew they’d planned on being there but I didn’t expect to see them for some time. I didn't discover their presence until they were standing below our boat before I even had the chance to climb down.

To be able to greet a boat arriving after a 4000+ mile journey at the very moment it docks takes a lot of patience, digging of the right information from the right people (and website), and a fair amount of dedicated perseverance. I didn’t think my mom would have the energy or know-how to pull it off. I happily stand corrected. This most likely will be the one stop that anyone other than my daughter attends and, of all the stops to pick, my mom and uncle picked the best. Seeing us arrive as the first boat in, with champagne flying and cheers all around was quite the adventure for them both.

Carrie, who was forced to drop out of the race in Australia for healths reasons, also came to Santa Cruz for a few days.

Due to the rushed schedule now to make up all the time we lost (gained, to my perspective) in Hawaii over maintenance issues, every stop between Hawaii and New York has been shortened. All Carrie and I had time to do was spend a day driving down to Monterey and Carmel.

Uniquely Singapore departed for Panama the next day.

P.S. and was first across the line (below)

Candlelit Dinners/Kayaking the Grand Canyon

2008-04-17T15:08:00.008+01:00

Two nights before leaving Hawaii, we of Uniquely Singapore got together for one last crew dinner at BubbaGump’s, a restaurant based on the theme of the movie, “Forrest Gump.” Paraphrasing one of the film’s best known quotes suits sailing quite nicely:

“Sailing is like a box of chocolates: you never know what you’re gonna get.”

On this last voyage, there were many times where I’d spend just 30 minutes of my midnight to 4:00 a.m. watch taking my turn on the helm, then leisurely enjoy the remaining three and half hours doing nothing else but gazing at the spectacular stars we regularly have out at sea. At the close of the watch at 4:00 a.m., dry and pleasantly sleepy, I’d crawl into my bunk for a few hours sleep.

On one morning following two consecutive nights of star gazing, however, as I finished my breakfast before going on watch at 8:00 a.m., I heard Mark say to Graham, “We need to hank on the Yankee 3.” In other words, start the process of replacing the Yankee 2 with the Yankee 3.

For those of you not familiar with the sail plan of our Dubois 68’s or sailing in general, I’ll further translate. What Mark really meant was, “I want everyone on deck to get totally soaked and exhausted.”

The Yankee 3 is our smallest of three headsails. When it’s needed, it’s because there’s too much wind for Yankee 2, the middle sized headsail. To drop the Yankee 2, we’ll need to pull it down and into the boat. Since it’s being overpowered by too much wind, however, it’s trying very hard to billow up and away from the boat.

Because of the high winds and the extra heeling of the boat caused by the current excess of sail, conditions at the bow were angled, slippery, and under a constant barrage of spray. The spray could either pour on you like a thunderstorm, with waves slapping the bow and arcing up and then down on you. The spray can also be like a collection of fire hoses aimed at your ankles, with walls of water knocking you off your feet and sending you skidding down the deck until your safety harness jerks you to a stop.

With so much water flying about on the bow during headsail changes, it’s not uncommon for one or two lifejackets to auto-inflate, as with Xinmei here.

Our current record for a headsail change is three auto-inflates. We hope to achieve a 4-popper before we get to Liverpool.

While I took my last sip of coffee that morning, Graham acknowledged Mark’s words, ate the last bite of his toast, and turned to climb the companion way up to the cockpit. I followed Graham but grabbed my camera first. In the few moments when my hands weren’t either full of snapping sail or clinging white-knuckled to some part of the boat, I was able to get a few shots of what it’s like to drop a Yankee 2, showing the both the wet and the work of it all.

We Won!!

2008-04-16T22:58:00.004+01:00

Skipper Mark spraying us all with champagne after we docked just past dawn in Santa Cruz (I'm kneeling next to him, covering my face with my hood)

Bit by bit we slowly chipped away at Nova Scotia's lead until we trailed them by a few hundred yards as we entered Monteray Bay at 2:00 a.m. Having been flying along at 13 kts most of the night, the winds dropped down to a whisper in the shadow of the 3000ft mountains surrounding us.

It took us three hours to finish off those last five miles, passing Nova Scotia only at the very end. They'd chosen to hoist a lightweight spinnaker in the ghost-like breezes but we went with a more manageable ultra lightweight headsail known as a windseeker. Their spinnaker hung like a limp sock under it's own weight. We all sat with our butts on the toerail on the leeward (downwind) side, causing our own limp sail to at least fall into a curve that resembled an aerodynamic shape. That was all the difference we needed to crawl past them eight tenths of a mile from the buoy marking the finish line.

We'd raced 2080 nautical miles and it came down to yards.

I'm exhausted and I've been up for 30 straight hours but it's hard to get to sleep. We've been given a free day to spend simply relaxing and enjoying our moment before we begin the usual two day deep clean and repair tomorrow.

Between the food and the drinks everyone's buying everyone else (I've had three and passed on the following six offered), I've also managed to pull together a video of the final 24 hours.

Tactical Moves in the Race to Santa Cruz

2008-04-14T01:11:00.013+01:00

You gotta love Clipper Ventures' commitment to helicopter coverage at race starts. How else would you get pictures like this of our start out of Hawaii? [photo posted in Santa Cruz April 16th]

Position 35 01.73N 134 04.64W

Despite our stellar start out of Hawaii, we found ourselves at 7th a week into the race. Downloading the latest weather files that day (which are the same for everyone...no outside weather assistance is allowed) we saw an opportunity and decided as a crew to take it. The forcast was for the northeast winds to change to the north. If we headed due north then (and if no one followed us), we'd hold the advantage of being able to carry on comfortably due east when the winds changed while the others, still south of us, would have to struggle tacking into the north winds to maintain their NE track.

It worked. We fell to 8th at first as we headed north while the others continued northeast. Then, when the winds change, we tacked with them and shot up to 2nd place in twelve hours time. Right now we're in a battle with Nova Scotia, 13 miles ahead, for 1st.

Three days to go.

100 Feet Deep

2008-04-04T21:08:00.004+01:00

Yesterday, Thursday, we had our last free day in this week of pre-race preparation. I took the opportunity to take a few dives in the morning, one of them down to 100 ft to see a WWII aircraft that didn't make it back to Pearl Harbor, landing in the water a mile offshore. The pilot, we are told, swam in safely.

One of the Dive Masters had a digital camera and gave me these pictures. I learned of this dive years ago when Regina did it while in Hawaii with her boyfriend of the time. They told me of the huge moray eel that lives in the cockpit but I didn't think about it until after I'd been in and out. That's when someone motioned to me to look where I'd just been. There it was with a head as big as a football.

We restart the race tomorrow, Saturday, at 11:00. Santa Cruz is only 2080 miles away but the winds will be on our nose almost the entire way. It will take us 14-15 days to get there.

I Needed That

2008-04-03T21:10:00.017+01:00

Christina and I had a discussion during our time together here in Hawaii about the general abuse of the word, “need.” We both agreed that one can almost always replace the word “need” with “want” any time it’s heard in another’s expressions.

What needs, we asked ourselves, do we truly have beyond air, water, food, shelter, and human compassion? We found it difficult to define any.

As my time in Hawaii passed at such a heavenly slow pace, it occurred to me during a moment of happy contemplation that there is one time when I feel comfortable using the word, “need.” When used in the past tense to describe a kind of unexpected fulfilment of something one hadn't even thought to ask for, it’s hard to construe it as anything but an expression of gratitude.

This thought came me to as I was realizing how much my depleted and perhaps even wounded soul was being so deeply nurtured by both this extended stay in this tropical paradise and, most importantly, by the celebration of life and living that is at the center of my friendship with Christina.

“Boy, did I ever need this,” I couldn’t help but think.

I met Christina just over a year and a half ago when she was the massage therapist who gave me two incredible massages during the week Cyndi and I spent in Maui during our three week trip to the Hawaiian Islands. The pivotal reason Christina and I were spending time together during the race’s stopover, however, was that she also gave Cyndi two great massages.

One full year later, after Cyndi and I had amicably parted ways, Cyndi sent me an e-mail about her search for a massage therapist in her new location. “Someone like that woman in Maui would be ideal,” she wrote. “She was the best massage therapist I’ve ever had in my life.”

Prompted by the coincidence (“There are no coincidences,” Christina keeps telling me) of having come across Christina’s business card only two days earlier while sorting out the clutter in an long neglected pile of papers on my desk, I thought that goodness deserves to be acknowledged. So I dug up that business card again and forwarded Cyndi's e-mail to Christina, adding my equally enthusiastic affirmation.

Coincidentally (“There are no coincidences,” Christina keeps telling me), these thoughts arrived at a pivotal time in her life and made far more of a difference to her that I could have ever imagined. A correspondence began, slow and simple at first but deepening in nature as time passed. In only a matter of a few months plans were made to try to meet again when the Clipper race docked at Oahu, around 100 miles from her home in Maui.

Once our proximity to Hawaii allowed me to give her our actual arrival date, she purchased a ticket to fly to Honolulu on the day that would follow our arrival.

As I stood waiting for her in baggage claim at the Honolulu airport, I pondered how I really didn’t know what she like beyond vague memories from 19 months before. As I thought about this, out of the corner of my eye I only had a brief chance to glimpse the image of an approaching blur of bare arms and blonde hair before those arms were wrapped tightly around me and that hair was pressed against my face.

“This must be Christina,” I joked to myself and allowed my spirit to drop fully into the emotions of finding so much relief in a moment I’d been taking so much comfort from in advance. I’d been long pondering this moment while cold, wet, tired, discouraged and so many other states of mind during the challenges our crew had been through in the preceding months.

As I’ve written, Christina and I had planned an unavoidably intense time of togetherness crammed into the three days she cleared on her calendar, and with no choice but to spend that time on Oahu, an island that interested neither of us. When the ten day delay was announced, we flew back to Maui where she could return to work and we had the freedom to spend time together at a much more leisurely pace; a few hours on some days, an afternoon or an evening on others, and a full day on a few occasions. The coincidence ("There are no coincidences,” Christina keeps telling me) of the boat maintenance issue occurring here in Hawaii suited us both so perfectly.

I stayed on an organic farm with a few cottages for rent just a mile down the road from her home. Each morning I was blessed with the view of the sun rising over my toes on the ocean just down the hill from where I slept. I took to running every other day and would savor that achy feeling of my legs being used for the first time in such a long, long time.

Christina loaned me a guidebook which listed many of the waterfalls and pools to be found in any part of Maui but of course her knowledge of the local area exceeded any written record. We’d hike to and swim in pools of a surprisingly comfortable temperature beneath dramatic falls and bath in the joy of two people who both felt that the other not only got it (i.e., life) but got each other as well.

On days when she’d have no free time, I’d drive over to the opposite side of the island where the beginner waves were to be found and rent a surfboard for the day. Sometimes I’d take her guidebook and head off to find something that caught my interest. I spent 12 hours one day circling the larger part of the island, stopping to swim in this pool, climb to that waterfall, visit Charles Lindberg’s grave just past the town of Hana or, a mile or two past that, stop at a fruit smoothie stand in the middle of nowhere that had customers generate the electricity needed to run the blender by riding on a bike with an alternator connected to the back wheel.

Another day I drove back to Hana to hire a motorglider and pilot for a one hour flight (that ended up being 90 minutes, we were having so much fun) to enjoy the island from above. It was also the first time I’d flown anything since the last time I was at Quest Airpark in Florida over two years ago.

I shared my flying history with the pilot and, once clear of the helicopter routes continuously circling the island, he gave me the controls and didn’t take them back until just before we landed. As we taxied back to the apron, he volunteered, “You know, now that I think about it, I'm relatively certain that the only person who’s flown my airplane more than you have is me.”

I had to fly back to Oahu on Monday, March 31st to be ready to join in with the final pre-race boat preparation on April 1st. Two days before then, Christina rearranged her schedule to give us a completely free Saturday to explore and enjoy. We spent the morning snorkeling and were rewarded with some beautiful views and even a very leisurely encounter with a turtle who, after allowing us such close proximity for a minute or two, dropped down to 30 feet and took a nap underneath a coral shelf.

A bit chilled from so much time in the water, we decided to spend the rest of the afternoon on one of her favorite beaches nearby.

We laid on the sand; her on a towel, all aglow with grace, elegant femininity, golden hair full of sunlight and lightly tanned skin, me dripping wet from a few swims, laying directly on the sand and looking more like a piece of chicken that had been dipped in batter and breadcrumbs and was ready to fry. I noticed a fair number of the people around us were uniformly concentrating on a point out in the water. “You can see many whales here,” she explained. I looked out and in only a moment later I saw the dorsal fin of two humpback whales a few hundred yards out from the shore, which seemed amazingly close. As we both gazed out on the water, a humpback fully breached, looking exactly as the image below, which I’ve pulled off the internet from a whale watching site.

Christina answered my slack jawed expression by informing me, “You can hear them if you go in the water.”
“Right here?” I asked, incredulous. “Right here off the beach?”
“Right here,” she answered.

I immediately got up and waded out into the water. Once past the breaking surf, I swam a bit further out then took a long breath and dropped to a few feet below the surface. Once I stabilized myself there, I heard what sounded like five or six whales and they sounded as if only just out of sight. I heard squeaks, rattles, whines, growls…all right there just out of my reach but so intimately in my own ears.

Awed and amazed, I eventually swam back to the shore and dropped to my hands next to Christina to lay beside her, forgetting once again that if I had dropped on my elbows instead, my hands would have remain sand free. Now, with my sandy hands, every time I scratched my face or rubbed my nose I deposited another streak of sand onto my wet skin. If Christina (sand-free and the image of natural beauty as she reclined on her towel) was amused by my lack of...of...something (can't think of a name of what I lacked), she graciously did not show it.

My first morning in Maui, Christina drove over with a serving of the fruit smoothie she'd made herself for breakfast in a wineglass she'd held in one hand while driving over the mile to the farm and my cottage, skillfully avoiding any spillage on the rut-filled dirt road.

Later that day as we explored the organic farm, she picked up a flower from the ground, had me smell it (much like an iris but more subtle), and told me it was a palmeria. It looked like perhaps what leis are made of. Later that evening after we'd had a great and full day together, I said goodbye to her in the gravel parking lot of the farm and walked back to my room in the darkness. Once I climbed the steps, opened the door, and turned on the light, I saw that she had taken the wine glass in which she'd given me the smoothie and had washed it, then floated the palmeria flower in it.

Each time thereafter when we'd meet at my place, the introduction I was treated to on every occasion was the slow, almost ponderous sound of someone ascending the wooden steps to my room. Her face would emerge first and, like the unfolding beauty of a sunrise, her body would rise into view, always with either a palmeria or some other flower she'd found when walking the short distance from her car.

It became an association of happiness to me, this rising image of her body and spirit in the window by my door, bearing natural gifts.

Most days, then, I had fresh flowers in my room, offering the space in which I lived a lingering fragrance that would remind me of the time we were sharing, the peaceful feelings, the love, the goodness of life, and so much more.

What a coincidence it was, then, that at the just time I needed something as graceful and beautiful as this experience in such an enchanted land with such a dear friend, events conspired to delay our departure by 10 days and make all of the above possible.

“There are no coincidences,” Christina keeps telling me.

I completely agree.

Once I flew back to Oahu on March 31st to join in with the pre-race preparations, it was amazing how many people told me they'd never seen me so something or another. Some said happy. Some said glowing. Some said other things along those lines. All attributed it to my having spent those days with Christina on Maui.

Well...yes...spending time with someone so delightful certainly has got to put a spark in one's step but that's not the point. I'd ponder trying to explain positive energy or the peace one finds in truly being understood. I'd contemplate trying to talk about loving and being loved in a sense most simply cannot fathom. In the end, however, I'd just smile and thank them for their own positive energy.

Christina was, is, and will always be such a blessing, no doubt, but the true source of all this goodness is to be found from within ourselves.

At this point in my circumnavigation of the globe, I needed that lesson so desperately.

Who ARE These People?

2008-03-28T19:27:00.016Z

It's Jamie's fault.

Some time ago I included a counter on my blog to see what the general level of interest might be. The above image is the result...clearly an unrealistic representation. In truth I can probably count on maybe two sets of hands the people I think are reading this: Jamie, G.W., maybe Bill and Dana and a few other Northern Virginia friends (I saw your sweet comments on the race's website, Kristin. Maybe you're checking in here, too?) Of course there's my daughter Raine and a few of her friends, probably more at her prompting than from any particular interest in me. I was was tickled to learn, however, that Amanda (hi, Amanda) told Raine that she found the best way to pass time when breast feeding her new child was to 'read your dad's blog.'

There's the Gexto, Spain gang (hi, everyone) and Anya and Sergei in Chelyabinsk (that little dot in the middle of Russia), and perhaps Anya and Sveta's mom Ludmilla, too, though she doesn't really speak that much English so she must be just looking at the pics. But who's that in Moscow? Sveta and Brian must are probably buried in the crowd of dots around Northern Virginia, as are Stiva (Steve and Iva). Steve's parents Maddie and David are probably one of those dots in out in the midwest (is that huge dot you, Maddie? Bless you).

There's Christina in Hawaii, yes, though now a lot of the hits attributed to Maui will be simply me updating my blog while here and constantly hitting 'refresh' to see if the layout works.

I see Jamie in Quito, Ecuador (his name is pronouned 'HY-mee' and not to be confused with Florida's 'JAY-mee') and a little further south in Rio Bamba there's Manuela (how's it going with your new guy, What's-His-Face?).

I can see Gay in Fremantle and Dilip in India (though I'm not sure which dot is you, Dilip). I see Claudia down there in Columbia (bless you a thousand times for that Salvador experience...I still get misty-eyed when I think of that moment of spotting you on the dock after my first crossing of the Atlantic).

Then there's some west coasts relatives who check in, I'm gathering.

That comes out to about twenty or so. But really...who ARE all the rest of those people? Who do I know in Japan or China (other than Fei, who's much further north along the coast than that huge dot and hasn't been abe to bypass the Chinese filters to access my blog, anyway) or deep in the Amazon jungle of Brazil?

