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Clipper Race Wrap Up

Our 7th place finish in race 14 put us in sixth place overall, behind Qingdao, ahead of Telemed and DaNang.  In the end, I was happy with our overall position in the fleet.  We had been mostly even with Qingdao for quite some time and they had race well and been on the podium, so it was ok to lose to them.  Telemed and DaNang had been much further down in the standings until just the last few races, and it would have been much harder to lose out to one of them.  While we never did manage to get a podium finish, we had been more consistent than many other boats, and finished in the top half of the fleet!

It was quite an 11 month experience.  I went it to it not knowing what to expect.  I'd spent a lot of time on boats, but never such a long time, with so many people I didn't know.  My main objective for doing this was to complete a circumnavigation - so to that end I achieved what I set out to do.  There were so many highs and so many lows throughout the year, that when people ask questions like 'was it fun?' and 'did you enjoy it?', it's very difficult to answer in a couple of sentences, or even an hour conversation!

The sailing was everything I expected it to be - a few days into leg 1, when I was at the helm surfing down waves at speeds in the high 20's, I knew this part was going to be fun!  Even when it was freezing cold or sweltering hot, the sailing part was still fun (ok, except for the equator when we didn't go anywhere at all for a couple days! but those days, swimming in the middle of the ocean made up for it!) 

The phrase - 'love the adventure, hate the company' was one I heard a few times before we left the docks in St Kats a year ago.  We learned to understand why - truly poor expectation setting by the race director with respect to course extensions was probably the biggest, but the clear focus on expenses was the other (I'm still trying to explain to experienced ocean sailors why we went offshore without proper watermaker and genset spares!)  Of course, we have to keep reminding ourselves that Clipper is a business and if they aren't profitable, then they will likely go the way of Challenge Business (their last competitor who went bust a few years back.)  I'm sure that over time the good memories will endure and all the frustration and annoyance with Clipper will diminish.  

The crew... 50+ people, some for 1 leg, some for all 8.  Some I got to know really well, some I was never on watch with and barely got to know.  This was definitely the most challenging part of the trip.  Take any random group of 20 people and lock them in a small, uncomfortable space, add lots of physical and mental stress, and see what happens!  Invariably, out of that will develop friendships, cliques, conflict, relationships and anything else you can imagine.  We all did our best to cope and make life on board enjoyable.  I expect the friendships I made to be lasting ones, and hope to see many of my new friends visiting lovely California in the not too distant future!

As a crew that was not very good at truly thanking people, I want to offer big thanks to my round the world compatriots - to Brian Harlock for taking on the lead job of victualling the boat for 40,000 miles, a truly thankless job if there ever was one! He kept us well fed, put up with all the special needs and likes/dislikes of the crew, and gave up many days of shore leave to get the job done; but also for keeping me sane on long watches, especially for sharing his encyclopedic knowledge of English history!  To Nicholas Barnaby for taking on the role as team coordinator, another thankless job trying to herd cats on every stopover! And for being there at the start and finish of every maintenance day in every port - wouldn't have had the boat ready to sail without you!  To Gavin Reid for becoming and outstanding sailor from the helm to the bow and then sharing that knowledge with others and taking on the role as watch leader to lead us into London!  To James Shepherd for sharing a bunk with me as the other watch leader for much of the race, but more importantly sharing his sweets and his sense of humor! And, of course, to skipper Greg for putting up with a crew from the land of misfit toys for the year! 

A heartfelt thanks to all the leggers who made up most of the crew and kept us from boring ourselves to death with the stories over and over.  Your enthusiasm and fresh ideas kept us going leg after leg. 

To all our supporters - knowing we had you all cheering us on and encourage us day after day was truly appreciated.  You can't imagine how important those posts and emails were to crew spirit.  

And lastly, a huge thanks to my family - for putting up with my crazy desire to sail around the world, supporting me all the way through it, and flying far more miles than we sailed to be there in all those remote destinations.  

That's a wrap!

[mike-ayu]

Clipper Race Wrap Up Photos:  

A little celebration of race finish at St Katherine’s docks with the family.  Very happy to be back with the family full time!  

