Pomp And Ceremony

The crowd went wild!

Sunday saw the build of nervous tension and excitement as the day progressed. We were instructed to be on board at 0900. So a last hearty breakfast in the hotel and farewell to Rosemary. An hour or so later, with not much going on I managed to show a couple more friends quickly round the boat and hung around a little bit more with family and friends until the pull of the boat got too much for me and so I said my final farewells until I would return on 8th October.

The morning started to drag and we started to grow impatient, we had had enough of the build up, we wanted to go sailing. However, there was the send of ceremony to be completed first. St Kats was packed with people come to see the spectacle and cheer of their loved ones and friends. Two years previous I was on the quay side watching the 13-14 race leave. Then I was on the outside looking in, now I was on the inside looking out.

Drummer up the mast

The ceremony started and a troop of drummers embarked on the boats to be winched up the mast. We had the base drummer, which was a delicate operation getting him up to the first spreaders with is drum. When their time came it lasted about 10 seconds and because of the general noise in the dock, if you weren't paying attention, then you would have missed it!

The first crews disembarked and made their way around the back of the dock for their appearance in the stage. Being the 10th boat the wait for our turn grew, but finally we were off. As we reached the holding position near the stage Visit Seattle and PSP Logistics gave us a round of applause, which we returned. As each crew made their way onto the stage, the boat song was played, as was Best Day Of My Life - American Authors. As we approached the stage Sir Robin was there to shake our hands and wish us well. The compere asked Diane, Han and Linda before our team photo was taken and our last hurrah before we left the stage.

Official crew photo

Soon after the first boat slipped its lines and headed out onto the river Thames. We had to do a 10 point turn in order to get out of our mooring, but eventually we were off. As we shot through the lock, we lined up on the port side ready for the photo boat and then joined the other boats circling around on the Thames. The river was was packed with spectator boats full of cheering and waving people. The river banks were also jammed full of people. It was a strange feeling, it felt like being a rock star!

Going through Tower Bridge

When all the boats were on the river Tower Bridge opened for us. One the previous race, only three boats went under the bridge, but this time, we were all going under. It was really special moment to go under Tower Bridge as it is not opened for just anyb
ody. Once through we then had the backdrop of The Tower of London on one side and HMS Belfast on the other. Once GREAT Britain and UNICEF  had made their way to the front of the flotilla, the bridge opened again and we headed of down river to Queenborough, where we would spend the night in ready for the proper race start the following day off Southend pier.

The spectator boats followed us down river, but one by one they turned round to head back up river. A number of tall ships were moored at Greenwich and as we passed them we exchanged salutes. Though the crowds thinned as we made our way down the river, they never truly disappeared until we had got passed Gravesend. At one point a drone flew out to us and waggled its wings at us.

Darkness had fallen by the time we entered the Thames estuary, which was a shame as this is my home sailing ground and I was looking forward to seeing it from ClipperTelemed+. Bed time came and I posted my last Facebook message and signed off until Rio. Tomorrow, we would be leaving these shores on an adventure, which none of us, not even Diane had any kind of experience.

What fun!

Boat Preperation

21st - 29th August 2015

After nearly 3 years of waiting, the time finally came, I was going to Rio!

Arriving in London

The boats had already been delivered to St Katharine's Dock in London the previous week, but I had now signed off from work and so was now ready to start my Clipper race. I had taken most of my kit down to Gosport the weekend before, so I had a small of cloths to last me the week whilst in London. So I got on the train and made my way to London.

I had met a few of my crew mates the weekend before when I dropped in at Gosport as well as a couple when I did my Level 4, but the majority of the crew were strangers to me. It's fascinating though how quickly you Know who you will connect with and those who you will never create much of a bond. During the week we got to know each other better, with Wednesday being the official crew arrival day, when we were finally all together.

Team building

During the week I also bumped into some of the "old" (original sign-ups) crew on their various boats. I don't why is surprises me so much, but I've been signed up since February 2012 and have met loads of people and made lots of friends, but I'm not actually sailing with anyone I did my training with, or have got to know during the various social events over the years. With over 700 crew taking part I suppose it shouldn't be such a surprise.

A lot of the prep work had been carried out in the previous weeks down at Gosport, but there was still plenty to keep us occupied. One of the tasks I had, was to get the entertainment system going. This consisted of a waterproof Bluetooth speaker for the cockpit and a Seagate media system for storing music and videos. My job was to try and get the media system accessible from anywhere on the boat.

Doug working hard

As the week progressed, jobs were completed and CV26 started to look ready to go. As the days passed, so the crew started to get impatient and wanted to go sailing. During the week, Steve & Jordi from work and Vince with his family visited on separate occasions and I showed them round the boat. During the evenings we went to various pubs and restaurants and got to know each other better still. Korean BBQ was an unexpected and really good find thanks to Han.

Korean BBQ with Han, Doug & Debs

One of the interesting things we found out about Linda was that she had used Pole Dancing as a means of getting fit for her round the world adventure. What you need to know about Linda is that she is 69. Now that in itself would cause some fun and amusement, but it just so happens that living in St Katharine's is an employee of NBC and she has picked up on Linda's story and want's to run a piece on her and the race.