It's Jamie's fault. Jamie's blog is world-renowned and linked to by numerous other world-renowned websites. The most widely read E-zine on Hanggliding, The Oz Report, frequently has direct links to Jamie's reports on various hanggliding activities. So when people end up at Jamie's site, either because they know her (perhaps a third of the world) or because they were directed there by link (another third of the world), they see this:

"Who's this Tim Ettridge?" they perhaps wonder. It's good for one hit from some obscure place on the globe and then they're gone.

Really, friends (all 22 of you), happy to keep all of you as updated as you might wish. Don't have the first clue as to who the rest of those people are.

Rendezvous and transfers

2008-03-28T07:06:00.001Z

Rendezvous to transfer items with other race boats such as our fuel transfer with Durban are not all that rare for us in this race. The picture above was taken last December by another boat, Jamaica, as we joined up with them to pass them medical supplies a few days before reaching Australia. Someone on board had a kidney infection (brought on by dehydration, a common problem with open ocean racing; we're continuously handed more fluids than we really have the stomach to consume but do so anyway). Jamaica was coming close to using up all their IV fluids and so we handed them our surplus.

Jamaica had been leading us by 20 miles and had turned back to meet up with us. Accepting outside assistance, however, forced them to restart racing from wherever the assistance was finished, as long as they'd gained no distance from it. Having come back to us, the resumed racing a few hundred yards behind us. We were able to hold them off the remaining days in the race and so placed ahead of them.

I felt bad about this but, as Skipper Mark explained it to me, "Hey, they required outside assistance. We didn't. It's a race."

In the photo above, you'll find me on the far right, taking video of the whole process (click on the photo, as with any other in any of this blog, for the full screen version).

The video I sent in to the race organization an hour later by satellite is below.

From China to Hawaii

2008-03-26T23:35:00.023Z

Xinmei (above) at the helm, surfing down wave after wave (below)

After we escaped the cold and the snow just outside Qingdao and the wind finally picked up, we were treated to some of the most enjoyable sailing of the race: surfing downwind.

When sailing downwind, the apparent wind across the deck of the boat is much less (since you're going with the wind) and this makes for a far more comfortable point of sail than the wet blasts of spray we'd been enduring when pounding into the waves as we approached Qingdao. It was still cold, but so much more bearable.

A video on surfing at this point in the race

The downside to this is that under spinnaker with the boom swung out wide, the boat is potentially liable to far greater forces unexpectedly. Perhaps a sudden gust of wind into the spinnaker might lay a boat literally on it's side (called a 'broach') or it's always possible for the boom to strike the water when a wave from the side rolls the boat a bit more than it had been heeling.

I happened to catch the exact moment such a boom strike occurred in the video below. You'll hear the helmsman shout 'well done' one second after it happened, congratulating the person controlling the vang (which stabilizes the boom vertically) for appropriately dumping the tension controlling it immediately, saving the boom (and perhaps the boat itself) from serious damage.

Though the general conditions were far more enjoyable than what we'd been experiencing for some time, there's an added work load and generally heightened level of stress that makes the exchange almost even. When sailing upwind, at any given point there's only one person truly working: the helmsman. Everyone else is there to attend to whatever needs might happen here and there (trim this sail, adjust that line, drop one headsail and replace it with a larger or smaller one, etc.). Time on deck for everyone but the helmsman (which we rotate generally every 30 minutes) is as relaxing as the conditions allow.

With a spinnaker, however, there are five continuous jobs going on: 1. helmsman (very stressful requiring a fair amount of experience and not a job we allow many of the leggers who haven't been on the boat that long); 2. Shotgun (standing beside the helmsman controlling the mainsheet, ready to dump it at a moment's notice if the boat seems to be broaching, and also there to take the wheel if a wave crashing down the deck or from behind knocks the helmsman off the wheel...if it hasn't already knocked the person at Shotgun as well); 3. Spinnaker trim (standing at the mast, manually holding tension in the spinnaker sheet with a permanent fixation upwards on the spinnaker, calling 'ease' or 'trim' to the trimmers the second the spinnaker seems anything but very happy); 4. Trim Grinder (standing at the 'coffee grinder', the two handled winch--think of bicycle pedals at chest height, powering our strongest winch, which is what it takes to control a spinnaker); 5. Trim Easer (kneeled at the winch drum itself, ready to ease out the spinnaker sheet as the the trimmer deems necessary.

Though it's often thrilling to be flying along under a billowing spinnaker, it's not a relaxing time at all. In our 25 days between Qingdao and Hawaii, we spent perhaps two-thirds of that under spinnaker. In the end, the long term effects this stress applied to our boats came to light.

It was perhaps one week out that we'd heard Western Australia had lost their half their mast. The fitting on a cap shroud (the cable going from one side of the middle of the boat to the top of the mast and back down to the other side) had failed and in a flash an 80 feet length of reinforced aluminum as big around as a fit man's waist bent into a 40 foot upside-down 'V.'

This is a catastrophic failure of rigging that shocked the entire fleet. When you feel the pounding these boats take day after day, it's amazing they hold together at all but when something like this actually happens, it's such a shock. No one was hurt and the crew quickly took to fashioning what remained of their mast into something they could use to sail with a jury-rig to the island of Midway, site of the famous WWII naval battle and about halfway between Japan and Hawaii. There they could refine what work they'd done, take on as much fuel as they could, and then motor and/or sail (with what's left of the mainsail on what's left of their mast) to Hawaii where a new mast was being flown in.

With sobered minds the rest of us continued.

Around 900 miles short of Hawaii (having covered more than 4000 to that point), the headwinds returned and once again we were subject to the pounding and heeling type of sailing we'd been so happy to leave behind. One minute the spray is falling short of you near the mast, the next it's covering the length of the boat.

After three days of this, only making 120 or so miles a day as we tacked back and forth into the wind (compared to the 240 per day we'd been covering when sailing downwind), we got the alarming news that Durban had completely lost it's mast.

With two boats now suffering such a severe rigging failure, the race had been terminated with each boat placing in the race in whatever position it held overall at that point. We were in fourth and, as it turns out, about two hours away from passing the boat in third. They had been approaching a reef and had been forced to tack away from Hawaii to clear it. Had the race been terminated three hours later, we would have placed third and had our first 'podium finish.'

In the grand scheme of things, few of us gave that much thought. The seriousness of the situation took precedence and we all felt an overwhelming sense of gratitude that no one had been hurt (a miracle in itself when you think of all the snapping steel cables involved--as thick as a man's little finger--as well as the tumbling mass of aluminum involved when a boat our size loses it's mast).

Most boats were directed to motor directly to Hawaii. A group of three of us were directed to rendezvous with Durban to escort them in to Hawaii, available to offer fuel, food, and moral support.

We spent the night hove-to (sails set in contradicting settings to make a boat sit motionless in the water) so that Durban could stabilize what was left of their rig and motor up to a rendezvous point. At around 1:00 p.m. they radioed that they had us in sight but it was another 45 minutes before I was the first to finally spot them, having climbed all five steps at the base of the mast to do so. Back down on the deck, it was not until they approached to within a few hundred yards that we could consistently spot them in between the waves.

It was astounding how small, frail, and invisible they looked without the towering mast we see on other boats from miles away. I couldn’t tell what I felt strongest; elation at their safety and happy spirits or heartbroken at the sight of the the short remnant of ripped and twisted aluminium that formerly was their mast, now bound to the deck along with the boom.

We compete with each other, yes, but any boat is like family to us, both in terms of its crew and the hull itself. Whenever we step on another boat, there’s often an eerie feeling of being at home but not at home. Everything’s mostly the same, save a book or two we might not have on our Uniquely Singapore.

To view Durban in its condition, then, was almost as painful as if it were our own boat. Durban erected what looks like a broomstick for a mast and has their South Africa flag proudly flying from it. From the smiles and happy waves they gave us right away (along with passing over a flarebox of goodies to thank us for the rendezvous), you’d never think anyone on Durban was anything but pleased with the adventure. The Durban team was so gracious in defeat I felt embarrassed that we had no gift prepared to hand right back. We assured them that we’d pass something over once the wind and waves settled down a bit. They had enough fuel, as best they could tell, so we simply set into motoring towards Hawaii , us leading, them following, competitors but team mates, too.

The headwinds picked up and the swell grew, requiring more power from our engines to make any headway towards Hawaii. After two days of motoring near each other, it became evident that Durban didn't have enough fuel to make it to Hawaii. We and the other two boats escorting her took turns moving in to pass fuel over, as shown in the video below.

A few trying days later we made it to Waikiki Harbor in Oahu, just down the coast from Pearl Harbor. We'd given Durban so much fuel that we had only about twenty minutes worth ourselves when we docked in Hawaii. Other boats had been poised to pass us fuel if needed.

We moored stern to bow with New York with poor, stricken Durban rafted on New York's port side.

Durban's skipper Ricky is a friend of mine I'd met one year before the race began. When each of us crew members were being allotted to the fleet of ten boats last June, the only preference I stated was that, if possible, I'd rather be on either Ricky's or Mark's boat. I was placed with Mark.

At sea after our rendezvous, I'd only been able to cast a wave to him now and then. Once in Hawaii, Durban docked a bit before we did so Ricky ambled on board as we secured our lines. He sat down next to where I stood (with a bit of heaviness in his movement, I thought I noticed) and asked me how our sail had gone.

"You're kidding, right?" I exclaimed. "Good grief, Ricky! Tell me about it all!"

And so he did, calmly as if describing a meal he'd cooked. To be the skipper responsible for 16 lives a thousand miles from anything and suddenly find that your mast (not to mention your sails, too) are now dragging alongside you doing their best to punch a hole in your boat, being held in place by robust stainless steel cables...excepting the one that snapped and caused the problem...well, I just couldn't even begin to imagine what it would be like to bear that burden. I just felt so relieved to be sitting there talking about it all so calmly.

It broke my heart to look at her, Durban, but her crew (which, beyond Ricky, includes two of my closest friends in the race) sure seem up to the task, physically and emotionally.

It's hard to say if I would have been, had that been my boat. This leg has been the most difficult for me emotionally and spiritually. In a marathon, this might equate to the 20 mile point when most runners 'hit the wall.' I knew this point would come and from the start had been drawing that marathon parallel in my mind, neglecting to take into account that, for me, that point in a marathon might mean perhaps a bit more than 40 minutes more hard work to the finish. Here, I've got three more months yet to work through.

Once the remaining eight boats were inspected and decisions were made about what to replace fleet-wide to ensure the safety of all the crew and all boats, it was announced that we'd be here in Hawaii nine days longer than planned.

If there was anywhere on earth I'd rather be nine days longer than planned, it would be here. Christina and I had been planning three crammed days together on Oahu, the race's port of call but an island neither of us has much interest in. When the delay was announced, we immediately left to fly the 100 miles over to Maui, her home, where we've now got a leisurely twelve days to slowly enjoy the depth of each other, this jewel of an island, and the goodness of life.

This race has never been about me and what I'll 'accomplish' by doing it. It's about life, living, and the beauty of the earth. If you could only see the things I've seen.

Most of all, it's about the people I love, be they with me or merely holding me in their thoughts around the world. Writing to Christina from the boat just short of Qingdao, I described the cold and the wet and how hard I struggled to endure it. She had responded:

Know that, in an alternate universe, I'm awaiting your arrival in China with a hot aromatic bath drawn and a massage table layered with soft warm blankets, ready to clear away all aspects of stress collected within your sacred temple.

That thought (and the love behind it) has carried me through so many miles and so many difficult days. It was that mental image I relied on to finish the race to China, that image I swam through while collapsed on the shower stall floor those first few hours in Qingdao, and that image I continued to lean on under the emotional duress of what the other equipment failures around us implied about our own boat and safety as we sailed, drove, pounded, and eventually motored our way towards Hawaii.

Now, finally, that alternate universe is my/our reality...along with sparkling waterfalls, warm crystal clear pools and, best of all, the goodness of a true friend.

A Pair of Glimpses Into Our 24 A Day Lives

2008-03-25T23:46:00.000Z

Though it's obvious, most people don't seem to think much about how sailing is a 24 hour a day job. These two videos provide an insight into life on a sailing boat at all hours of the day and night.

The first I filmed on our first leg down to Brazil. The second was filmed by a professional videographer on board for our sail from Fremantle into Singapore. I'm in it, appearing far more sleepy and groggy than I recall feeling at the time I was being filmed and interviewed.

At Anchor in the Snow Just Outside Qingdao

2008-02-27T12:27:00.009Z

Fei on my last night in Qingdao, our second consecutive night of her introducing me to the delights of various local delicacies such as cooked jelly fish, conch, chicken foot soup, etc. [photos and video below posted in Hawaii March 25th]

Position 31 15 N, 128 46 E. On my last night in Qingdao, Fei Du, a Qingdao native and member of the Chinese Olympic sailing team, took me to a spa that around a main pool had perhaps six Jacuzzis for ten people each, filled with various types of tinted water. A label explained what therapeutic benefits were to be found in each. After perhaps two hours of enjoying the muscle relaxation pool, the stress relief pool, and such, we decided we'd had enough hot water and went out to dinner.

What was I thinking?! I've spent the first three days of this leg dreaming of a five minute dip in those Jacuzzis. It has been COLD out here, colder than anything we felt before. And that's without much wind. Imagine what it would be like if we were beating into 35kts of apparent wind, as we were on the approach to Qingdao.

In fact, we've had so little wind that we dropped anchor the first night out of Qingdao, lest the tide take us back to Qingdao. When I went on watch at 6:00am the next morning, Graham was making a snowball. "Frost?" I asked. "No, it's SNOWING!" he said with a school boy kind of glee. I looked all around and saw the first sprinkling of a white dust beginning to cover the entire deck. Two hours later we had two inches.

Thankfully it's warmed up since then and we've got the wind back, hitting 17kts once surfing down a wave today. We'll clear the tip of Japan later tonight.

a video on our plight one day after the race start:

Views of China

2008-02-23T16:19:00.003Z

I leave here in nine hours. Hawaii (and a great, great friend) is next.

North to China

2008-02-21T11:25:00.008Z

Erma, at the helm here a few days out of Singapore when things started getting rough, was barely big enough to see over the wheel and completely unexperienced in sailing before this race, yet she was surprisingly one of our better helms. Witnessing those kinds of personal triumphs in others makes this race such a pleasure to me.

Leaving Singapore, I'd been concerned that those crew members who only joined us for Leg 4 might never truly feel what it's like to be fully challenged out in the open ocean on a racing yacht. From Fremantle to Singapore, we never even took our foul weather gear out of the wet locker. That first half of Leg 4 was all down wind in an unheeling boat, much of the time spent with bare limbs in bare feet. The most clothing we ever needed was a thin breeze jacket on a few of the night watches.

Only a few days out of Singapore, I realized that those doing only this leg weren't missing anything at all. Even before the temperatures dropped, the seas grew quite heavy as we sailed over areas where the wind opposed the current (photo above), a formula for the roughest seas possible. In the photo below we've got the third of the three reefs available lashed down on the boom and the staysail dropped and tied to the deck. Even the Yankee 3 headsail (the smallest of the three we use) was too big for the conditions so it was off the forestay and stored below decks with our hankerchief of a storm jib taking it's place. And yet at times we were still shooting along at 11kts through the waves, launching the front half of it into the air only to land with a thud over and over again.

This last half of Leg 4 has been the roughest section of the entire voyage, far worse than anything the southern ocean had to show us. Every four hours saw one group of crew members wrapping up, zipping up, and pulling up hoods to go on deck while another group, exhausted and dripping of sea water, struggled simply to get down the companionway ladder without being tossed off it mid way by an unexpectedly heavy roll one way or another.

Every time this boat heels hard in the wind, though I know it feels like 45 degrees much of the time, I know it's actually only 30 degrees or so. However while on the helm in one day in these Force 8-9 (40-50mph) winds, I know that several times I saw the mast lay over momentarily at least 50 degrees and could hear the noise below of the shifting pans, flying books, and unattended personal items changing sides of the boats.

Everyone, night or day, wore two safety lines, so that if we needed to reattach to a different hard point while working on the bow, we could attach the second before releasing the first. Safety is always first.

We were challenged, but no one felt threatened. It's amazing what these boats can take, for we've certainly put this one through its paces.

And if that wasn't enough, we also had the heavy commercial traffic of the China Sea to contend with.

I think it was on February 6th that I came on watch at 4:00 am to the beautiful sight of Venus, Jupiter, and the moon all clustered together. Below the equator, it was an oddly pleasing feeling to look up and know absolutely nothing about what I saw, as if I was in a distant galaxy. On that day we were at least 15 degrees north of the equator, so I had come back into the star fields that I know.

I went on the helm at 6:00, using one hand to wipe away the salt encrusted around my face and ears from the soaking we all took during a headsail change one hour before. Only minutes later a squall formed around us and the winds picked up as a light rain began to fall. This will take care of the salt on my face, I thought, content to be cleaned in rainwater.

We knew, however, that any rain in that area of the world is bound to turn into a squall. While I remained at the helm, squinting in the increasingly heavy downfall, the others scurried to put in the 1st reef. They hadn't finished by the time the rain fell hard, so hard that even though I had my hood up, I couldn't keep it from drizzling down my coat into my chest.

I felt cold for the first time in six weeks, but it felt good. With my hands fully occupied on the wheel in this squall, I could only bite the top of my foul weather jacket's collar to stop as much of the rain going down my chest as I could.

The boat heeled steeply as we pounded through the agitated waves, the deck a blur of bouncing raindrops. Ignoring our course, I concentrated on pinching enough into our close-hauled point of sail to keep the heel of the boat under control. Most times it was around 40 degrees. Now and this, it would roll over to 50 or more, so I'd pinch a bit further into the wind. I'd done this before with my 19ft catamaran with its 30 foot mast (that I could lift with two hands) when I was once caught in a storm on the Potomac River near my home in Virginia. Feeling the power of the squall that I was wrestling with and its affect on this huge boat's 80 ft mast (which takes an immense crane to lift) seemed a bit more signficant.

