Christmas 2014

So it's Christmas time again. How many Clipper Christmases is that now - three? This means that this time next it will be all over for me. How do I feel about that? Not too sure really. On the plus side I will be able to call myself an ocean sailor and will have experienced all the good and bad aspects that such a trip brings, I would have been to somewhere in Brazil and celebrated big time and would returned home to family and friends.

On the downside I would have waved the fleet good by until summer 2016 when we welcome them home.

So it's Christmas time again. Time to celebrate another year successfully navigated. Levels 1 & 2 completed. I had plan to do Level 3 in October, but a change of job meant this had to be rearranged for 2015. Unfortunately, I couldn't make the official Clipper Christmas drink and the end of November, but did go to Hardys for the meal that Ali arranged. Three 11-12ers also joined us, so we got some good insights and tips into the whole experience. It would appear that bread making is one of the key skills to be mastered. A little something to learn as a new year's resolution perhaps?

The following Friday was another event organised by Emily at The Dickens Inn. We seem to gravitate to this place quite a lot! Every time a group of us meets, its a good mixture of familiar faces as well as new ones. Emily and I meet for the first time having only previously only hailed each other from our respective yachts as we passed on the Medway.

Simon, a newish member of Clipper had gone to the Clipper drinks the previous week (and by the sounds of it had only just got home!) commented on how there were five standard questions we all asked each other when we were doing the pleasantries. But then that is we are most likely to do - ask what your name is, what legs, have you sailed before etc. We also had someone signed up for the 17-18 race come to soak up the atmosphere. And the best bit of all this year I didn't fall asleep on the train and miss my stop!

Clipper 13-14 Homecoming

The fun started 12:00 11th July with lunch at The Anchor in the company of Roz and new Clipper buddy Gary. A nice couple of hours spent catching up with Roz and getting to know Gary. Then just as we were thinking of heading over the river to the Little Ships Club a trepid lady came over to us, "Are you Roz, Chris & Gary?" said Maggie.

Turns out Maggie has just signed up for Clipper 17-18 and managed to track us down by the power of the 15-16 FB group. It was really nice to meet someone in the next group and to see they felt the same way we did back all those years ago when we signed up for 15-16!

We got to TSC and met up with more old friends and said hello to new ones. David then called us to our seats and we looked forward to finding out more about our race. A great video was played of the 13-14 race leaving San Fransico - full sails, healed over, creaming along, very evocative.

David's message; The 13-14 crew have just 24 hours of glory left, on Sunday the focus would shift to us, we would be the race! That was quite a powerful message. Other than that we didn't really learn much about our race, other than the start would be mid August give or take a week.

Saturday morning boarded a spectator boat with our freinds Sue & Gary. The spectator boats headed down river to meet up with the Clipper flotila approx 1 mile east of the Woolwich ferry. Lots of shouting, cheering and waving between the boats. What a great river trip!

The spectator boats dropped us off allowing us to greet the boats onto St Kats. They came in one by one to great cheers, but the biggest was saved for Henri Lloyd, the winner, who came in with flares blazing.

Now that the 13-14 race was over, Henri Lloyd were selling 15-16 branded wear. Not that I needed anything, but there was now way I was leaving without my first piece of official branded race clothing, so a rash top was purchased, which I prodly wore Sunday when we went round Tate Modern!

After a great weekend welcoming home the 13-14 race, plus celebrating our freind Paul's birthday, Monday came down with a bit of bump. I felt quite low, dispondent with no motivation. The FB group chatter indicated that I was not the only one suffering with "Yellowbrick Withdrawal Syndrom" as it is known as.

Only another year to go!

Level 2 Training

Though I had only completed Level 1 just a couple of months previously, it was great to get back on a Clipper 68.

However, first we had to complete the RYA Sea Survival course. This was carried out in a local Community Centre near Clipper HQ. It was nice to catch-up with three of my fellow Level 1 crew mates. This started with lectures in the morning which are basically designed to enforce the message that getting into a lift raft is a last resort and only done when your boat sings beneath you! The afternoon is taken up in a swimming pool playing with a lift raft and trying to swim with an inflated lift vest.

It certainly highlighted the difficulties and general unpleasantness of being in a lift raft. It was bad enough in a swimming pool, so goodness knows what it would be like in angry seas?

