May 2012 and I'm at Gosport to attend the first Clipper 15-16 interviews. I arrived a little early, so I had a coffee over looking Portsmouth harbour. I sent a text to my wife "Sun shining and drinking a coffee whilst looking at boats, beats working!".

I made my way down to Clipper HQ and joined 15 or so other people on this first session. In the corner of the room was a large black steering wheel. "That's for the new Clipper 70 fleet" said David, "Cost £5,000 each". A collective ooohhh filled the room, can't wait to be standing behind one of those.

We did the usual introductions that you do in these kind of situations; what's your name, personal background and why you were there. We ranged in age from a lad who would only just be 18 for the 2015 race, to some more mature people around the 50 mark. It was a 50/50 split between male and female. A couple of people were looking to the whole RTW, but most of us were Leggers.

We saw a video and were given loads of information about the format of the whole process. This covered how the training programme worked, how the boats operated, how the event was managed, insurance, paying for it, getting to and from start points for Leggers and family etc.

The day finally finished with a 1:1 interview to make sure you were still interested and for them to understand more about why you wanted to do it. It was also a chance to see if you had some major personality issues that my not be welcome on a TransAt crossing!