Just as we finished putting in the reef, the rain and wind suddenly stopped altogether and we found ourselves in an utterly quiet and windless sea, wind indicator spinning erratically at the top of the mast and absolutely zero boat speed. We were in third in the race at that point. A few miles behind us, the boat in fourth saw our plight and steered around the wind hole we'd stumbled into. They passed us and accomplished in a matter of minutes what they'd been unable do to for several days. By the time the wind came back, the boat that had been well back in fifth was now right on our tail.

Later in the day, that boat, New York, tacked away. About an hour later we both tacked towards each other and New York, on the starboard tack, had the right of way. Who would ever have believed that, 2000 miles into an ocean crossing yacht race, right of way rules would come into play? We were forced to give way and ducked behind New York's transom. We spent the morning dueling with them gaining a slightly higher line, then losing it, then gaining it again. In the end, they bore off once more and somehow lost miles to us before the day was out, giving us fourth once more.

Sometimes this race is about solitude and competitors we can only imagine somewhere over the horizon. And sometimes you could hit them with some of the eggs we had left in the galley. We considered it but used them for one last serving and scrambled eggs the next morning.

The closer we drew to China, the fiercer the winds grew and the heavier the seas churned. The howling winds, confused seas, and dropping temperatures we battled off the coast of and north of Taiwan had provided such harsh conditions that we started taking only ten minute rotations above decks for only two people at a time (one on the helm, and one beside them in case a wave should knock the person on the helm off the wheel). Once done, we bring them down to warm up and be replaced by a fresh pair. This gave the rest of the crew around 20-30 minutes below to try to bring back feeling to one's fingers, toes, and face. Here in Qindao, I've heard of at least one person who got frostbite in their toes.

Though we kept the above deck crew down to two, when an evolution (any type of sail change or modification) is called for, everyone comes on deck and deals with the tack, headsail change, or putting in/taking out a reef. This happened to me one night just as I was finishing my ten minutes at the helm and, as I was already frozen and pretty much useless for practical work, I was left on the helm while the crew fresh from below took on the work at hand.

Tacking a boat (turning to take the wind from one side of the boat to the other) may seem a simple procedure but the necessity of bare hands for much of the line handling reduces everyone's efficiency to appalling levels. It took six people fifteen minutes to prepare, execute, and tidy up from the tack, during which I was treated so some amazing sights of teamwork and tenacity from my vantage point behind the wheel.

One of the most gruelling tasks in this kind of weather is the release of the lazy (not in use) running backstay from the strop we use to hold it forward and out of the way by the mast's shrouds. The lazy runner is always on the leeward side of the boat, which means that the rail it's attached to is right down on the water, if not occasionally below it from time to time. Having one's feet, calves and even knees pummelled by flowing water while you struggle to unclip the restraining strop isn't unusual. Last night, as I watch Graham (our best sailor by a wide margin) take on this job, he not only endured this but additionally would disappear every few seconds when a wave would slap the side of the boat and cover him in a ten foot high arc of white spray lit up by the masthead light (turned on for safety during any significant sail changes at night at that point), only to re-emerge a half second later, dripping buckets but still at work.

All these images and visions appeared before me in a completely jet-black environment for anything beyond the white paint of the boat, up or down. For all we knew, we could have been sailing through space between Jupiter and Mars.

I so wished a camera could capture those night images as I watched Graham and everyone else endure these mountains of spray and reappear still at work on their task, dripping with frigid sea water, oblivious to the obstacles of cold wind, wet spray, heeling boat, cramped hands, exhausted body and, I wondered, perhaps even an overwhelmed soul? If the latter applied to anyone, I could never tell. The next morning I mentioned to our skipper that I'd yet to see a glum face despite what we had endured for the previous five days. He replied that he'd noticed the same and was quite impressed and pleased.

We all chose to be there. We all embraced the moment.

Two days later, due to how slow the fleet as a whole was progressing through the storm, we received an e-mail from the race office that the race would end at 12:00 UTC the next day. Each boat's place in the race would be determined by whatever one's position was in the race at that point in time. After that, we were to motor to Qindao as soon as possible (two days for us in Seventh place, three days for the boat in last place). Media and sponsor deadlines had to be accommodated.

That was fine with us. We were cold and tired.

Qindao will be the site of the Olympic sailing during the Beijing Olympics. Our arrival was being used as one of the warm up acts for the Olympics and all the attendant festivities.

Two days later, we arrived in Qindao, entering the harbour at sunrise in a fog with two other Clipper boats that had joined up with us during the night. The two of them went in first at half hour intervals to receive their official welcome. We drifted in peace some distance out and awaited our turn.

When it finally came and we approached the Olympic marina's breakwater, we heard drummers pounding on the end of the jetty

As we passed, they launched fireworks for us as we had seen them do for the previous two boats.

As we neared the docks, more fireworks shot up with colored smoke and more drummers pounded away

While no alcohol whatsoever is carried on the boats during a race, tradition in Clipper races is to be handed a beer upon docking, no matter the hour. Even though it was only 9:00 a.m., I was surprised I actually wanted it and even more surprised that it actually tasted good.

We were then lead up the dock and up a ramp to the welcoming ceremony, which is normally animated but rather low key. This was anything but.

We had drummers in yellow, ladies with paddles in red, fan dancers in white, and banks of photographers.

It was great but hard to take in when you're dog tired and still cold from the sea.

From the cameras of others (whose files we've collected into one data base for this leg), I've been able to add a few pictures here that include me.

After numerous speeches from race officials and local dignitaries in both English and Chinese, amidst a shower of glittering confetti, Skipper Mark was awarded a cape with his name embroidered on it.

The ceremonies ended but all the participants wanted pictures with us.

Though I was cold enough to keep my foul weather jacket turned up, the women kept turning it down and rubbing my stubble, showing me they wanted it in their pictures.

Finally it was all over and I was left with the freedom to find my hotel.

I'd been content and even preferred staying on the boat until this point but, knowing how cold it would be and how sparse the Olympic Marina facilities would be, I'd signed up to share a room with a crew mate Ian even before I left Singapore. Ian and I took a cab there with just one change of clothes in our hands. We were happy to learn our two room suite actually had two separate baths. I don't know what Ian did on his side of the suite but, in the absence of a tub, I stripped (discovering huge bruises I'd never had the chance to observe before) and slumped on the shower floor with my head and torso supported in a corner, letting hot water run over me for 40 minutes before I stirred, allowing my mind wander through the mental image of an aromatic bath and a massage table layered with soft, warm blankets.

I fell asleep, slumbering through lunch, got up just in time to eat a light dinner, then returned to my room to collapse into the bed again.

I slept the sleep of a child that night.

Views of my Singapore Experience...

2008-02-21T08:36:00.011Z

...with a slight emphasis on Graham just for you, Jamie. You'll be sad to learn, however, that his girlfriend is flying out to the Santa Cruz stopover, where you'll be, too. I guess you'll just have to hang out with me.

=B^)

Keppel Bay Marina

Biking on Pulau Ubin

Wakeboarding in the Punggol Marina

Departing

Gathering up for a grand entry into Singapore

2008-02-21T05:29:00.001Z

One thing I've learned from being involved in this voyage and Sir Robin's last year is how media-driven so much is in a race this large. We have finish lines drawn in the water which, when your GPS tell you that you've passed them, might raise a few whistles and cheers on the boat, then we unceremoniously go about dropping the headsails, centering the main, tidying up lines, turning on the motor, and heading for the port (usually around 10-20 miles away).

The real show for the media, however, is our entrance into port, often with one or two helicopters covering it all form the air.

When we arrived in Singapore last January 16th, we didn't dock at Singapore first. To allow a fleet-wide grand entrance into Singapore that had been orchestrated as part of the grand opening of a new marina and the heart of a multi-billion dollar real estate development, all boats first gathered at Nongsa Bay Marina (above), around 10 miles across a small body of water from Singapore.

There we leisurely went about our usual post-race deep clean and maintenance while we waited for the stragglers in the fleet to join us.

As I write this now, sitting in my hotel room in Qindao, China, having finished four days of outdoor work on our boat amidst the ice patches on the dock and the winds of a northern hemisphere winter, looking at those pictures makes me ache for those days in Nongsa Bay. I do love cold weather, yes, as long as it involves snow. The natural beauty of a white blanketed winter scene makes whatever exposure to the cold I might need to endure worthwhile and even desirable.

Here, in the coastal winter of a large land mass, there is no snow but just a biting, aching, wind-blown kind of chill that makes working with one's bare hands on a docked boat excruciatingly painful. Each evening when I've returned to my hotel here in China, I've immersed myself in a shower nearly as long as the one I took the moment we arrived. There, in Nongsa Bay, being finished in the evening meant hanging out by the pool.

Being in port always means taking many (too many for me, actually) opportunities to make up for any culinary deprivation we've suffered on the boat. There on Batam Island one of our crew, Erma, was native to this culture and its unique language and so she treated us to places and experiences we never would have found on our own.

By the time the 19th and it's scheduled events arrived, all boats were in, so we proceeded with our grand entrance into Keppel Bay Marina in Singapore. TV crews boarded our boat and interviewed many of us on the way over, focusing on the five Singaporean natives returning home, such as Diana.

With our boat in the lead position (it was our home port, after all), all ten boats formed two 'V's of five boats each and, escorted by plume spraying fireboat tugs, we covered the short distance over to Singapore and Keppel Bay Marina, constantly encouraged by the flotilla of press boats around us to offer waves to the cameras.

We rounded the final turn and motored in to speeches, cheers, free drinks, free food, and yet one more Clipper Ventures party.

Finally we all were taken to a parking lot where, as arranged by our generous sponsor (Keppel Corporation), we each were given a BMW to use for our week's stay.

I've driven on the left before in England and Australia but my unfamiliarity with a city as congested with Singapore, combined with the stress of driving on the left made the freedom of having a car pointless. Whenever I drive in left drive countries, I must repeat to myself over and over, "Stay left...Stay left...Stay left..."while constantly nodding my head to the left like Saturday Night Live's Will Ferrel and Chris Kattan in, "A Night at the Roxbury" (my daughter will love that mental image).

I left my BMW in the marina's garage for all but one evening (much to the consternation of other boat's crews who didn't have the luxury of any kind of car at all). A sufficient number of events lead by our native Singaporeans in their own cars or British crew members using their BMW's allowed me to enjoy the city without driving in it.

Back Doors

2008-02-21T03:24:00.001Z

Ah ha! Found a backdoor way into my blog, bypassing Chinese limits on the internet. I'll post a few updates over the next two days.

In China, but unable to upload

2008-02-17T23:51:00.002Z

I'm in China now, having endured the most challenging, cold, rough, and taxing sail of this voyage so far to get here. The Southern Ocean has nothing on the Yellow Sea. I've got a deep purple bruise the size of my head on my right thigh and a small gash on my head (healing nicely). On the positive side, at least it's nice to know that my body still bounces rather than breaks.

Lots to tell, many pictures to upload, but I'm currently having a problem accessing my blog. I don't know if it's this particular hotel's computer, connection, or if it's Chinese censorship. For now, all I can do is post by e-mail.

I'd much rather let pictures tell the story when I have the means to do so, but for now I can't. Here, then, is a link to one picture of our arrival ceremony two days ago.

I'll keep working on uploading pics and such.

Force of Nature

2008-01-23T02:07:00.000Z

This voyage is full of firsts. Last night a group of six Singaporians took quite an interest in me, eventually inviting me to join their birthday celebration at the marina's bar. They asked me to join the celebration's extention into the city and even got me to sing at a karaoke bar with them (a first).

Here's another first. I'm in a book. Sir Robin Knox-Johnston wrote a book about his solo round the world race last year. When I saw Robin at the Durban, South Africa stopover, I knew it had just been published so I asked him if I was in it. He nodded with a knowing smile.

"Did you spell my name right or did you just refer to me as that crazy American?"

"I think you'll be very pleased," he said.

Just a moment ago he passed through the marina office, where I've been online. He had three copies of his book in his hand and, seeing me, ducked into a spare room. A moment later he emerged and handed me a copy. Inside, he'd just written,

You were an important part of this whole adventure. Thanks for helping to make it all happen.

Robin Knox-Johnston

I'll read it on the voyage to China. Glancing through it now, I see I'm in the acknowledgements (page 287, if you're looking) where he did, after all, spell my name right. I'm even in one photo.

Crossing the Equator Again

2008-01-20T01:19:00.001Z

The sail from Freo to Singapore offered the mildest conditions we've experienced so far. Mostly downwind, we flew our spinnakers much of the time and therefore had a relatively flat boat with little wind across the deck. Leaving Freo in their summer time and heading north, we wore a jacket at night, then only a shirt once the equator neared. By day, we wore as little as possible, slopped on sunscreen by the jug on all the skin left exposed, and still wilted in the heat.

This segment also carried the most people possible: 19. It's the homecoming voyage to Singapore for the Uniquely Singapore boat, and so there was no shortage of people from the region who wanted to experience this voyage. In fact, Anna, one of our Round-The-Worlders had to do this segment on another boat because she signed up too late. We six remaining RTWs and the skipper had to take a new crew of 11 leggers and one videophotographer. It sounded daunting but in fact the boat felt anything but crowded. It was a delightful crew to sail with.

This one leg is one that I'd been looking forward to the most, as it would include the two people I'd most enjoyed meeting in the final training: Chee Yuh and Diana, both from Singapore.

Chee Yuh is one of those spirits to whom everything is good, everything is doable, everything is positive, and everything is fun. The first day I saw him back with us in Freo, I must have grabbed his shoulders on five separate occasions and exclaimed to him how glad I was to finally have him on board.

Diana (shown here trimming a headsail sheet while Skipper Mark gets a pre-arrival haircut in the background) has a warmth and inner strength running deeper than her 25 years would imply. Also, she's the kind of person who will plop down next to you on deck in the middle of a pitch black night and, apropos of nothing, ask you, "So, what do you think the hardest thing in life is?"

I do so enjoy those kind of people.

Any group of people will always have their defining personalities. We lost one of our brightest personalities, John, at the end of leg 3 when he returned to work back in Englad. For me, Chee Yuh and Diana became the new essence of our personality.

I hadn't met Lih Shuin (above, taking a shower in the rain) during the training but soon realized that his ebullient personality would soon come to dominate our boat as well.

Put the three of them together? You can begin to imagine how much laughter echoed throughout out boat those 16 days at sea.

It was work, no doubt, but quite enjoyable work when you have these kind of people all around you.

Next up, our penultimate stopover half way through Leg 4: Singapore.

Christmas and New Years in Fremantle

2008-01-20T01:06:00.000Z

The two full weeks we spent in Fremantle, Australia was the longest stopover of the entire ten month race Of our four stopovers so far (La Rochelle, Salvador, Durban, and Fremantle), Fremantle was by far the hardest to leave.

Perhaps this was because Freo (the local name) was hot and dry after so long a period of being cold and wet in the Southern Ocean. More likely, however, my reluctance to leave stemmed from the fact that I was utterly spoiled by my friend and host, Gay, whose home was a mere ten minute walk from where all our boats were docked.

Gay (shown here with her partner Deon on Christmas Day at her sister's home) and I had been planning our activities for this stopover over a full year. Before she and I had the chance to play, however, there was much work on the boats to be done.

Another reason for the long stopover was the excellent facilities at Freo, enabling the Clipper organization to haul all ten boats out of the water into dry dock for a complete inspection at this point in the race, essentially half way around the world. We spent our first week in Freo working on our boats to a level we never had the chance (or facilities) to do before.

Though other crews remained on their boats or in individual hotel rooms around the town, our boat had rented an entire house. It was just down the street from Gay's home so it was also just a short walk to the boat for everyone.

In the evenings, while the other crew would retire to the house or wonder around town, I'd have the luxury of Gay's enthusiasm, energy, and spontaneity to make any moment a celebration of life. While the others might have been staring at a TV with a beer on the couch, we'd play with her dog in the surf and take in the sunset with a gathering of wine, cheese, crackers, and olives spread out in the sand.

There is rest, and then there is rest. Though I certainly don't feel overtaxed by the demands of this circumnavigation, I knew these kinds of moments would stand me in good stead for any of the challenges yet to come.

Work ended Christmas Eve and, after a Christmas morning with Gay's family, we were free to leave on the trip we'd planned for a year: five days in the Margaret River area of Western Australia, a fertile valley amidst this generally arid part of Australia, known for its vineyards and beautiful beaches.

It was a four hour drive down to the cottage Christmas Day. We arrived at dusk. Four kangaroos stared at us blankly from the yard of the bungalow perhaps only 50 yards away. They seemed content with our presence until Gay's dog Zena ambled out of the car.

We spent five days walking the paths of the thick forests, swimming in the river, eating breakfasts in town with views of the surf, or grilling something easy on the porch back at the bungalow. We both brought several books and would spend much of our time reading or simply being. For Gay, it was a heavenly respite from her normal life. For me, it wasn’t not so far out of the norm of my life before the voyage but, here on the heels of those weeks in the Southern Ocean, it was utter peace as well.

We drove back in the pre-dawn hours of the 30th to have me back on board in time for a 10:00 briefing on our pre-race preparation. After two days of work, we were free on the evening of the 31st to have a reasonable New Year's Eve celebration. Committed to slipping lines at 9:30 the next morning for noon publicity parade and the 2:00 p.m. race start, no one did much more than see the New Year in with a drink and a hug and retire for the night.

I didn't even make it that far. Gay, Deon, and I spent the evening having a barbeque in Gay's back yard. In the warm, dry night air with the smell of the nearby wood fire mixing with the scent of the smoking grill and the fragrance of wine beneath my nose, I felt such peace and happiness to be with these good people. My celebration of the New Year ended 90 minutes before it began when, at 10:30 p.m., I chose to remain behind to go to bed while Gay and Deon went to a local party.

The next morning I gave Deon a tour of the boat before we all said our farewells and I settled into being a sailor again.