After completing the sea survival course it was off to Clipper HQ to board our boat for the next few day, CV7 Singapore and another new set of people to get to know. Day 1 at sea was spent in the Solent reminding ourselves of the processes and procedures before anchoring for the night.

The next day we set off for Beachy Head in our watch system of 4 hours on, 4 hours off. Each day one of the watches would be responsible for cooking for the 10 of us on the boat, whilst the other watch were responsible for cleaning.

So 4 hours on, 4 hours off, what would that be like? Luckily I'm not someone that needs a lot of sleep, so this proved not to be a problem. However, my real Achilles heal raised it's ugly head, sea sickness. Thankfully this only occurred on one occasion and honestly Jeff, it wasn't your cooking! After a calm afternoon when there wasn't even enough wind for the light spinnaker to fly, the wind picked up during the night and so just before midnight when I would have come on watch, a call for all hands to drop the Yankee 1 for the Yankee 2 came. As soon as I got off my bunk it hit me - oh god not in here! Thankfully I managed to keep it in, as throwing up the sleeping quarters was not an option I would care to contemplate! I struggled to get to the heads and let go. Eventually I got on deck, but as soon as I tried to help, I was ill again.

I felt quite miserable.

During the next day I came back to life and all was well with the world again. The tip from Mike (a second time Clipper crew) is to take pills each time you go to sleep - dose up!

All too soon the week as over and we back in Gosport and ready for a shower and a shave. A great week and another great bunch of people. This is something that continues to intrigues me about this whole experience. I've met people from all walks of life and many different nationalities, which would never have happened without this adventure. I'm sure that many of them will be friends for life.

Level 1

At last, the 28th March came and it was time to head to Clipper HQ in Gosport for my Level 1 training. Had I really been waiting years? Yes, I had! As I got closer to Portsmouth the tension in me started to rise, oh the anticipation of it.

The forecast for the week was good and I had already met the Skipper, Emily, as she was the one who looked after us on our "Wet Wipes" weekend last April, so I knew it was going to be a good week. Home for the week was going to be CV3 - "Welcome to Yorkshire" aka the big pink boat.

At 1700 we all met at the Training Office and found out who we were going to be sharing the week with. There were 8 of us on CV3 for the week and what a mixture we were. Really this should have been no surprise as Clipper attracts a very wide ranging demographic, with perhaps the exception of age. The average age is fairly high, probably due to the cost.

However, we still would have made an interesting Venn diagram; 3 x first time on a yacht,  2 x women, 2 x Swiss, 1 x Dutch, 1 x Australian etc. But the dynamics of the crew were fantastic and by the end of the week emails were swapped and we were all great friends.

Level 1 is a fairly conservative week as even if you have sailing experience (and three of our crew happen't set foot on a yacht before) a Clipper 68 is very different to your average leisure cruiser. Big difference being the weight of sails and the loads under which all the sheets and lines are placed under.

Because of this one of the key parts of the training is safety and safe methods of working. How ironic that the day we practice our first Man Overboard (MOB), that Andrew Taylor on Derry~Londonderry~Doire should spend 1.5 hours in the Pacific having fallen overboard.

Emily (Skipper) and Paul (Mate) provided a really fun, safe and good learning environment, which made the week a great experience.

Roll on Level 2 in June!

A Polar Bear vs Clipper

So what has a Polar bear got to do with Clipper? Answer at the bottom.

11th January saw 100+ Clipperites attend a meeting at the Little Ships Club in London. It was good to meet up with some old friends. Unfortunately, didn't have to mingle afterwards and make any new friends as I was taking Rosemary to the top of the Shard as her birthday treat!

The aim of the meeting was to provides us with some useful in sites into participation of the Clipper experience. First to speak was Rob Lewis, sponsor of Mission Performance who gave some very useful information about extreme team building.

Next was Ben Bowley, senior training skipper. Plenty of useful information about choosing the right ethos and goals for your boat, conflict resolution (which will happen when you get a group of sleep deprived people in a confined space!), things to do to help the skipper and plenty more.

Finally we asked questions to 6 people who have just finished (though still had other Legs to do) Legs on the 13-14 race. This provided useful gems about personal hygiene, clothes, kit as well as low and high points about the experience.

And the Polar bear? As you will see from Rob's CV he has been to the North Pole and shared his own experience of confronting a Polar bear, which is to run at it making as much noise as possible!

Luckily the odds of meeting a Polar bear between the UK and Brazil are slim.