And the before and after shot of the round the worlders. Not sure who either of those guys are kneeling next to Greg in the ‘before’ picture.  As for the after picture - it seems that James may be the ‘last beard standing’!

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Clipper Race: Den Helder to London Photos 3

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Clipper Race: Den Helder to London Photos 3

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Clipper Race: Den Helder to London Photos 2

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Clipper Race: Den Helder to London Photos 1

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Clipper Race: Den Helder to London - the Final race

After eleven month and 45,000 miles, it all comes down to just under 200 miles from the Netherlands to Southend, at the entrance to the River Thames and race finish!  We came into this final race in a four-way tie for 5th place with Qingdao, DaNang and Telemed, making this one of the most exciting Clipper race finishes ever.   The stop in Den Helder had been a good one, with plenty of time for most of the crew to head off to Amsterdam for some much needed R&R and a BBQ hosted by crew member Michelle's parents beach house.  So it was a well rested and energized crew ready to go at race start! And what a race it was!   After the usual long pre-race ceremonies (parade of sail around a Dutch naval ship, water cannon display by a Dutch navy tug, and lots of motoring around) it was time for a downwind race start.  To make sure we weren't over the starting line early, we prepared our code 1 spinnaker, but waited to hoist until the last minute.  We were in a great position towards the front of the fleet as we neared the starting line.  Unfortunately, the hoist ended up being quite a few minutes later than expected as we discovered our halyards wrapped at the top of the mast just before hoisting!  Once that was sorted out, we started the hoist, only to find that the spinnaker had been setup under the Yankee sheets!  Quite some colorful language coming from Skipper Greg on the helm at that point.  With the light winds, rather than dropping the spinnaker to sort it out,  Gavin untied the Yankee sheet and retied it under the spinnaker, getting it sorted much faster.  This would be our first trip from the front of the pack to the back of the pack this race, but not the last!   Fortunately our fouled spinnaker hoist had kept us further upwind than most of the fleet, and as the wind headed the fleet and forced many of the boats further north, we quickly dropped our code 1 and cut the corner fairly close heading south towards London.  The entire fleet quickly went to white sails and began tacking south, into a tide that was forcing us north.  With one tack favored over the other, every couple of tacks found us either gaining or losing ground against the others.  At one point, we went further in shore on a long tack and made up a large amount of ground, getting ourselves into at least fifth position as we crossed most of the fleet coming back out.  Unfortunately, we didn't tack and cover the fleet to consolidate our position and found ourselves once again at the back of the fleet after heading too far offshore on our own before tacking back .   It would take a lot of focus and hard sailing to gradually pull back a few positions, and by early in the morning we had regained some ground.  Only to lose a few more positions after a botched windseeker hoist when the winds went light.  And then slowly to grind back some ground.  By the time we were about 40 miles from Southend, we found ourselves in 9th place, will DaNang behind us, Telemed just ahead of us, Qingdao further up the track, and Seatlle (who were 7 points behind us) leading the race (and threatening to pass us in the overall race standings!) We kept pushing hard, but were not closing fast enough on Telemed, when we heard that Telemed had an injured crew member that needed airlifting to a hospital.  After checking if they needed assistance, we realized that we  might have the needed time to get past them, close in on Qingdao and hopefully foul Seattle's plan to beat us.   As we dodged wind farm after wind farm, we did manage to pass Telemed and put enough ground on them to hold on to 7th place in the race.  With Seattle coming in 2nd, they didn't have enough points to pass us in the overall standings. Qindgao beat us in the race  and overall.  With Qingdao taking 5th, we took 6th, followed by the others.   No race report would be complete without a mention of the few hours before we started the parade of sail.  With just under three hours to kill after we crossed the finish line before the parade up the Thames was to start at 4:00am, we decided to motor sail around with just the main up and three people rotating on watch.  Apparently there are lots of shallows in the area, and while avoiding the last group of finishing racers, we found one of those shallows on a dropping tide.  We ended up sitting in the mud waiting for the tide to rise as the other started the parade of sail.  Aaron and James junior rowed out in the dinghy to drop a kedge anchor to keep us from being pushed further onto the mud (if you can call using floor boards as paddles against tide and wind 'rowing')  Shortly after getting the anchor set, the RNLI lifeboat came by to see if they could assist!  We were going to have them move the anchor further out, but it was set so well, we couldn't get it raised.  About 4:30, with the tide coming in, the guys on the RNLI rib were able to pull our bow around to face the deeper water and then pull us off the mud.  We tied a buoy to the anchor rode, tossed it over the side, radiod Ben Bowley on the clipper 68 who had been the committee boat for the finish line, asking him to pick up our anchor, and then headed off at full throttle to catch the rest of the fleet.  Which we did, long before reaching the Tower Bridge and St Kats.  So we were able to finish in proper fashion, with another trip under the raised Tower Bridge and then back and in to St Kats for a grand welcome home!