The race start was eventful. One boat actually hit ours (we had the right of way, they had an inexperienced helmsman at the wheel) moments after the photo below was taken. A quick inspection showed only superficial damage and we chose to not even submit an official protest, which could have caused the other boat to incur a time penalty. We race, yes, but there is a spirit of brotherhood as well. No harm done. Let the race be settled on the water.

The wind died down after the start and so we ten boats spent perhaps 30 minutes creeping up the Swan river in front of the crowds lining the shores on the promise of an exciting yacht race. We limped by, turned around and limped back out into the harbor and out to sea, headed out on Leg 4, the midpoint of which is our homeport, Singapore.

Two days out to sea, I uploaded a video showing the collision (small bump, really) for the Clipper website. A professional videographer was on board for this segment of the race and supplied me with the raw footage. We'd become friends over the months he's been involved in the race and, as we worked together to compile the video, he kept pointing out footage of me that I could use. I had to explain that I'd never hear the end of it if I used footage of myself but conceded in the end to one shot near the end.

You can view this video below.

Leaving Australia

2007-12-29T02:46:00.000Z

I'm in Margaret River, Australia today, where I've been for the last five days. This two week stay in Australia has been so different from the other stopovers, for several reasons.

First of all, having the time to spend one day doing anything not boat related was impossible in France, Brazil, or Africa. Here it had been anticipated for the last year.

Secondly, Fremantle feels as much like a home to me as there is in the world at this point. The story (and photos) will have to wait until later. I'm on a dial up connection here (was surprised to find they still existed) and it's taken far too much of my time here to simply add titles, photos and videos to the Africa-to-Australia entries. But I have, and so it might be worth going back to see the images associated with anything you might have already read over the last month or so.

We leave here tomorrow, Sunday, at 5:00 a.m. At 9:00 a.m, after a long drive, I'll be back on the boat to work hard for the next two days. Tuesday morning, New Year's day, our next race begins in Fremantle's Swan River as the keynote event of an annual river festival.

For now, however, I'm going to savor what bit of warm sunshine and even warmer fellowship I've got here on land while I can.

Signing off until I'm back out at sea.

The last few days before Australia

2007-12-28T02:19:00.000Z

"We've just rounded Rottnest Island...Fremantle is on the horizon, just a couple miles away. These last four days have been the roughest of the 22 days it took us to get from Durban to Australia."

With the noise of the wind and the limitations of my digital camera's ability to record a movie, it might be difficult to understand that the above is what I'm saying a few moments into this six minute video (sporting a 22 day old beard that was shaved two days later).

The rest of the tale being told should be aurally and visually obvious.

Everyone knows I can't dance

2007-12-28T02:14:00.000Z

Here's proof, recorded in the Southern Ocean midway between Durban and Fremantle:

Thanksgiving Safari

2007-12-21T07:34:00.000Z

Unlike the voyage between Brazil and South Africa, where I often enough had the time and comfortable enough conditions below deck to write about the Brazil stopover, this last voyage between South Africa and Australia was not as conducive to working on a computer.

Not only was the boat heeling at 30 degrees most of the time, the hull was often pounding through wave after wave and dropping with a heavy thud into the troughs behind them. Sitting at an angle on the narrow bench in the Nav Station, trying to type on a keyboard that wanted to slide left, then right, then left again didn’t inspire as much devotion to story telling as I might have otherwise felt.

This story of my Thanksgiving Safari, then, will be picture heavy and word short. The story of my Christmas and New Years here in Australia will have to wait until I get to Singapore in a few week’s time.

The heavy toll the sea took on our boats during the sail to South Africa dictated that our seven days in Durban would be busy ones. Due to this and other personal demands, Carrie and I realized on Thanksgiving morning that our only chance to see anything beyond the marina would be over the next 24 hours. Rather than find the best restaurant we could for a Thanksgiving dinner that night, as we’d long planned, we decided to see what kind of a safari we could privately arrange in those 24 hours.

The closest game reservation to Durban was a 45 minute drive away. When we called to make a reservation for one night, we were told that the only available accommodation was either camping or the honeymoon suite.

A few hours later a cab driver dropped us off at the honeymoon suite; a thatch-roofed cottage buried in the bush a few miles from the Welcome Center and only restaurant.

It was beautiful and certainly seemed like something we'd expect to find in Africa. It did have running water, though lighting was only candles or gas laterns. Carrie was happy enough with this.

A few odd sounds as the sky darkened did cause a bit of anxiousness but…

…we were happy enough in our ignorance.

I built a fire in the pit but it wasn’t long before we noticed the abundance of two-inch long millipedes and their penchant for climbing anything they could, which meant they’d eventually fall, often onto you. Carrie draped herself in a blanket to ward them off.

Millipedes climbed the interior of of the cottage walls as well, so Carrie never shed the blanket, even during our Thanksgiving feast (pickup truck delivered and slightly cold, as earlier arranged with the restaurant).

Carrie spent the night in a chair underneath her blanket, too wary of the millipedes that would periodically drop on the two beds (a honeymoon suite with two beds did make one wonder about the nature of South African marriage). In the morning, we found grazing animals all around us.

Our cab driver returned at 8:00 a.m. as arranged and, after we treated him to breakfast at the Welcome Center's restaurant, he gave us a private tour of the range and all the animals to be found.

By lunchtime we were on our way back to the marina, where Carrie and I spent the remains of that afternoon and the next day, Saturday, engaged in final pre-race preparations. She worked on her field of expertise, the bow...

...and I worked on mine: below deck engineering. Inevitably this means dealing with malfunctioning heads.

The next morning, the race to Australia was on.

Antipode

2007-12-13T11:12:00.001Z

[photo posted in Fremantle December 28th]

Position 36 24.88S 104 51.04E. I've brought an inflatable globe on the boat with me that, from the beginning, I've marked with our position each day at noon. I've also added an 'X' on the spot just to the south west of Australia which is the antipode, i.e., the opposite side of the world from the area in Northern Virginia that has generally been my physical and spiritual home for the last 40 years or so.

Sometime between yesterday and today we passed with 150 miles of that point. I am truly, therefore, on the opposite side of the globe from what had been my home. I grew up there. I raised a daughter there. Now, however, I'm homeless.

I currently live on this boat but I won't return to Virginia once this voyage is done. Next up for me are plans with my Spanish friend German to recreate Homer's 'Odyssey' on a boat we'll prepare together. This will take six months (perhaps three in preparation in northern Spain and three actually doing it in Greece).

After that, sometime in the winter of '09, my intent is to build a simple dwelling somewhere with my own two hands. Just exactly where has been THE question for quite some time. New Zealand has long been my dreamland out of habit. Northern Spain (German's area) is a new possibility, but it truly could be anywhere the spirit and people seem right.

Where the next antipode to my home will be remains to be seen.

Airing Out the Laundry

2007-12-10T13:03:00.001Z

[photos posted in Fremantle December 28th]

Position 39 07.72 S 092 46.97 E. Typical. One reason I withheld bringing out the dry suit was that it was buried deep in the cubby holes beside our bunks we use to store our gear. Coming off watch in those rough seas, it took all my energy just to undress and crawl into my bag. Once I went through the effort of digging it out and wearing it-you guessed it-it's sunny and shirt sleeve weather now. The deck is awash not with water but clothes drying out.

Drysuit

2007-12-09T10:36:00.001Z

[photo posted in Fremantle December 28th: here I've learned that I can pull the neck seal of the drysuit up over my mouth and inflate it like a balloon, much to the amusement of the entire crew]

Today, for the first time, I actually put on my dry suit; a one-piece completely sealed goretex unit that isn't much different than the one I use to scuba dive in the winter. It has integrated water-proof socks, tight rubber seals around the wrists and neck (it takes a while to ignore the strangling sensation it gives you) and no other place that water could enter. Its one zipper crosses my chest from upper left to center below the waist. Most zip upper left to lower right, so my suit makes me the envy of all the other men wearing dry suits, as they take a fair effort to get on and off and only mine allows me to urinate without taking it off.

Now that I've finally broke out the dry suit, it will probably turn sunny and warm.

Happy as a lark down here (now above the 40th parallel so technically back in the Indian Ocean). I'm so happy, in fact, that I'm wondering if someone who's spiritually in tune with me has their finger on the 'Happy' button.

Haven't shaved in two weeks so now my usual sign-off emoticon of

=B^)

is now

=B^)=

Nadir

2007-12-08T11:47:00.001Z

[video posted in Fremantle December 28th]

Position 40 35.17 S 84 27.69E Two days ago our southward arc to find the best winds reached it's nadir at 41 degrees and 21 minutes South. We are now arcing back up to Fremantle's latitude.

In just that much time one can tell the difference. Last night was the first night I wore fewer layers (six top, three bottom) than the night before (seven top, three bottom). Two nights ago I even considered a fourth layer on my legs but instead just stood up and did knee bends to keep them warm. Today, though it's still entirely wet (waves crashing over the full length of the boat at random intervals), I can feel the return of warmer climes.

Our Southern Ocean experience (so far at least) was probably tame by most standards. High winds? Yes. Rough seas? Not really. Huge trains of massive swells that could hide oil tankers? On the Brazil-Africa leg at 36 degrees south just before we reached Africa, yes, but here? Nope. Last year one boat reached 28 kts. surfing down such a wave while under a spinnaker but the biggest number we ever saw on the instruments was 13 kts. while on a beam reach (apparent wind at an angle of 90 degrees) in 25 kts. of wind. Fun...but not what some of us had hoped for.

I shouldn't be too hasty, though. Even though all weather forecasts predict we'll finish this leg in fair comfort, we could of course be surprised (and delighted).

In the Southern Ocean

2007-12-02T18:06:00.001Z

[photo posted in Fremantle December 28th]

Position 40 00.001 S 55 20.543 E.
We're HERE...in the southern ocean!!! I just got off watch 45 minutes ago at 8:00 p.m. but refrained from going to bed, knowing that we'd drop below the 40th parallel within the hour. Above me on deck, people are lifting a few cheers and back slapping before getting back to the business of sailing this boat in high winds.

That unusually warm weather I wrote about a few days ago? Gone. Long gone. It's cold enough that when I go back on watch at midnight, I'll have three layers on my legs and five layers on my body and two layers on my head...but no gloves. You just require too complete a state of dexterity in your hands to limit them with gloves. You keep your hands in your pockets and pull them out bare when you need them.

I'm off to bed. It will be cold up there tonight in the 20+ knot winds we're experiencing so I'm going to savor my sleeping bag while I can.

Personal GPS

2007-12-01T09:38:00.001Z

[photo posted in Fremantle December 28th]

Position 38 14.45S 49 30.37E

I have my own personal GPS with me. This morning as I got off watch at 10am and went to bed, I turned it on and learned that Durban was 1000.64 miles behind us, with Fremantle 3254 miles in front.

Each time we sail, putting that first 1000 miles away is a key moment for us. It makes these immense distances we're covering at such a slow pace seem so much more conceivable.

Right now, those next 3000+ miles seem even more immense than usual. After blistering along at 10-12 kts for the first few days in high winds and rough seas, right now we are limping along a less than one knot in calm seas with flapping sails in little wind. Even though we are as far south as we've ever been, today some of us wore shorts and Anna, the hardiest of us all, even had bare shoulders. "This is the Southern Ocean?" we mocked.

No, not yet. It begins theoretically at 40 degrees south.

The Color of the Ocean

2007-11-27T07:35:00.001Z

[photos posted in Fremantle December 28th]

Position 32 50.713S, 036 13.911E. I sat up in the bow this morning, facing the stern with my back leaning up against the pulpit, letting wave after wave that had first been split by the bow pour and spray over me (dry and comfortable inside my oilies). Firing away with my camera, I marveled at the beauty and power of the sea. Even a picture won't describe how incredibly blue an offshore ocean truly is but when you see (and feel) the V of the bow beneath you slam down and slice a temporary view into it, it's breathtaking.

People who've ventured out here with us on this particular leg most likely share my unique appreciation of not only surviving but actually thriving in a potentially hostile environment. Some 200 of us have ventured beyond what is comfortable to get a rarely glimpsed view of one aspect of this amazing earth. Slamming through increasingly colder waves at a 30 degree heel for the next three weeks, we're on our way to the Southern Ocean, an ocean that doesn't actually exist in any reference other than the minds of ocean racing sailors.

Maybe it won't translate in the telling of the tales to our friends and family but in our minds, we know?and that is enough. We've seen that true color of ocean blue that most of you never will, and would never believe from merely our words. You had to have been there.

Happily, we were and still are.

Preliminary Durban Report

2007-11-24T06:26:00.000Z

The above photo was taken at our arrival at Durban at around 4:30 a.m. on the 18th. None of us had more the two hours sleep in the previous 24 hours but, of course, you couldn't tell from the photo. Below is a picture of Carrie's boat's arrival about ten hours earlier. She's quick to point out that she hasn't showered in 11 days or slept in two in that photo (click on it to see it in hi resolution) but, hey, that's life on a boat.

I'm grabbing just a few minutes at an internet cafe to grab these pictures off the web and post them with a few thoughts but the full story of Durban and Carrie's and mine Thanksgiving in the bush with animals all around and millipedes dropping off the ceiling all night will have to wait until I compile the photos and compose the text at sea, then post once I'm in Australia.

Australia, I should note, is a key destination for me. Not only am I very familiar with it, having spent seven intense weeks there last winter in support of Sir Robin's race, but I also have a dear friend there, Gay (read back to the Croatian and Austrian trips last July) who lives literally two blocks from where our boats will dock. Since it's a full two week stay, incorporating both Christmas and New Years, we as a boat have decided to rent a house. Quite amazingly, with the assistance of Gay, we've found a house that will actually house all of the 15 or so people we'd want it to, again only a few blocks from the marina.

Australia, then, will be the closest thing to a home port any of us will have on this 10 month, 35,000 mile voyage.

Okay, back to the boat to get it ready for tomorrow's departure. Somebody's broken the toilet and, as the below decks engineer, it's my job to fix it. I'll be up to my elbows in you-know-what for the rest of today.

Ah...sailing.

Brazil Report

2007-11-20T14:31:00.001Z

[written at sea, uploaded in Durban, South Africa]

I know I’ll keep returning to this theme over the course of these 10 month at sea: it’s not about the sailing or even the voyage itself. As with everything else, it’s about the people.

I first met Claudia in June of 2004 at the Women’s World Hang Gliding Championship in Austria, where I was the ground support for a Norwegian pilot and she was the official translator. Fluent in seven languages, she’s currently working on her eighth.

Claudia had planned to join my 30 day trekking and climbing expedition to Nepal that fall but a knee injury forced her to withdraw from the trip, much to our mutual disappointment.

Claudia currently lives in her native Columbia. I can’t recall when it was that I first suggested she join our Brazil stopover. Perhaps it was a year ago, perhaps less. After all, I said, Columbia and Brazil are neighboring countries.

I later realized the geographical equivalent would be for me to ask a friend living in Montreal to visit me in San Diego since, after all, Canada and the U.S. are neighboring countries. In European terms, it was if I’d asked a Moscow friend to visit me during a brief stopover in Casablanca.

In retrospect I can’t believe the audacity of my suggestion but glad I am that I did suggest it for, not much to my surprise but certainly to my delight, she picked up the idea and ran with it.

Too numerous are the details of all the effort she put forth between the day I made my suggestion and the moment I first glimpsed her in the darkness late in the night on October 18th as our boat approached Salvador’s dock. The feasibility of her visit was still up in the air when I sailed out of Liverpool and the last chance we had to talk on the phone (on a connection so bad she had to repeat everything three times…and I still didn’t get all she was saying), she assured me that one way or another, she’d be there.

Our boat was still one hundred yards out when, in the hazy glow of dim dock lights, I recognized her (mostly from the silhouette of her thick mane of black hair) amidst the crowd of Clipper Ventures employees and other friends from other boats who had already finished the voyage. Leaning over the rail of our boat as far as I dared, I thrust my right arm out and silently pointed at her, my gesture firmly locked in happiness. The form I suspected was her lifted her arm and pointed back at me. We held that greeting a few moments until I pumped my fist in delight as I dropped my arm.

How that moment felt after a year of planning and then at the end of a 4300 mile/25 day ocean voyage I can only leave to your imagination.
Our skipper had already radioed ahead to the race organization and learned that the customs officials were content to stop by in the morning to deal with the paperwork, so I knew I needed only to wait for the lines to be secured before I could leap off the boat. Finally, after I saw the skipper step off the boat to greet race officials, I made my way down and hopped the short distance to the dock. Claudia stood amidst a group of people who included perhaps five fellow racers whom I normally would greet with a hug in such a moment. Only in later reflection did I realize I had plowed through and past them like a bowling ball going through tenpins as I reached for and eventually wrapped my arms around Claudia.

Everyone on my boat knew who she was. Months before I had mentioned to the race organization that I would have a friend who was professional translator fluent in Portuguese in Brazil and perhaps did they need her assistance? The initial response was luke warm but as organizational difficulties emerged in the 11th hour, requests for information on how to contact her made way out to our boat as we neared Brazil. She’d been doing light work for them until I arrived.

When we met that summer of 2004, our friendship began in earnest when, one evening as I was about to buy her a glass of red wine, she decided to turn the tables on me and bought me a glass. It was a small act, but one that came to symbolize our friendship.

Claudia had been there since the 10th, even though it was unlikely I would arrive before the 16th. She had assured me that, with or without me, she’d be having a great time in Salvador. Besides, she mentioned, she’d be scoping out places for us to enjoy together once I was there. On the dock that night, still full of the moment just experienced, I told her that we could do anything she wanted in whatever free time I had but there was just one thing that was my first priority.

"Does it involve the color red?" she asked with a smile.

Don't you just love it when someone significant to you gets it…gets you, truly understanding just what it is that means the most to you and how you think. While our crew gathered at the dockside bar to drink the first beer, we bought a bottle of red wine to toast our friendship and to commemorate the beginning of our friendship that evening long ago.

As she had to fly back early on the 21st, our arrival late on the 18th gave us only two full days together, days that would be completely filled with urgent post-race work and pre-race preparation. We had discussed this over the months before she came and she said she’d be happy simply to be there and to pitch in. Few of us on our boat had realized just how envied our boat would come to be by having our own private translator.

The following night, both of us having spent the entire day working together on the boat and doing a reconnaissance run to the local grocery store (where she translated countless labels as we prepared our full shopping list), our first moment of free time was spent walking the streets of the old city in the darkness. It looked so beautiful that I’d planned to come back sometime in the day to re-photograph the same scenes in daylight but that chance just never arose. It was a very hectic week of boat maintenance and preparation.

Perhaps the highlight of the entire stay in Salvador (other than my sighting of Claudia on the dock as we arrived) occurred late on that night’s stroll. After having spent more than an hour walking around the old town, we returned to a bar on a corner with perhaps ten plastic tables set up on the ancient cobblestone streets. It was around 1:00 a.m. We ordered two glasses of red wine, asking for a local vintage. It came in two juice glasses. Lifting it to my mouth, I was struck by how distinctly it smelled like grape juice. Tasting it, it seemed to be grape juice mixed with vinegar. It was so bad it was funny, so we drank it any way.

As the time past and the tables around us emptied, the proprietor would remove them from the street. Eventually, by perhaps 2:00 a.m., the only table remaining was ours. Thinking a hint was being made, Claudia asked if they would like to close down. On the contrary, they assured us, they were happy to remain as long as we wished.

Until 3:00 a.m., then, did Claudia and I enjoy our private street party, talking and enjoying yet a few more glasses of the amusingly horrible wine as the time passed.

Our boat had come in seventh. By the time Claudia left two days later to return to work, all ten boats had arrived.

In the days left before the race began anew, we all continued our exhausting schedule of boat repair and preparation. We did not finish the final act—stowing 35 days of food in various corners of the boat—until 10:00 at night on the 23rd.

A short night’s sleep, breakfast, a final glance over the boat, and we slipped our lines at 9:00 a.m. to prepare for the noon start. Carrie’s boat was moored next to mine and our departure was so hurried that she and I only had the time to lean across our respective guard rails to share a brief and angled shoulder to shoulder hug and a light peck of a kiss.

We crossed the starting line in second behind Nova Scotia but soon passed them. We spent the next several hours leading the fleet out into the open ocean.

In truth, I was happy to go. It seemed it would be more restful on the sea again. Moreover, Salvador ached with bittersweet memories of the huge difference Claudia’s visit had made to me.

In the not too recent past, someone who I would have thought had the chance to know me well said in passing, "…and I know that you always want to be the hero and…"

I never caught the next thought. I was too shocked by those words. Is that actually what I project? Or, worse, is that the truth? I would have summed myself up as merely always wanting to make a difference, something I’d consider entirely different. One seems self-oriented, the other hopefully is not.

Claudia was grateful and even a bit surprised by my deep appreciation of the world of a difference her presence in Salvador was making to me. I tried to explain to her that at a minimum I felt she was an inspiration for me to aspire to in the kind of friend I wanted to be to others. I also hoped that she was a mirror, showing me what I was to others as well. The difference she was making to me by the abundance of her exuberant energy, deep sense of support, dedicated perseverance, and unconditional enthusiasm was exactly what I would want to be to others…the kind of friend I’d thought I’d been aspiring to be all my life.

Recently a new friend who’s had only the barest opportunity to know me at all nevertheless saw fit to commend me for the sense of unconditional love I projected. I was shocked again, but this time happily so. Is that actually what I project? Or, better yet, is that the truth? I certainly hope it’s what I offer but how could she have discerned that so quickly?

Do I seek to be a hero? I pray not.

Do I, like Claudia, offer the gift of friendship in the deepest and fullest sense of the word, taking such personal delight in seizing the opportunities to make whatever difference I can?

I truly hope so.

Africa!

2007-11-13T06:57:00.001Z

Position 34 42.38 S, 24 02.95 E

Fifteen minutes ago, sipping coffee not long after I arrived on deck after breakfast, I got to the first to shout, "Land ho!" after 21 days at sea. The watch long on deck had apparently been too sleepy to notice the clouds on the horizon weren't clouds. It's still 525 miles and 3-4 days to Durban, depending on the winds.

I'll get to a cybercafe when I can (not before two days at least) and I'll post many pictures.

What I miss the most

2007-11-03T20:44:00.001Z

Position 29d 52m S, 14d 40m W.

It only occurred to me earlier today that we've long ago left the tropics. It makes sense, though, since the decision of what to wear for the night watches has gone from whether or not to wear a jacket to whether to wear 3 or 4 layers...and perhaps even a wool hat.

I've found myself pondering just what it is that I miss the most due to this life at sea for a year. Other than good coffee, it's the freedom to engage in endurance excerise, such as biking for five or six hours at a stretch.

Back in Virginia some of my happiest times were all day bike rides with Bill and Dana or perhaps even the Glam Squad (Maria, Nancy, and Dori; gorgeous all). These five friends and others were part of a gathering of triathete friends with whom I'd swim 3000 yds at the crack of dawn three times a week and do either 15-20 mile runs or 70-90 mile bikes on the weekends, sometimes both. The feeling those friends and those times would give my soul, both from the fitness derived and the fellowship found either on the road or at Starbucks afterwards, was the true wealth of my time in Virginia.

I have many new friends from the time spent preparing for and doing this voyage, yes, and some who no doubt will be eternal, but that group of triathlete friends was 15 or so years in the making. Eric, Barb, Dr. Chris, Gail, young Matt, Cindy, Brad, Laura...I miss them all.

The spiteful wit of the weather

2007-10-31T16:31:00.001Z

Position 25d 33m S, 24d 36m W.

[photo posted in Durban November 20th]

We have a sail called the wind seeker. It's designed for very light winds and is so frail that it can't be flown in anything stronger than 6 kts. We use it to 'threaten' the wind, i.e., if the wind has dropped and isn't filling the normal headsails and if you go to the trouble to drop them and raise the wind seeker, the here-to-fore weak winds, just to spite you, will more often then not suddenly rise to well above 6 kts.

I was thinking about this because, certainly due to my mentioning the beautiful weather yesterday, it has just poured and poured buckets for the last 24 hours just to spite me.

We don't really mind that much. If nothing else, it washes off the salt that's accumlated on the deck fittings and also rinses all the salt and grime off the exterior of our foul weather gear.

The interior of our 'oilies' is another matter. That won't be addressed until we reach Durban.

At the Helm

2007-10-30T21:57:00.000Z

Position 24d 03m S, 25d 35m W.

[photo posted in Durban November 20th]

The entire fleet has hit the high pressure system everyone was trying to avoid so our 200+ mile days have dropped to 60. Even so, the weather is beautiful with cool and breezy days sun-drenched enough to be shirtless yet comfortable, and nights full of dazzling stars and fair temperatures below decks.

A few days ago, in my priveledged position of Director of Uploaded Media* I sent in a photo accompanying someone else's diary entry that highlighted the diarist but also featured me at the helm during the race start, leading the entire fleet out into the Atlantic (for the first few hours at least). I can't begin to imagine where on the Clipper Ventures web it can be found--their logic confuses me--so you'll have to dig for it yourself.

*In addition to Director of Uploaded Media, I'm also Directer of Universal MacGyver-type Maintence and Emergency Repairs, i.e., DUM and DUMMER

Leaving Brazil

2007-10-27T06:44:00.000+01:00

Position 19d 51m S, 33d 52m W.

It's 2:30 a.m. on Saturday and we left Brazil at noon on Wednesday. Aside from the first two days there, where the intense post-race clean up and normal repair efforts were accompanied by the utterly delightful presence of my Columbian friend Claudia (a fellow hang glider pilot fluent in seven languages who'd flew from Columbia to Brazil just to share those two days with me...bless her...and also help all our crew and even the entire race organization with language issues), the rest of the stopover was an exhausting and never ending effort to prepare for the next leg. I was, therefore, content to leave.

It seemed that we only felt prepared (and just barely) late, late on the last night, mere hours before slipping our lines at 9:00 a.m. Wednesday morning. Once back on the water, it seemed almost peaceful to fall back into familiar routines. I'll have pictures of the stopover to post here once we're in Durban.

We're headed south of the direct course to Durban to avoid the high pressure systems (and therefore low winds) that typically form on what would be the shorter course. In the end, it's worth it to add a few hundred or even a thousand miles to go faster over all. It's cooler, which makes sleeping easier, so I feel rested and content. My face and arms are as tanned as possible but that might fade in the next weeks.

Ah! Finally in Brazil

2007-10-22T20:41:00.000+01:00

We arrived in Salvador on Thursday, four days ago, and we leave again for Durban, South Africa on Wednesday, the day after tomorrow. I´d been sending updates from our boat on our extremely limited (and temperamental) boat´s e-mail system but now see that only one of the three I wrote made it to the blog, so I´ve just now manually put them in.

I think I´ve figured out the e-mail problem and can keep friends and family better informed on this next leg. Time is short today but hopefully I can get something more substantial here before we sail Wednesday morning. Suffice it to say, I am doing very well, having a great time, and am utterly pleased with our boat, crew, and skipper.

More later, I hope.

(The photo above is from an e-mail a fellow Uniquely Singapore crew member just sent to me from Singapore. It was taken last August during our our final training weeks. I was up in the mainsail...reefed, which gave me pocket to sit in... removing an old and outdated sponsor´s sticker.)

Below the equator

2007-10-14T20:40:00.000+01:00

Position 01d 39m S, 34d 14m W. Note that the latitude is south, not north. This morning we crossed the equator. Though I've trekked back and forth across it numerous time in Ecuador, to cross it by sea for the first time is a significant thing to sailors. We escaped the doldrums two days ago and are now on a fast (10-11kts) though relatively smooth upwind tack straight to the finish in Brazil. We should arrive there on the 18th after 25 days at sea.

Heading for the doldrums

2007-10-09T20:39:00.000+01:00

Position 09d 07m N, 26d 57m W, just north of the doldrums, headed for what we think is the narrowest part, hoping to avoid our experience near the Canary Islands (drifting in no wind for 3 days and covering what felt like only 20 miles). The wildlife has been spectacular; whales breaching only 50 yards away, daily dolphin shows, flying fish so plentiful that many strike our boat in the dark. A few have actually hit people. I knew this voyage would be hard, and it has been...quite…but I’m quite relieved to find how quickly I’ve been able to adapt.

3700 to go

2007-09-27T20:29:00.000+01:00

Position 37d 48m N, 13d 10m W. By tonight we will have sailed 1000 miles, with 3700 remaining to Brazil. Last night was as different from the previous night as possible. Instead of ripping spinnakers, snapping mainsail sheets, booms crashing across the deck, and no sleep for anyone, it was a stable spinnaker run on good seas under utterly brilliant moonlight. I spent my fair share of the 3-7am watch at the helm. On a 68ft boat with an 80ft mast hoisting a spinnaker bigger than any house I've ever lived in, it was a challenging and even intimidating task, but it was also exhilarating. The boat plows through the water and occasionally surfs down the huge waves that are rolling the same direction we are sailing. Standing at the helm on a starlit night, leading this 46 ton mass of fiberglass and Dacron through wind and waves, it's amusing to remember being so intimidated by my 14ft catamaran years ago which, in respect to this boat, seems like a paper airplane compared to a 747. How good it is that we are able to grow.

Ripped Spinnaker

2007-09-26T20:22:00.001+01:00

Position: 40d 21m N, 010d 28m W. Last night at sunset we passed the northwest corner of Spain and now are on a generally straight run (depending on the cooperation of the wind) to Brazil. The middle of the night found us with a ripped spinnaker and a few other breakages that, at the time, seemed intense and quite the handful in the dark but by the morning we'd repaired everything on deck and are sewing up the spinaker. It's truly a good crew i'm with.

Landfall in La Rochelle, France

2007-09-21T21:37:00.001+01:00

Everyone should be so lucky as to have hugs like this waiting for you at the end of a journey, particulary one on the sea.

Yesterday we arrived at La Rochelle, France, the site of our first stop in this race. Sian, above, is a new friend who's boat we actually beat in our first race but who ended up docking just before ours. She was, therefore, amidst the crowd on the dock to greet me.

When one of the official photographers took a picture of our embrace and we both were so delighted with it, he graciously asked for our e-mail addresses and sent us both a copy.

I should note that at the moment of that embrace, neither Sian or I had the chance to shower for the previous four days but, at times like those, it doesn't really matter. Then again, had the weather been more conducive to fewer layers, perhaps it would have. When we land in Brazil, we will be wearing shorts and a t-shirt...or perhaps less. Perhaps there I won't receive as many hugs from friends on other boats as I did yesterday.

Tonight is the first chance I've had to find an internet cafe to post. Where to begin?

How about here: the official website for the race is http://www.clipperroundtheworld.com/.

Within it, you'll find this page dedicated to my boat, Uniquely Singapore.

At this point, all the video, photos, and blog entries on it are of my doing, though I'm hoping to get others involved in photos and blog entries. Officially I'm the videophotographer and our boat's sponsor, a new marina in Singapore, has paid the extra bucks to allow our boat to send back video by satellite from the sea. Any video you'll see this entire race is something I created. It's exhausting work editing video with a limited laptop in a cramped navigation station on a heeling boat while exhausted from the work of sailing amidst a continually interrupted sleep pattern, but I'm glad I've been selected to do it.

Our race down from Liverpool ranged from tacking duels in a river channel in the pouring rain (just out of Liverpool) to limping along at 1 kt in a near windless sea with La Rochelle still 120 miles away. As the forecast left no hope for wind and we all had schedules to meet, it was annouced in the middle of Wednesday that the race would end at midnight that night. One boat (happily it was Carrie's boat Qingdao) was one mile behind us at that point, limping along just like we were. Holding them off for seven hours didn't seem like much of a problem but in the end, they beat us by 176 yards after 500 miles of sailing. They got sixth place. We got seven.

That amounts to an extra half a point for them in a race that has 145 points up for grabs, but it will certainly be bittersweet if that half point comes back to haunt us.

Then again, it's all fun in a sense. Both Qingdao and Uniquely Singapore were full of happy words, hugs, and respect for each other when we docked side by side in La Rochelle last night, having motored the last 120 miles in.

It's midnight here and I've skipped dinner to write this. Hopefully I'll be able to post something from the sea during the four week voyage we have to Brazil beginning in 36 hours.

I'm off to bed.

Dolphins, Snowden, and Liverpool

2007-09-08T16:02:00.000+01:00

Our fleet of 10 boats departed their (and now my former) home in Gosport on September 3rd and sailed up to Liverpool to position ourselves for the race start on Sunday, the 16th, eight days from now.

We arrived at Albert Dock in Liverpool this morning. I'm at an internet cafe with an annoyingly sticky keyboard but this be how I'll be updating this blog from here on out. My laptop is storage. I'll figure some way to include pictures in the future but for now it's just words.

The sail up had two notable moments for me. On the second night I had the 2:00 a.m. to 5:00 a.m. watch. When I shook my slumber off as I climbed the companion way steps, I was happy to note that the sea was bioluminescent that night, with each tumbling crest of any wave carrying a vaguely shimmering glow. The last time I'd witnessed this was in October '06 while sailing north from Spain back to England. That night I'd had the most incredible experience at sea in my short sailing career, something I've written about before: Midnight Dance of the Bioluminescent Dolphins.

An hour into the watch, while taking my turn at the helm, I glanced at the trickle of glowing light falling off our bow wake moving away from us on both sides and thought of that October night. As I did, a lone dolphin's body, shimmering in bioluminescence perhaps one meter below the surface, caught up with the focus of my gaze and then surfaced with a gasp and dropped back down into the water, trailing a torpedo-like wake of light.

"Dolphins!" I shouted and everyone spun on their seats to look. In only a few moments, ten more dolphins appeared and gave us all a replay of that show from last October. For everyone on board except myself, it was a new experience.

What was new for me, however, was that when I went below at 5:00 a.m. to sleep, I heard them through the hull next to my bunk. I feel asleep to the squeaks, clicks, and whistles of dolphins as one might do to the sounds of a forest or field at night on land.

The next morning we sailed up the coast of Wales, passing through an area of the Irish Sea that I had seen from the top of Mount Snowden in Wales on Christmas Day of 2005. Cyndi and I had chosen to leave London and spend the holiday weekend in a bed and breakfast in Wales. Snowdon, the highest mountain in Wales at 1085 meters, was only a half day's walk and climb from our cottage so we built an appetite for our Christmas dinner by climbing it. It was exactly two weeks later that I stumbled upon the Clipper Ventures booth in the London Boat Show and was inspired to begin the decision process that has lead me, twenty months later, to begin this amazing adventure by sailing through the very body water I had gazed upon from that mountain top more than a year before.

Sailing by a few days ago, I'd set my handheld GPS to indicate the direction and distance of Mount Snowden's summit. It was covered in clouds as we passed the point nearest to it, but I still felt some sense of coming full circle in an unexpected way. Not to be deterred, with a sense of spiritual purposeI gazed into the appropriate section of clouds that my GPS indicated. Not much later the sun set and it grew dark.

The Andromeda Galaxy is high in the sky this time of year, making it as visible to the naked eye as possible. Clinging to the happiness and significance my Snowden moment, I pointed it out to all on my watch, explaining to them that they were looking at light two million years old. Such a concept never fails to awe me. My crew shared the sentiment.

Now we are in Liverpool, truly wedded to our boat and at home with all it entails. There's much work still to be done, of course. I have today off, but the next seven days will be busy.

I'll try to write again before we sail. If not, I should be able to post thoughts directly from the boat at sea. We have limited internet access by satellite.

Final Boat Preparation

2007-08-31T22:42:00.001+01:00

All ten boats are rafted up in the marina a few hundred yards from my house, full of bustling people such as myself fine tuning the rigging above decks and anything anyone can think of below decks.

Among the many tasks being undertaken, all lines (ropes) are being replaced, which is an immense job.

On Carrie's boat, Qingdao, she's been busy at work doing her part. In fact, she's doing more than her part.