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Clipper Race: Derry to Den Helder Photos 2

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Clipper Race: Derry to Den Helder Photos 1

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Clipper Race: Derry to Den Helder

This was a short one from Northern Ireland to the Netherlands, about 750 miles around the north end of Scotland, down the North Sea to the Netherlands.  The wind was good for sailing, with the winds behind us making it a quick trip north.  But not so good for admiring the dramatic coastline of Scotland with all the rain and fog.  I hadn't expected to be in a wool base layer, thick mid-layers and foulies again, but that was the case!  Rounding Scotland required passing through the Pentland Firth, where the tides can run up to 10+ knots.  In the approach to it, the winds went light, and positions in the fleet shifted again and again and various boats went in and out of wind and currents.  We finally made it round, ducking just south of the island of Stroma as we did.  Then it was off to the south and east towards the continent.  It was clearly going to be a quick trip, with our ETA continuing to stay a day ahead of the arrival window (and along with that, plenty of jokes and concern about course extensions...)

After the last shuffling of the fleet, we found ourselves one place ahead of ClipperTelemed+, two places ahead of Qingdao, and six places behind DaNang.  These would hold to the finish, putting us in a four-way tie for fifth place in the race overall.  We now have a short stay in Den Helder (which will include a foray off to Amsterdam for a few days) before the final race - a sprint back to London; concluding with a parade of sail up the River Thames to the Tower Bridge and into St Katherine's docks, where this all started close to a year ago!

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Clipper Race: New York to Derry - Photos 3

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Clipper Race: New York to Derry - Photos 2

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Clipper Race: New York to Derry - Photos 1

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Clipper Race: New York to Derry, Northern Ireland

A north Atlantic crossing might be one of the oldest timed crossing in the sailing records - from the Ambrose Light just off New York to the Lizard just off England. 

For us however, neither speed nor England were in the cards... Our departure started with a parade of sail around lower Manhattan and the Statue of Liberty, can't get much more iconic than that.  Especially after having been to Ellis Island to trace our family roots from the old country!  Then we motored out past the Ambrose Light to clear the Traffic Separation Zones and our LeMans start around 7pm (a Clipper method of starting the fleet where we can't have a committee boat and normal starting line.)

It was a quick start, with the Code 2 spinnaker up by 2am the next morning.  The first sign of troubles to come came about 12 hours after the start when our Code 2 blew up around 7am.  We quickly got the remains of the sail onboard and down below, then got the Code 3 spinnaker up to keep up our speed.

 Unfortunately around 4pm that day, the halyard holding up the Code 3 parted and the sail drifted into the water.  After a big struggle to get it back onboard, we got it down below with the Code 2 and got our white sails up. Fortunately, for the next two weeks, the winds would be strong enough that we could make do with white sails and not miss our spinnakers too much!  In the meantime, it was time for some serious sail repair to begin.  The crew quickly divided into the sail repair team and the sailing team. This division would both help divide the work and seriously divide the crew for the rest of the race.  In hindsight, it probably would have been better to force some amount of rotation in jobs to make sure each group had a chance to experience the other roles.  The team working down below was working in a very uncomfortable environment as the boat bounced around in rough seas, the sewing machine had to be tied down to stop it from flying around while in use, and the amount of work seemed insurmountable.  The crew on deck was forced to limit rotations as rather than the usual team of 8 on deck, we were frequently down to 4 or 5, and the weather continued to get wetter and colder as we left the Gulf Stream and headed further and further north. The ability for the on watch to rotate down below to warm up and get dry was quite restricted by the reduced numbers.