I don't know how many times I've looked over and noticed that it was Carrie who was doing something productive while a group of men stood around her being useless. Here she's refurbishing a winch while several men of her crew try to figure out if she's doing it right. She's done many, they've done none, and yet they insist on "helping."

I stepped over onto her boat to add to the confusion and she grabbed my camera from me.

In the end, though, it was her hands getting greasy while the rest of us just watched.

In this week I've spent three separate days attending day-long classes in the three specialties I've been assigned; boat engineer (engines, generators, water makers, toilets, etc.), video photographer (schooled in how to compress and download videos while at sea to meet sponsors demands), and here, in the photo below taken in a classroom, radar.

This was a fascinating class, where we used two PC's to simulated both a radar screen and boat functions to operate in realistic conditions in the English Channel and used our radar's software to predict probable collisions to calculate the best evasive maneuver.

Back on my boat, the other RTW's (Round The Worlders) worked on other aspects of the boat and rigging. There's enough to do to keep us busy a month but we'll wrap it up to depart Gosport on Monday, two days away. We'll do a bit more in Liverpool for a week before the actual race start but here it's easiest where we have all the tools and supplies we need.

This blog entry marks a transition of sorts. Tomorrow morning I'll put into storage whatever I'm not taking on the boat and whatever I've not thrown or given away. This includes my laptop. From now on, then, my blog entries won't contain any photos. What ever I post will be just by text from the boat limited at-sea internet capabilities or from some internet cafe in various cities.

There'll be official websites with pictures and even video (of which I will be behind the camera most of the time) but it will be generic in nature, not personal from me.

This is it, then, in a sense. Being such a visual kind of person, I can't imagine communicating without images, but I've got no choice for the time being.

Good night.

Leonid Birthday

2007-08-30T21:17:00.001+01:00

The Leonids are historically the most spectacular meteor shower, peaking with a truly spectacular storm every 33 years or so. Probably the most well known Leonid event occurred in 1833, with an estimated one hundred thousand meteors per hour.

This image is a 19th century representation of what it looked that night in 1833.

The 33 year cycle varies. In the year 1999, people were expecting the best, but it never came, nor the next year, nor any after that. Perhaps we'll have to wait until 2032 or 2033 to witness a significant storm again.

This meteor shower has been on my mind because the shower of positive thoughts and energy coming my way lately has almost been overwhelming.

Over the year I've spent here in Gosport, I've been blessed with a growing sense of appreciation from the entire Clipper Venture organization, who seem to view my enthusiasm to get as involved as I could with a bit of both amusement and appreciation. My being here has worked well for them (lots of free and happy labor) and very, very well for me.

Further more, in these last few weeks, good feelings have come from far and wide, from people I know well and from people I've yet to met. I've felt immersed in good feelings all around.

-A few weeks ago I wrote a summary of all the events that seem to reveal the encouraging sense of unity developing during my first full week of sailing with my crew mates in this race. I posted it on our group site and was met by numerous responses of gratitude that I'd expressed openly in words what many had been feeling in their hearts.

-I threw two videos together from some low grade footage I'd made from those adventures at sea, posted it on the internet, sent out the address to my crew and a few other friends, and since then have been inundated with praise from what seems like every sailor I know (and don't know) here.

-I passed on a bit of praise a friend made about a mutual acquaintance and was later immensely gratified to learn I had unknowingly met an important need by doing so.

-I counseled a future ship mate I'd yet to meet about a few concerns and was rewarded with personal praise of such strength that I'm too shy to record it here.

On and on it seemed to be going, like a 33 year cycle Leonid shower of good will and good faith.

I'd thought it couldn't get any better but my birthday on August 27th proved me wrong. It began a few days early with a touching card from a new friend I've met here in England, telling me how much my own life inspires her to have the courage to seek the life she wants. Monday morning, the 27th, I was finally permitted to open a birthday package of delectable edibles I'd received from Australia two days earlier. I also found a pile of small gifts and a card from Carrie waiting for me on my computer.

After breakfast I went down to the boat to work and was rewarded with a cards and simple gifts from three separate people on my own boat. From various boats around me in the marina, both skippers and crew I knew would shout "happy birthday" across the docks. Carrie, it would appear, had told everyone.

E-mail birthday wishes came from Australia, England, the States, Russia, and even Columbia in South America.

Coincidentally enough, a new fountain of praise poured in on the 27th from people who had no idea it was my birthday. The previous day I'd written an additional summary of the reasons I felt a good sense of a team building within the group of my boat's crew that I'd just finished a second week of sailing with, and posted it on our group's site. Overnight words of gratitude poured into my computer for once again expressing what others had felt but hadn't known how to say, leaving me with an additional list of spiritual gifts to add to the day's already burgeoning tally.

To end it all, after Carrie and I had spent the entire day working on our respective boats in the mad rush to finish preparation for the race, she whisked into the house and, still wet from her shower, energetically whipped up a birthday dinner for me.

Certainly I feel loved, not just by one but by a shower of people. James Taylor's Shower The People You Love With Love has always been my theme song.

Things must be coming full circle.

A New Beginning

2007-08-26T21:00:00.000+01:00

It took two trips to get all my year's worth of possesions down to the marina. First came my Ocean Sleepwear sleeping bag and a few loose ends.

Then the rest.

Down at the marina, it was a mass of amateur sailors getting ready for the next phase of their lives, a new beginning for all of it. Carrie caught this image of me from her boat.

Now we're done with all our training on the water and back on land with one week to go before we leave for Liverpool on September 3rd for the final preparations and race start on September 16th. This final week in Gosport will consist a mixture of boat tweaking (I've become the boat carpenter, building custom shelves and such in a few places), a few more technical courses (I've also been selected to undergo one full day of training in our boat's radar system and another full day video photography instruction to meet the demand of the media for footage). Carrie has been selected to undergo five straight days of training to become the medic on her boat, able to administer injections, insert catheters, etc., to fill the gap between basic first aid and true medical attention.

So much to be done but it seems doable now.

All You Really Need in Life

2007-08-19T09:36:00.000+01:00

Today's my last full day (for probably more than a year) in a home that doesn't rock with the waves. Above is what it takes to spend a year at sea...abut 25 kilos worth.

One of the key people in Clipper Ventures did the race six years ago and has mentioned that one of the most worthwhile lessons of the year for him was that all you really need in life can fit into a duffel bag.

I've got to get a larger duffel bag.

Our route in Google Earth

2007-08-16T19:25:00.000+01:00

Click here to bring up two tracks in Google Earth. You get something that looks like the image below.

In red, you'll see the route for our race as it stands right now, sort of (see below).

In blue, you'll see the actual track of one of the boats in the previous race, with each waypoint being an indication of the boat's daily position at midday. The name of the waypoint will indicate the date of that position (e.g. 050922 means Sept 22, 2005).

To create this track, I borrowed one boat's logbook from the race office last winter and spent two days pouring over it, transferring each day's entry nearest to noon into a data file that GoogleEarth would read. This is the kind of information I wanted to have. This is the kind of graphic I wanted to see.

Thinking the skipper of that boat would enjoy it as well, I e-mailed the resultant file to him. Two months later he was hired as the new race director and, he later told me, he used my file to show the new website company one of the things he wanted to see on the site.

So now the website will have exactly what I would want it to have for all my friends and family. Funny how things sometimes come full circle that way.

Our route as it stands now is as follows.

Sept 16: Liverpool
Sept 19-23: La Rochelle, France
Oct 16-24: Salvador, Brazil
Nov 17-25: Durban, South Africa
Dec 16-Jan 1: Fremantle, Australia
Jan 17-26: Singapore
Feb 12-20: Qingdao, China

The next set of dates are a bit more vague, because the race office hasn't finalized them yet. San Francisco and Halifax are still undergoing negotiations, so it hasn't even been confirmed that we'll actually stop there. New York, however, is firm.

Early March: Japan?,
Late March: Hawaii
Mid April: San Francisco?
Late May: Panama Canal
Late May: Jamaica?
Early June: New York
Mid June: Halifax, Canada?
Early July: Dublin?
Early July: Liverpool finish

In A Perfect World...

2007-08-16T18:16:00.000+01:00

...I could take all of this for my year at sea. This is what I want to take. I need to cut it in about half.

Back to work.

The Final Preparation

2007-08-14T12:46:00.000+01:00

Carrie arrived in England on July 30th, having finished the laborious task of closing down her life in the States. Before she began her final two weeks of training (which she's doing consecutively), we took a long weekend trip to Vienna, Austria to visit two of her closest friends, Sylvia and Thomas.

Back in Gosport, we spent this last weekend taking three days of classes. First aid came first:

Sea Survival came next. After a bit on dry land where we worked with emergency flares...

...most of the day was spent in a pool. One quarter of us practiced teamwork while bobbing in the pool while the remaining three-quarters did their best to make the pool simulate true storm conditions by splashing, kicking, and pouring buckets of water on top of us from the pool's edge.

We inflated liferafts...

...flipped them over and practiced flipping them back upright again...

...as well as liferaft ingress and egress.

We spent the following full day with radios wired to transmit only within the room, working on May Day procedures and how to effectively communicate in an emergency.

Yesterday Carrie moved on to her boat, Qingdao (home of the 2008 Beijing Olympics sailing venue).

Having already done one of the two final weeks of training, I won't move onto my boat until August 20th.

At that point, the race will have essentially begun for all of us. I won't get off the boat until mid July of 2008, after the race finish in Liverpool and after the boats have been sailed back down to Gosport.

That gives me seven days, then, to do everything I need to do while I've still got a home, time, and internet access. Right now, my once comfortable and cozy apartment is a pile of boxes, bags, and piles of things to be sorted: take (not much), store (not much more), or give away (quite a bit).

It's a melancholy feeling, actually, which is why I've made the excuse to take the time I don't really have to make this blog entry. It's been so grand this year, living here. The upcoming year will be grand, too, but in a different way.

I can't wait for it to begin but I'm sad to see this year end.

Back to the boxes for me right now.

Sunrise from my balcony one morning earlier this summer

The Wilberforce Race

2007-07-31T16:17:00.002+01:00

Just after dawn on July 24th, exhausted but delirious with joy from the previous hours in the Force 10 storm, we motored up the Nieuwe Mass river into Rotterdam. As previously arranged, once I had a signal on my mobile, I sent my Dutch friend Daphne an SMS with our estimated arrival time indicated by my GPS.

Living only an hour's drive from the marina we were going to use, I was hoping she'd have the time to gather up her three kids and meet me there. Though the storm had blown us in hours earlier than I had estimated we'd arrive before we left England, Daphne still managed to beat me to the marina. As we maneuvered into our berth, our entire boat was greeted by her children's high-pitched squeals of my name with a Dutch accent from the shore:

"Teee-mo-theeee! Teee-mo-theeee!"

After an afternoon of cleaning and repair (from which I was graciously excused on the account that I actually knew someone in the Netherlands who had actually come down to see the boat in), Uniquely Singapore was prepped for the Wilberforce race the next day. Daphne, her children, and I took a boat tour of Europe's largest port and enjoyed a sumptuous dinner out while the rest of my crew scrubbed, sewed, and washed. I was assured a way would be found for me to make up for my absence.

The next morning our boat's crew lined up along one rail to greet the well wishers along the shore while a fire boat tug gave us a full spray display.

Once out in the North Sea, all our ten boats lined up side by side for a Le Mans style start: with the engines running and only the mainsail up, the boats work to form a perfect line abreast. At a selected time, the engines are cut. One minute later the race is on and crew members are allowed to move forward to erect the two headsails as fast as they can.

It is a spectacular thing to behold such magnificently large ships maneuvering in such close quarters. As the boats are identical, it's tactics, sail trim, and the smoothness of whomever is at the helm that allow any one boat to pull ahead. Below is a five minute video I made of the race start. For most boats, the priority was the training value of the race, not the race itself. Still, with your competition right next to you, it's hard not to want to pass them or hold them off. Furthermore, such proximity allows you to see such immediate results to sail adjustments. In the video you'll see Durban (skippered by Ricky, one of the two skippers I'd asked to be assigned to; the other skipper was Mark, the skipper I got!) slowly pull away from us as the helmsman finds the right waves to surf down and maneuvers to find the optimum angle to the wind. They, like us, had selected one reef in their mainsail. The boat behind Durban had selected two reefs. Despite that much disparity of sail area, you'll see how slowly the differences are apparent.

Thirty-six hours or so later, we finished our race's course (we didn't win) and, after a night at anchorage waiting for the right tide to get into Hull's locks, all ten boats motored into a marina lined with cheering crowds, part of the year long Wilberforce Festival going on in the birthplace and home district of William Wilberforce, celebrating the 200th anniversary of Wilberforce's final success of a life long effort dedicated to ending British slave trade.

A gracious Clipper Ventures employee greeted us at the dock with a case of the local beer, which we scarfed down with delight. We were celebrating the end of our Part C training (the last segment of training for anyone except those doing the whole race, as I am) and the beginning of our adventure together as a team. No longer were we sailing with merely fellow Clipper Venture participants. We were now sailing with our own team. This was it. Anyone on our boat was someone I'll be seeing for all or some of the race that's only 46 days away from starting.

So much still to do.

At the Helm in a Force 10

2007-07-31T13:53:00.000+01:00

In sailing, rather than indicate the specific speed of wind, the Beaufort Scale was created in 1805 by British Rear-Admiral, Sir Francis Beaufort to generalize 12 different stages. Force 0 represents a calm sea while Force 12 is a hurricane.

Force 10 is defined as winds of 55-63mph and...

"Very high waves with long overhanging crests. The resulting foam, in great patches, is blown in dense white streaks along the direction of the wind. On the whole the surface of the sea takes on a white appearance. The 'tumbling' of the sea becomes heavy and shock-like. Visibility affected."

The 1979 Fastnet race was struck by a Force 10 storm, in which 25 of the 306 yachts taking part were sunk or disabled due to high winds and heavy seas. Seventeen participants drowned. The ensuing book about the race, "Fastnet, Force 10" is probably one of the most well known books among sailors of any type.

A week ago, during the daylight hours of July 23rd, three days into our week of Clipper Venture Part C training (the last segment), our skipper Mark had slowly worked us through the steps of erecting our trysail. The trysail is a small triangular sail that's made of particularly heavy material (photo above). Used to replace the mainsail in the event of a storm, it offers the wind only a token but sturdy surface to blow against. It also allows one's boat to maintain at least some forward speed during a storm, and therefore allow control. The sail is also marked with a large orange circle to aid any rescue forces in finding one's boat, if necessary.

That evening, when Mark received a forecast of a Force 9 Gale for our area that night, he told us re-erect the trysail. We attached it and set up the lines, but left it lashed to the side of the boom. We had three reefs in our mainsail. Perhaps that would be enough of a reduction of sail to make it through the night.

I got off watch at midnight and, through a rare combination of lucky events, somehow had managed to be allocated a full eight hours in my bunk, a rare luxury on any watch system on any boat. I curled up in my bag and expected to sleep soundly until 8:00 a.m. but I woke up at 3:00 a.m.

It wasn't the pounding sea that woke me as much as the squeals of laughter and excitement that I heard coming from the cockpit down the companion way and reverberating throughout the entire boat. Ah, I thought to myself. It's come. The storm is here.

In my bunk I could feel the boat lurch and heave in long, slow motions underneath me and hear the corresponding exclamations above; "Wooo hooooooo!!!"

I'm probably missing something grand, I thought to myself, but it was so cozy and dry in my warm, four-layered bag and I knew it would be spraying water and high winds above. This might be your only chance, I'd tell myself, to helm in a true storm. I'd think this but still I'd pull the bag's open top tighter around my shoulders. Having the opportunity to rest on a voyage like anything we do in those boats usually takes priority over everything.

At 5:00 a.m. one of my crew came to my bunk and shook my shoulder. "Skipper's says you're needed to backup the crew on deck." Thankful for having the decision made for me, I got up and dressed in my foul weather gear. Passing Mark in the Nav Station as I started to climb the companion way steps, I gave him a thumbs up to show I was glad to be called upon and said, "It's not like I was sleeping, anyway."

"I though you might want to get in on this."
"I was laying there thinking that very thing," I told him. "Thanks."

The ensuing hours, as we approached Rotterdam for the starting point of the Wilberforce Race, rank up there with the highlights of the year for me, right below the Midnight dance of the bio-luminescent dolphins.

The predicted Force 9 Gale had risen to a Force 10 Storm. Because of the history of the 1979 Fastnet race, the mere words "Force 10" have an aura about them. On the other hand, the Fastnet race had "confused seas,'' that is, seas where the wind and tide moving in opposite directions, which creates huge and unpredictable waves.

Our sea in a Force 10 was surprisingly manageable. When my turn came to take the helm (everybody wanted a chance), I felt more like I was kayaking down huge but very slow moving mounds of water. At no time did anything feel frightening or out of control. With our trysail and storm jib (also a small, strong sail for the front of the boat) hoisted tightly, everything felt quite manageable and, most of all, fun. I understood the squeals of delight that had woken me a fe hours earlier. By the next morning, I had lost my voice, most likely from all the howling with glee I did on the helm during this Force 10.

From time to time we'd see a huge wave approaching and everyone would point and shout, "Yeeee haaaaaa" or something equivalent in either Mandarin Chinese or Malay.

Oh yeah. That reminds me. I haven't announced yet that I've been selected to be on the boat, Uniquely Singapore. And I'm utterly delighted about it. Photos of the boat can be found in my earlier blog entry, London delivery, where I was involved in sailing Uniquely Singapore from London back to Gosport.

Now, back to the story at hand.

One wave caught us unawares and, before we knew it, water was crashing down from the left side of the back half of the boat, pouring buckets of sea water down the companion way and onto skipper Mark below in the nav station on the right side of the boat. A few seconds later, with a look of "Why the hell didn't I do this earlier" on his face, he slide the companionway door insert, known as the washboard, into it's slot to prevent any further water from finding it's way down below.

I was in the cockpit at the helm when that large wave struck and I was up to my knees in water for a moment while the cockpit drains slowly vented the pool back into the ocean. In weather such as this, all people anywhere on deck have their safety lines attached to a hard point on the boats, so no one was at risk of being swept overboard by such waves.

The highlight of that morning and perhaps for even the entire week for me was when Yolyn took the helm from the person I'd handed it off to. Perhaps no taller than 5'2", her gaze was right over the top of the cockpit wheel. Earlier in the week, I'd seen Yolyn at the helm with wide eyes and a look of fearful concentration when the boat heeled over once a bit more than usual in the midst of what might have been only a Force 5 or 6 wind. I think it was her first time ever on helm and I wish I'd had my camera handy to photograph the almost humorous look on her face.

Perhaps 36 hours later, I sat in awe as I watched her on the helm during the Force 10; calm, relaxed, capable, and even enjoying the moment. To witness that kind of growth in any of us (and hopefully myself) is also one of the key aspects that motivates me in the experience of this race.

At dawn we had reached the entrance to the Nieuwe Maas river that leads to Rotterdam and sailed out of the storm while it still howled in the North Sea. We were schedule to arrive in Rotterdam at around noon but the storm had blown us in a bit earlier.

Below is a four minute video I made this morning from footage I took of fellow crew mates at the helm. After I'd had my chance, I rushed down to my bunk and grabbed my camera to come back up and record what I could before the experience was over.

Brown Eyes

2007-07-20T08:00:00.000+01:00

Ever since my daughter Raine was perhaps 18 or so, I'd remind her every now and then that I was eager for grandchildren. Her standard response, appropriately, was, "Daaaaaaad."

Though Raine's still a blast to be with at 24, I still fondly remember the days when she was four or five and would seem to bounce around the house more on her toes than on her feet, eager for any and everything offered to her.

I have a pair of friends I've known for almost twenty years; Susan, since 1987, and her husband Tito, since Susan married him in 1991. I've known their two boys, Gus, 12, and Max 13, ever since they were born. In the ten years they lived near my home until Tito's work took him to Bolivia in 2000, this couple and their children were the four human beings with whom I and my daughter spent the most of our free time.

Susan is from Rhode Island but Tito is from A Coruña, Spain (formerly known as La Coruña until the city recently removed Franco's imposition of it's Latinized form and returned to the original spelling in the local language of Galego).

I've never had the chance to visit with these friends in Tito's native city until this summer, when a vacation from their current residence in Lima, Peru coincided with a few days I had free during these hectic final days before the race. Unfortunately, their oldest son Max was back in the states on an educational program.

I first met their daughter Nina in March of 2005, when she was two and a half years old and only recently adopted from an orphanage in La Paz, Bolivia. Susan and all her children had traveled to Florida to join Susan's mother for a week in Disneyland. Somebody had to ride on the Disneyland roller coaster rides with the boys and it certainly wasn't going to be Susan or Grandma. I got the happy job.

From the start, Nina has always been wonderfully affectionate and engaging. When I next saw her while visiting the family in Peru 18 months ago, she was as warm as ever, and full of as much energy as I could possibly match.

This visit last weekend to A Coruña was no different. Now, just a few days short of five years old, she is quite the handful...perhaps challengingly so to her parents but only delightfully so to me.

The joys of being a grandparent, uncle, or visiting guest is that you get the best of it and little, if any at all, of the worst of it. You show up fresh and full of energy and have nothing but enthusiasm to give. Children seem to know this, and respond in kind.

Nina had a small plastic wheeled vehicle that she would love to ride down a small hill just in front of her house, shouting "¡Corre con mígo!" towards me over her shoulder: run with me!

I'd jog down with her, carry the toy back up, and we'd do it over and over again, neither of us losing any enthusiasm for it.

Where ever we'd go, it was assumed that Nina would sit beside me, be it in the car or anywhere else. If it didn't happen naturally, Nina made sure it happened. I loved it.

Always...always, it seemed, her arms were around my neck.

Though her parents speak to her in both English and Spanish, she'd only spoken Spanish to me when I first arrived. I struggled to respond in kind but my Spanish is very limited. One morning, after I'd finished taking a shower, I opened the bathroom door to defog the mirror to shave. Nina came in and looked around the bathroom in silence for a moment before bursting out,

"¡Hay agua por todos partes! Tu has hecho todo mojado. El piso mojado, el tocador esta mojado, las paredes esta mojado. ¡Todo esta mojado!"

Clearly I was in trouble, but there was one word I just couldn't translate, so I asked her how to say it in English,

¿Cómo se dice "mojado" en inglés?

With her tiny hands on her tiny hips, she heaved a tiny sigh with her tiny chest. With a dramatic pause that would have seemed scripted had she not been so young, she replied with a stern gaze,

"Wet."

Ahhh. The shower was the kind that baffles most Americans; a spray on a hose mounted on a removable clip on the wall at about chest level, but no shower curtain. I was the ultimate ignorant and unskilled American, having made a mess of her bathroom.

The next morning I sat in the tub instead of standing and took great care to make sure no water escaped to anywhere but the bathtub. The moment I turned the water off, a small knock sounded very low on the door. Nina wanted to inspect.

I wrapped myself in a towel and opened the door. Wordlessly she came in and looked around. She seemed content until she ran a finger across the top of the toilet's tank. Holding her finger tip up to me with an even gaze, she said only, "Mojado."

It would have been no use explaining to her that condensation probably had more to do with that than my lack of European showering skills, so I just bowed my head and accepted her happy scorn.

Such playful delights abounded the entire weekend. I was in grandfather/uncle/guest heaven.

Our last adventure was a family trip to nearby Santiago de Compostella, the goal of one of the worlds most famous pilgrimages. The next morning I would fly home to England. Nina and I made the most of it, playing games and chasing each other around other sedentary adults like a dog and a cat around two chairs. If not playing together, then at least I carried her as often as I could.

I've always been partial to brown eyes. Something about them just melts my heart.

Österreich

2007-07-19T09:46:00.000+01:00

On July 8th, most of the Adriatic crew disbanded and returned home (Raine and Bill back to the States, Beccy back to her London home, German back to Spain, and Jamie on to the Spanish National Hanggliding championships in the Pyrénées). Gay and I, however, had originally planned to remain a few days in Croatia. Having flown all the way from Fremantle, Australia for this trip, it seemed pointless for her to return after just one week.

At the last minute, the challenges of Croatian train and bus travel as well as the difficulties encountered in trying to rent a car caused us to decide to leave Croatia altogether (we had, after all, already been there a week). We spent Gay's final five days in Europe touring neighboring Österreich.

In German, this name means Eastern Kingdom. In English, we've altered Österreich into Austria.

Again, pictures tell the story better than words.

After taking a train across Croatia and Slovenia to Graz, Austria (birthplace of California governor Ahh-nold), we spent one night there and found a rental car the next morning. We began our tour in ernest in familiar territory for me; Greifenburg (title picture above). This small hamlet of perhaps only 100 houses hosted the 2004 World Hanggliding Championships.

Gay and I spent the second night up on Emburger Alm above Greifenburg and, though no hanggliders were flying the next morning, I took Gay to the launch ramp to give her a view of what it looks like before one steps off into the air.

Below was the scene at the same place three years earlier, during a pilot's briefing just before the day's task begins. I'm seated in the foreground, holding a cup of coffee, sitting between eventual world champion Corinna on my right and the entire Dutch women's team on my left (one of whom will be greeting our fleet's arrival in Rotterdam in a few days).

A storm passed over southern Austria on July 9th. The next morning, a light snow was falling as Gay and I left our 1800 meter high bed & breakfast. She spent the entire day kidding me about just what I had hauled her into when she'd been so warm and comfortable basking half naked in the sun two days before.

As we drove on through the morning, the mountain tops, bald and gray the day before, were dusted in a fresh white covering from the previous night's storm.

On we moved up a valley towards Mallnitz, where we took a car-carrying train through a mountain...

...to emerge at Bad Gastein, renowned for it's natural hot baths.

There we explored rich forests on foot by trail...

...and viewed immense waterfalls by road.

We drove on a bit and spent that night in Bad Ischl before moving on to...

...a full day in Hallstatt, an achingly beautiful village on a lake amidst granite cliffs all around.

There we explored the city by water...

...and foot.

Driving to our next destination that evening, we were 20 minutes away from it when, at 9:30 p.m., an accident brought a five mile section of the autobahn (a section that included us) to a complete halt. We did not get off the autobahn until 4:30 a.m.

Content enough with sufficient food, water, and each other, it was more of an odd adventure than an ordeal. At least no daylight was wasted, we told ourselves. And we also took comfort in the idea that we'd saved the expense of a hotel.

Arriving exhausted in Millstatt at 5:00 a.m., where we had planned to spend two nights, we waited until a hotel allowed us to checked in at 7:00 a.m. After a few hours nap, we moved onto our final adventure: Landskron Castle near Klagenfurt.

Here, during three performances a day, professional animal handlers send various birds of prey on sweeping flights over the audience...

..., so close that people are warned not to try to touch the birds as they pass.

The grand finale is when a Golden Eagle, secretly released before the show had even started and biding it's time overhead and out of sight, was called down to the handler, turning from a speck few people could see into a massive six foot wingspan hurtling down to a spot only a few feet above one's head.

After dropping to the valley below to pick blackberries (visible in the foreground a few photos above) at a harvest-it-yourself farm, we spent a quiet evening on our room's terrace at Millstatt, a city perhaps not as overwhelmingly grand as Hallstatt but still one full of attraction in its peace and quiet.

On July 13th, we moved on; Gay back to Australia by way of one more day in London with her daughter and I onto one last visit to Spain, though to a region I've never been to before.

Adriatic Sea

2007-07-18T20:42:00.000+01:00

I'm back, back after 20 days away and three adventures. In less than 48 hours I'm off again, sailing to the Nederlands for the start of a race from Rotterdam to Hull, England.

Tonight I think I can squeeze out the tale of the first adventure, though not so much with words. My friend Bill, one of the participants of the week of sailing off the Croatian coast in the Adriatic sea, wrote me earlier today:

Thank you for one of the most amazing, fun, incredible, beautiful weeks of my life. What an interesting mix of fine individuals. Being a part of the group you had assembled was an honor and a privilege. I learned about sailing, Europe, traveling by train, language, etc. It was too much experience to attempt to capture into one email easily so I won't even try.

Nor will I. These pictures below with only the simplest of commentary will summarize it best.

By the late evening of June 28th, seven of us had gathered by various means and by various routes in Zadar, Croatia, and had moved onto a 37 foot boat.

The key instigators (besides myself) were German, from Spain, who provided irreplaceable sailing expertise, and Jamie, from the States, who provided the driving energy behind a vague idea German and I had last fall of renting a boat somewhere warm and inviting for a week in the summer.

To this mix we added mother and daughter Gay and Beccy from Australia...

...my daughter Raine from the States...

...and Bill from the States as well.

Each night we would dock, often at a small harbor such as this, one that provided only the barest of services.

By day, we would sail a bit towards the next night's destination, always stopping midday for lunch on board and a swim in some forgotten cove.

Then we'd sail on again...

...and dock once more, sometimes at a larger city.

By design the days of sailing were short and we'd linger in the towns, strolling, sipping coffee and tea where it could be found...

...or just exploring ancient streets and magnificent sights.

Only in one larger city did we spend an entire day...

...exploring it with more devotion and inspiration that usual.

Then it was off to the sea again, where the natural beauty of the landscape would captivate us for hours...

...claiming vast stores of digital media amongst all our cameras.

Always, though, the theme was to move at the pace we wanted, which most often was quite slow and relaxed.

While Gay stretched and did sun salutations above, Bill found a huge cliff that look like a promising jump. German rowed the small dinghy around to the face of it and used a mask to check the depth and safety of the water. Once German signaled it was safe, Bill leapt. His point of departure is just above the top edge of the photo here. We estimate it was at least 60 feet, perhaps more.

His landing was safe enough but when a twinge of discomfort later appeared in his neck, Gay, a massage therapist (as is her daughter), offered her gifts.

German's skills, knowledge, and experience were indispensible.

Even so, everyone who wanted one got a chance to take on any role.

German came up with the idea for one of the simplest and yet most profound experiences of the week; a swim in the open ocean, miles from the shore, with no discernable bottom below.

Bill wasted no time in leaping into the opportunity.

It was breathtaking, almost mystical.

Besides wind and water, the other constant was food and drink.

Sometimes it was a casual ice cream during a stroll.

Sometimes it was a dish prepared on board.

Sometimes it was a fabulous meal on land. In this one particular location, it was a fabulous server. We grew to love Lena so much we returned to this island for two nights, mostly just to see her again.

We got to share two dinners and two breakfasts with her. Of the experiences with people, she was by far the treasure of the trip.

Finally it came time to have our last meal out...

...and our last day on the boat.

We'll be back.

Gettin' down to the wire

2007-06-26T16:19:00.000+01:00

Who would have believed how quickly this year would pass. What a cliché, I know, but it's true. Though the race doesn't actually start until September 16th, it seems that every minute of all the time between then and now is taken. For example.

June 28th-July 13:
Trip to Croatia (by way of Graz, Austria) for a week of sailing in the Adriatic with six friends, followed by a few days of unplanned exploration of Croatia on land. I wanted to do something enjoyable on the water for myself and a few friends that would put all these skills I've picked up over the last year to good use.

July 13-17:
I don't even get to come home. I turn right around in the London airport and head back to La Coruña, Spain to visit Susan and Tito (friends of almost 20 years) in Tito's home town.

July 18-19:
Last chance to take care of any outstanding details before...

July 20-27: Part C1 training-the first of two week-long sessions at sea that will conclude the extent of my Clipper Ventures training. This first week involves a run down to Rotterdam in the Netherlands, followed by The Wilberforce Race, a race from Rotterdam to Hull, England (birthplace of William Wilberforce), part of Hull's year of festivals and celebrations of the 200th anniversary of Wilberforce's final success of a life long effort dedicated to ending British slave trade.

On and on it goes like that until I'll find myself ready to close down this apartment in Gosport and start living on the my assigned boat full time towards the end of August. Which boat this is will be announced on June 30th, while I'm floating around on the Adriatic. I'll have to find an internet café somewhere to find out for myself.

One of the participants of the Croatian trip is Jamie (taking me a tandem hanggliding flight below in Florida and, below that, taking another friend of ours for a summer time ride). As someone who makes her living on the internet as an intellectual property lawyer, she is inseparable from her Blackberry. The upside of this is that she intends to post comments and perhaps even lo-resolution photos from our adventure day by day.

You can follow us, then, on her blog from June 28th to July 7th at:
http://www.naughtylawyertravels.blogspot.com/

"There is no second, your Majesty"

2007-06-25T14:14:00.001+01:00

How Timmy Didn't Save the Day This Time

Few quotes in the world of sailing have less need of being explained than the one I've referenced in that title above. However, since only a few of the people I know of that might be reading this would consider themselves knowledgeable sailors, I'll explain.

Most people know of The America's Cup Race currently underway in Valencia, Spain. It's origin dates back to August 22, 1851, when the 101 foot schooner-yacht America, owned by a syndicate that represented the New York Yacht Club, raced 15 yachts representing England's Royal Yacht Squadron around the Isle of Wight. America won by 20 minutes. Queen Victoria, when informed of America's win, asked who was second. The oft quoted answer, portraying the intensity of the competition among sailors, was, "There is no second, your Majesty."

Among the elite establishments in English history, few institutions that I'm aware of have as much of a sense of exclusivity as the Royal Yacht Squadron. It is the most prestigious sailing club of all English sailing clubs, and perhaps in the world. One highlight of the year for the Royal Yacht Squadron, the town of Cowes on the Island of Wight, and the sailing community as a whole is Cowes Week, an week long festival of everything sailing.

Perhaps the second highlight of the year is the renowned "Round the Island Race" a roughly 70 mile sail around the Isle of Wight. Like the original America's Cup race course, it starts in the Solent just off Cowes, sails westward and counterclockwise around the island, then finishes opposite the Royal Yacht Squadron's castle-like headquarters in Cowes (seen here firing a cannon salute to Sir Robin Knox-Johnston as he returned home to England, as noted in this earlier blog entry, where Timmy did save the day).

This race consisted of 1800 boats of varying sizes, from one I saw that looked like it must have been at least 100 feet long, to many not much longer than a rowboat.

Clipper Ventures entered all ten of their 68 foot boats in the race and well as a few of the 60's. As the Clipper Ventures fleet qualified for the largest class, we had the morning's first start gate and would be able to leave all the enevitable crowding behind.

You cannot imagine what the water looked like with that many boats filling the horizon. The image below, taken perhaps two hours into the race, can only hint at what we saw. Click on the image to bring it up to full size and you'll see how many sails filled just that small segment of the horizon.

Below is an image showing the race course and it's relation to the rest of England. My home in Gosport on Weevil lane is noted on the coast of England northeast of the Isle of Wight.

The crews on each of the ten boats in our class comprised of a mixture of people participating in the Clipper Ventures race. Most of us had not meet our team mates before, with a few exceptions of those who'd crossed paths in various stages of training over this last year. Some boats also had corporate participants; people not involved with the Clipper Venture race but who'd paid large amounts of cash for the privilege of participating in such a well known event (in England, anyway).

After meeting on our boat Friday morning and spending much of the day sailing on the Solent between England and the Isle of Wight, we moored in East Cowes, an area less visited than the more famous and pricey West Cowes. That evening as we dropped our sails and motored up the River Medina that splits the two sections, I was astounded at how many boats and been crammed into such a small space.

Because of the volume of boats wanting to participate and return at a reasonable hour, the first start gate, ours, was at 5:00 a.m. After a dinner together in the boat and a subdued evening ashore at the local pub, we rose at 3:00 a.m. Saturday the 23rd and, after a bit of preparation, cast our lines at 3:40 a.m. and motored out into the Solent to scout the starting line for the best angles and approaches in the current conditions. Awake and alert as we glided past all the other marinas stuffed with boats just showing the first signs of activity, it was a supremely satisfying moment to be who I am, where I am, and doing what I am. Because England is so far north and the summer solstice had just passed only a few days before, there was a surprising amount of light in the sky that early in the morning. Even so, I'm happily astounded my camera could capture the moment with any amount of fidelity. It was as beautiful as it looks here.