Despite sail challenges, we made great progress with the rest of the fleet and by the 29th of June were already looking at a July 4 or 5 arrival into Derry, well ahead of our schedule arrival of July 7-12.  Since Sir Robin has promised the fleet at the Vietnam crew briefing that there would be no more course extensions, crew were starting to adjust arrival plans for themselves as well as friends and family.  Then that afternoon the crushing news came that there would indeed be a course extension and we would be heading north from Northern Ireland about 250 miles around a rock and an island and then back to Derry, to push back our arrivals back to July 6-8.  Being towards the back of the fleet, that made it a likely July 8th arrival for us, adding 3-4 days to our crossing.  After finding that the British Navy would be conducting live fire exercises in the middle of our course extension, it was adjusted to remove the island rounding and add a rounding of Rathlin Island just off Northern Ireland.  In addition, the race office had to scan in the detail charts for the areas of the extension and email them to the boats as we weren't carrying paper charts for those areas.  With 2 out of 3 of our on board computers down, we were lucky not to have our Navigation computer fail!

Those who had complained we were carrying too much food on board for prior legs and therefore too much added weight, were covered on this leg!  Fruit ran in short supply as the bulk of the apples planned for snacks didn't show up in the food delivery and we didn't realize until well underway, leaving us with grapefruit as the fruit snack of choice for the last week.  Sugary snacks also ran short, and were rationed out to the watches for the last week as well.  Flour supplies for our daily fresh bread just lasted to the final day of the race, in the form of whole wheat flour, with white flour running out before Nicholas was able to make his famous Cinnamon rolls, much to the disappointment of the crew.   Meals became more and more creative at the end as our day bags of food ran short and we made use of what we had.  With two days to go to the finish, Paul and I made BBQ chicken wings and Chinese Potstickers for lunch - and the crew ate every last wing and dumpling!

The last 24 hours of racing provided our most dramatic finish since Albany.  As we closed in on Rathlin Island, Qingdao suddenly appeared on AIS.  They had been almost 30 miles ahead of us just recently, and now we were closing in on them rapidly.  As they sat stuck in the outgoing tide off the island, we took a route that sheltered us from the tide behind the island and allowed us to get slightly ahead of them.  But as we rounded the island, we both struggled in the light winds and strong tides.  We ended up racing along the north coast side by side with Qingdao, trading the lead back and forth as we took turns picking up slight gusts of wind.  This continued well into the night, when finally the wind filled from the North.  Unfortunately, Qingdao was several boat lengths to the north of us and picked up the wind first, giving them about a quarter mile advantage that they carried until about 5 miles from the finish line, where we once again found ourselves in light winds.  We could see the end of the cloud cover just ahead of us, which also signaled the coming of the wind.  Again, Qingdao picked up the wind first, taking advantage of their 1/4 mile lead.  This time, it extended their lead enough that with just a few miles to go we wouldn't be able to catch up.  

But that would not be the end of the excitement for the night, as we packed our sails away and motored up the Foyle River towards Derry.  Just after going off watch and heading below to get a few hours sleep before our arrival, the boat suddenly lurched to a stop!  Skipper Greg rushed up on deck, and I rushed to the Nav station.  I could see on Nav computer that there was a shallow bank along the edge of the channel we were motoring up, and it extended slightly into the marked channel, just over the line between the two buoys we were between!  It took a couple hours of motoring back and forth and eventually getting five crew out on the end of the boom to heel the boat enough to get us out of the mud and back into the deeper part of the channel and on our way to Derry.   We finally arrived to the fanfare of Derry, at least as much as they could muster for a very early morning arrival.  The usual clipper welcome, then a few drinks, and then - Deep Clean!   Four hours of ridding the boat of the grime and smells of 19 unshowered crew, and then we were off to find our hotels, airbnbs, or whatever else we could find for personal deep cleans and a good nights sleep in a flat, comfortable bed!

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Clipper Race 11: Panama to New York City Photos 3

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Clipper Race 11: Panama to New York City Photos 2

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Clipper Race 11: Panama to New York City Photos 1