Though I'm aware most of my friends reading this aren't particularly schooled in the terminology and techniques of sailing at this high of a level, I'm going to dispense with any lengthy explanations and just tell it like I would to a ship mate. Some will get the details of it all, most won't, but I think that the essence of what is happening will be evident, and that should be enough.

All our 68's are identical with matched sails. The only true variable, ostensibly, is the crew. There's more to it than that, however. While a new set of sails is being sewn as I write this for all of the Clipper boats (at a cost of about $60,000 each), all 68's were currently using the sails from the previous round the world voyage. Some had been trashed a bit more than others, some had been extensively repaired and re-sewn, and some just sagged unbearably.

As the start unfolded and we crossed the line perhaps third or fourth out of our ten, the difference in our boat became evident. Bit by bit we fell back. We tweaked sheet tensions, car positions, sheeting angles, traveler position, luff tension, downhaul tension, halyard tension. Everything we could think of we did, and yet we slowly fell back through the fleet.

The one item we couldn't address was our outhaul. Our mainsail seemed to be one of the ones with the greatest sag and, as our point of sail on this first leg out to the Needles was close hauled, we did everything we could to get rid of the large belly down at the mainsail's foot. We winched our outhaul as far back as we could. The problem was that too long of a loop had been tied with a bowline through the clew and, as we winched the clew back with the outhaul, the bowline pinched into the turning block at the end of the boom and we could winch no further.

Danny, our professional skipper for this race and one of the ten selected to sail the boats around the world for the Clipper Venture race, helplessly watched the fleet pull away from us. To no one in particular he wondered out loud, "Did somebody tie a bucket to our keel?"

At the western end of the Isle of Wight is a formation of eroded chalk cliffs known as the Needles (right). Hearing the name for so long in the lore of the sea, I was expecting something like the rock formations above Chamonix, France, known as Aiguilles du Midi, the Needles of the South.

More like shark's teeth, I thought when I first actually passed them a year ago. Maybe they looked like needles a few hundred years ago.

In the Round The Island race, the significance of the Needles was that this would be the first true bottleneck. Had we not been part of the first wave of boats off, we, too, would have been caught in the madness of 1800 boats all trying to cut the corner as close as they could.

Once we passed the Needles turned from upwind to downwind, we eased our sails into a broad run. Danny took stock of the situation and pulled all of us into the cockpit to show us his ideas on a chart.

We were in last place in our class, that much was clear. We'd heard something about a watch being awarded to the winners of our class but didn't think that much of it. One watch for 16 people? So we'd give it to Skipper Danny, of course. That wasn't what motivated us. We wanted to win just because we wanted to pull the best out of ourselves and have tangible evidence that we had done so. So here we were in last place with an inexplicably slow boat. What's next?

Never give up, Danny told us. Pointing to the chart, he showed us how the shortest route to the southern tip of the island was clearly a straight line. Furthermore, if we cut into this bay to our left, we'd not only give ourselves a longer course but we run the risk of having the land mass block and distort the wind, slowing us down even more.

However, he explained, there was a chance that we could pick up some favorable tidal currents inside the bay that might....just might more than compensate for the likelihood of less wind. Gordon, the first mate and only other professional sailor on our boat, pulled out tidal charts for each of the six hours before and each of the six hours after high tide. Noting the high tide for the region in the almanac, we found the appropriate page and turned to it. All around us, the chart showed, everyone was fighting a few knots of tide from the southeast, directly on our nose. But if we took our boat right there, Gordon pointed out, right along the contour line close to the shore that depicted 5 meters of depth, the tide in that part of the bay not only slowed, but actually flowed toward the southeast. As our keel drops 3.5 meters below our waterline, it was risky and questionable, requiring exact navigation and diligence.

Danny summarized all the options and then said. "It's your race. What do you want to do? Do you want to take the chance?"

"We're in last place," we all thought. "What's to lose? Let's do it." And so we took the route in yellow on this map.

Because of the inclusion of corporate guests to our class of ten boats and the likelihood of many of them being woefully inexperienced sailors, it was agreed amongst our boats that we would not use spinnakers. All around us on the downwind leg, spinnakers filled the horizon like a sea of drifting balloons. Instead, we used spinnaker poles to pole out our Yankee 2 headsail. With a preventer on our mainsail's boom, eased out as far as it could go to port, and the poled out headsail over the starboard rail, we had a very stable downwind configuration, one that required far less energy, attention, and risk than running with a spinnaker.

To move into the bay, we needed to gybe. Once the decision was made, half the crew jumped into action to lower the pole and move it to the port side. Once done, we gybed and moved into the bay.

Perhaps only 30 of the hundreds of boats around us had the same idea. Everyone else in our class moved even a bit further out to sea than the most direct route, perhaps hoping for stronger winds further off shore.

With the course and plan set, we had the time to enjoy the view all around us this historical and magnificent event unfolding. There were high tech boats with kevlar sails and carbon fiber everything else. And there were beautiful old classics, such as the gaff-rigged sloop pictured at the top of this entry. Except for Danny, Gordon, and whomever was at the helm, we all sat on the high side but comfortably, taking in the moment and the joy of it.

I hung a bearing compass around my neck and from time to time would call off the bearings of the other Clipper boats. One, Glasgow, with a completely black hull, was easy to distinguish. The others all looked the same from the distance. Glasgow was in the lead and so we focused on her. At first glance, she was bearing 155 degrees. A few minutes later, no change. That was good news, for at least they weren't pulling ahead.

At the next glance, it seemed like 157 but, with the motion of the boat, it was more an mentally compiled average of all the different numbers I saw swinging pass the marker in front of my eyes. I thought it might be just wishful thinking and a case of seeing what one wants to see so I said nothing. A few minutes later, Danny piped up, "Timbo! How's it look?"

No mistake. This time it was 158. "They've falling back three degrees in five minutes," I said. Soon it was evident to even the naked eye. We were catching up. Encouraged, we began to wonder how many could we pass before we came out of the bay. Bit by bit, more and more boats fell behind us, leaving only Glasgow with her substantial lead ahead of us.

Swinging past the southern most tip of the island and coming back to a starboard gybe, who would have believed it. We came out one hundred yards ahead of the Glasgow, the lead boat. Now we were in the lead.

Further more, we slowly pulled away from them. Upwind, we were clearly the slower boat. Downwind, we seemed to have the edge. Perhaps it was because of our aged and sagging sails. Downwind sailing favors a "belly" in the sail as opposed to a flat one, and we had a belly we couldn't do anything about when we wanted to. We watched, tweaked, watched, tweaked some more, and slowly Glasgow and every other 68 fell back.

Being in the lead wasn't enough. We knew we were at a disadvantage on the upcoming upwind finish across the top of the island. We had to build as much lead as we could.

Turning northwest around the eastern-most tip of the island, we had put perhaps a mile between us and the nearest 68. Glasgow was just a black smudge on the horizon, so far away that sometimes we weren't even sure we were looking at Glasgow. The unique sail plan of all the 68's, however, made it clear who we needed to stay ahead of, be it Glasgow or anyone else.

As we neared Cowes, Danny asked Gordon to drop below now and then and read the GPS, calling off the distance to the finish. Seven miles. On our current tack, we were heading further out into the open channel and therefore deeper water and faster tides, again on our nose. Glasgow tacked back towards the island but every bearing check showed that this gave them no advantage. Eventually we needed to tack to make it into the finish line but there was one 68 slowly closing the distance between us. They were downwind of us so now, forgetting about Glasgow, we held our tack to cover them, that is, ensure that we remained in the same air they were in and that they didn't find any advantage we might have missed out of by tacking earlier than they.

Though we had generally been sitting on the high side of the boat to limit the boat's heel, everyone one but Danny and the one crew on the helm all moved to "Butts on rail," sticking our upper bodies through the railing and hanging our feet over the side to gain as much lateral leverage as we could against the pressure of the wind in the sail. It made an obvious difference. The approaching boat gained at a diminishing rate until finally it was clearly holding it's position, and perhaps even dropping back a little.

Through the binoculars we could see by markings on the sail that it was Durban, skippered by Ricky, a friend of mine and the skipper I'd most like to do the entire circumnavigation with, if not Danny himself.

Further and further we moved out into the channel, content that Glasgow and any of the other 68s were no longer an issue. Still, Durban once again began to slowly narrow the gap. "Five miles to go." We both moved across the channel and now, as we were approaching the far side, depth became an issue. Looking back at Durban, Danny would mutter under his breath, "Tack, dammit," but they held their position.

Pondering our outhaul problem, Danny came up with the idea of removing one of the reefing lines, something we had no plans of using, and tying a tight bowline to the clew to use as a better rigged outhaul. He set it up, called for the line to be winched, and it worked. Finally we had taken the sag out of our foot. Looking back at Durban, we could see visibly that their progress had been all but halted.

"Three miles."
"Tack, dammit," Danny kept muttering at Durban.
"Depth seven meters." Danny could wait no longer.
"PREPARE TO TACK!" Everyone left the rail and took their positions on the runners, yankee sheets winches, staysail sheets winches, and the grinders. "HELM'S TO LEE!" Sails snapped, lines whipped, grinders spun, lines flew as we turned through the wind. We were now headed directly for a point just downwind of the finish line with one last tack to make opposite the nearest of two committee boats to round up into the wind and sail across the line. Behind us Durban tacked was well. We were still between them and the finish line so even though they were gaining, we felt could still hold them off by forcing them onto a longer line to the finish.

A squall came through and what had been a fairly comfortable, if not cloudy day, now turned into a building downpour. No one put their hoods up, however. No one cared and no one wanted to miss a thing.

"Two miles!" A gust came through and heeled the boat over to perhaps 45 degrees. "Ease the main!" Danny shouted. "Ease the main!!!! I've got the helm."

All day until that point, the crew had been handling all the positions on the boat, including the helm, for the race was about us, not Danny or Gordon. Yet the storm had intensified and the conditions were too challenging for anyone else but Danny to be at the helm. I had my hour or so at the helm early on in the race and felt I'd done well enough but was glad to have Danny on the helm now. Gusts would come through and heel the boat over so far that it was all he could do to haul on the wheel against it and hold the boat on a straight line. Each time a gust would come, he'd scream for the person on the main sheet to ease the main, which would depower the mainsail and the dimminish the weather helm enough that he would be able to hold a straight line. [Okay, one explanation: weather helm--the pressure on the larger mainsail behind the boat's center of gravity that wants to turn the boat upwind, that is, into the weather]. After the main had been eased, the heavy effort of cranking the mainsail back in was tackled and it would take a minute or two before we once more had a properly trimmed main, losing speed all the while. Durban was in the same wind and, we hoped, taking the same blows and losing the same speed as we were. We seemed to be holding our position.

"One mile!" How unlikely could it be that in a 70 mile race, we had moved from dead last place to a huge lead and then have it all come down to 100 yards in the final minutes.

A huge gust, harder than any of the previous ones hit us and as the boat tried to round up into the wind, Danny hung on the wheel to pull the boat straight, shouting, "EASE THE MAIN EASE THE MAIN EASE THE MAIN."

The mainsheet trimmer didn't act fast enough and the boat heel over and over, rolling the rudder underneath closer and closer to the surface just as much as the sail above was leaning down towards it, until finally the rudder lost enough leverage to have any effect on holding the boat on course. With the boat heeled to what seemed like 70 degrees on it's side, the immense weather helm forces, free at last of the rudder's restraint, violently swung the boat 90 degrees to the right, across the wind and onto the opposite tack.

The boat swung upright and for perhaps a stunned full second each of us looked around. The boom had crossed the hull and was full but with the headsail sheets unreleased, the headsails were backed. The larger Yankee pressed onto the inner stay and staysail in what was an ugly and clearly unnatural manner. We had broached and had been involuntarily crash-tacked. We were now hove to and had come to complete stop in the water.

Recovering from our one second of shock, Danny shouted "TACK! TACK! TACK! TACK!" Since we had already just been involuntarily tacked, we knew that what he really meant was, "GET THE FUCKING HEADSAILS OVER TO THE OPPOSITE RAIL!!"

We all sprang into action and once more sails snapped, lines whipped, grinders spun, lines flew as we did our best to recover. Slowly the boat picked up speed and, once stabilized, we tacked back towards the finish line. But was too late. That was all it took. Durban had passed us and that was enough.

Once opposite the finish line between the two committee boats, Durban tacked to cross...but they tacked too soon and quickly realized they couldn't point into the wind enough to cut inside the first boat, so they tacked back again. Our eyes opened wide. We now had the inside line to the finish line and we might be able to hold them off yet! We were both on the starboard tack. When they tacked to finish, they'd be on a port tack and with us still on a starboard tack, we had the right of way. If they couldn't completely clear us once they tacked, they would be forced to tack back in parallel with us, with them on the outside and us nearer the finish line. We had a chance again!

Finally, just before we reached a point where we could tack to make it across the line, Durban tacked in front of us, their stern slipping by only a few feet in front of our bow as we bore down on them, trying to force them to tack.

Eight hours and 70 miles of racing and it came down to a matter of feet.

We were second. Any other 68 was still perhaps ten or fifteen minutes behind us. We tacked and, now on a port tack ourselves and thereby forced to avoid any boat on a starboard tack, we had a few intense moments of excitement winding our way through all the other boats trying to fight their way between the committe boats. We actually had other boats force us to tack five more times just to get across the line but it didn't matter. No other boat in our class was close.

We were second and that was that.

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

How did I not save the day? I knew damn well that the crew member on the mainsheet didn't understand what was required and wasn't reacting fast enough. I knew he was overwhelmed by the task at hand and I knew for certain I was completely qualified for it myself, and yet I said nothing...did nothing.

Having sailed small catamarans for years back on the Potomac river, I was fully experienced in and even subconsciously conditioned to letting the main sheet fly when gusts would start to heel the boat over. That's how you sail a catamaran; one hand on the tiller to guide the boat and the other on the mainsheet, ready to pop it free from its jam cleat and let fly out as needed to depower the main when gusts start to lift one of the hulls out of of the water.

Last February, as I sailed with a local school to gain more experience than I'd get with Clipper Ventures alone, six of us sailed the school's 40 foot boat through the harbour one gusty morning as we prepared to move out into the Solent for more room. The depth of the harbour in the tidal conditions of the moment restricted us to a thin line of water down along perhaps a few hundred yards worth of boats moored to lines sunk into cement plugs in the bay. As we sailed past them, I was on the mainsheet. Gusts of wind would hit the boat now and then and the skipper would tell me to ease the main while the helmsman would fight to keep the boat going straight. The gusts would pass and I'd winch the main back in again.

Suddenly one particularly strong gust hit us unexpectedly and the boat started to round up into the wind and directly into the line of parked boats 30 feet to our right. Without waiting to be told, I threw all but one turn off the mainsheet winch and let the mainsail swing out wide. The boat righted itself and the helmsman turned it back away from the boats and on course. A moment later, as I was winching the mainsail back in, the wide-eyed skipper leaned towards the helmsman and, motioning his head towards me, said, "He just saved your butt."

That and the school's brand new $109,000 boat.

I knew what was happening two days ago at the finish line. And I knew the person on the mainsheet didn't understand the predicament at all. As we rode these gusts out, he'd leave the mainsheet in the self-tailer and even have a safety turn or two on the winch, something that would normally require four or five seconds to undo. And then he'd take ten seconds to undo it.

The hard question for me to answer to myself is when to step in and when to leave things be. There are so many times when improvement isn't needed. Good enough can sometimes be good enough. And, worse, it's hard to claim that I know better about anything than the next person. No lives were in danger that afternoon, only the race. Moreover, over the entire weekend the crew member in question seemed to feel a need to project an air of competent knowledge about sailing, something that approaced an annoying degree at times. Would I be any less objectionable or any different, I thought to myself, if I stepped in and claimed to be able to bring the situation under better control than he could?

Once we tied up at the dock and people headed of to take showers, I pulled Danny aside and told him I felt like I'd let the crew down. "I knew he didn't get it and I knew I did, but I didn't do anything." Danny waved my concern off. "Well he knows now," he said. "It's all about learning. Don't worry about it."

That night as most of our crew walked among the pubs of Cowes, crowded with the thirsty crews of 1800 boats, First Mate Gordon would joke periodically, "We was robbed!" I pulled him aside and told him the same thoughts I told Danny earlier. He shook his head and said, "Danny saw it, I saw it, you saw it, and we all three did nothing. You could say all three of us are to blame. Let it go. It's just a race."

Yes, of course, but I struggle with what I should learn from this. The rumor we had heard about a watch going to the winner had some truth to it. Nautica had sponsored our class and would award a $500 watch to not only the skipper but the entire crew of 16.

That bit of news sobered up our crew for a few minutes before we all shook it off again and went for another round of drinks, milling around the pubs of West Cowes until well past midnight, with Gordon occasionally shouting, "We was robbed!" while the rest of us would laugh and then shrug our shoulders.

It's all part of the learning experience, I've struggled to conclude, and I think I'm finally there. We came in second but I learned a valuable lesson. That moment, I hope, will prepare me for another when perhaps it's more than a bag of watches at stake.

The race also brought an interesting conundrum to the surface to ponder. We had done so well only because we had done so poorly at first. Had we rounded the Needles in, say, second, third, or even fourth place, we most likely would have not risked taking the inland route that, in the end, proved to be so amazingly beneficial. How, then, to apply that lesson to sailing and even life in general or, more to the point, just what is the lesson? Recklessness wins? First fail to finally succeed? Food for thought for a long and calm night watch some day in the future.

Most importantly, I had a great time with a band of good people, most of whom I'd never seen before and with some of whom I've been lucky to develop a true bond of friendship. In the end, as I've said over and over, it's about the people.

All in all, it was an amazing weekend. We weren't robbed. It was a bountiful learning experience. There is no second, Timmy, just more and more opportunities to learn.