Ryan watching intently

So one morning 12 of use accompanied Linda to a Pole Dancing class along with a camera man from NBC. What followed was a couple hours of fun and laughter as a group of mainly middle aged men tried to do Pole Dancing moves. John's painted toe nail certainly got some special attention.

On Wednesday evening I helped at the ClipperTelemed+ corporate event showing shipping company executives and the like round the boat. Free beer and nibbles was our reward and we got to wear our sexy black ClipperTelemed+ crew kit!

As the weekend approached, St Katherine's got busier and busier and the excitement grew. Friday night saw the official Crew Party take place. Rosemary joined me for this, which allowed her to meet some more of the crew and catch-up with some "old" Clipper faces.

Explaining to Emily & Leo where I'm going

Saturday was manic! Friends and family turning up to look round the boat. By lunchtime I was exhausted, hungry and thirsty, so it was time to adjourn to The Dickens Inn for a pizza and a drink before heading of to the Leg 1 race briefing.

Last supper!

After race briefing, which mainly consisted of confusing everyone about the rules for the motoring corridor (I decided to leave it to the skipper to understand!) it was off to a "Good bye" meal with 20 of my friends and family. The next day saw my journey to Rio begin with the official pomp and ceremony.

Team Building

Unfortunately, because we are so geographically dispersed as a team and because Clipper hadn't highlighted the date of the Team Building weekend, not many of us could make it. However, we rose to the challenge and had UK and Canada based events in order to increase the opportunity to meet our fellow crew members.

For the UK event, we went to the Oxford Wakeboard & Ski Club. Having never water skied I didn't hold out much hope of success! Hal went first as he organised the weekend and of course blasted round the lake as he had learnt to water ski when he was younger. The bar was set high, but it would soon be lowered!

We had a choice of skiing or wakeboarding. Apparently skiing is easier to get up, but harder to stay up when compared to wakeboarding. I chose wakeboarding. We went out in pairs on the boat, a little beast of a thing. Eecole went first and unfortunately, proved to be quite good as well, managing to do two circuits of the lake on one occasion.

So now it was my turn. To start with, you hold the pole that sticks out from the side of the boat and on the second attempt, I managed to stay up and go the length of the lake. Then it was time to try the rope off the back. I managed to get up out of the water once for about two seconds, but that was all I could manage.

This was followed by a BBQ, for which we were joined by our sponsor ClipperTelemed+, who came bearing beer and wine, which was nice.

After the BBQ we played some team building games and discussing our goals and objectives as a team. Having got all serious, it was time to wind down again, so a two mile walk was embarked upon to the nearest pub!

Having borrowed my friend's massive tent, when we got back from the pub, we all huddled in it for another hour or so chatting and drinking some more.

In the morning, we packed our tents and Hal guided us to a nice little cafe on the banks of the Thames for breakfast, from which we made our respective ways home. We all got to know each other a little more and had a good time in the process.

Level 4 Training

That's it, all done. All the training has been completed. Now wait until 31st August to put it all into practice for real, for the very first time. Am I ready for this? Well yes, I believe I am. I'm not scared, just perhaps buoyed with nervous excitement.

The Level 4 training week was a bit of a mixed bag to be honest. Clipper billed this week as being at sea for the whole racing against other boats along with a few exercises such as boat to boat transfers. Being at sea all week just meant that we weren't allowed to go into a marina, which meant we spend three nights at anchor. This was not well received by the crew, exasperated by the awful procedure for lowering the anchor. As the 70 has no bow roller, the anchor and chain have to be lowered over the guardrail. This is not only difficult, but also has a huge potential for an accident.

The first day was spent getting familiar with the boat again as well as getting to know some of the people we will be sailing with. Luckily we were all ClipperTelemed+ crew on our boat, whereas most of the other were a mixture of two different crew. This lead to our first night at anchor!

Next day we were unable to retrieve said anchor as the warp had got wrapped round the keel. In the end our only option was to let the warp go, but we tied a floating line to the end so that we could retrieve it. Unfortunately, the floating line didn't do the one thing it was supposed to do!

However, things got better as we rendezvoused with the six other boats and practiced Le Man and standard race starts before heading off the Le Harve. I had noticed on the second day that my scopoderm patch had fallen off, so I started taking Stugeron tablets, however, as soon as I got up on the third morning seasickness got me. I struggled to get on desk, but even that was no good, so I ended up on the saloon floor with a bucket. Luckily, by the afternoon the sea state improved and I came back to life.

The boat was sailing well and we could tell she was a fast boat. In the last race she was GREAT Britain, which probably would have won if it wasn't for the number of penalties they got! Then as we were on our way from Weymouth back to the Isle of White, we snagged a lobster pot. We then spent the next couple of hours trying to shack it loose. Ironically, this was only achieved by drifting over another pot, which dragged the first one off!

The following day we started another race down to Weymouth and back. It was a bright sunny day with light winds all the way down. As my watch started, the skipper asked to the Code 1 to be brought up on deck ready for hoisting after we round the mark. As we rounded the mark, the wind went from 5 knots to 25 knots in a matter of minutes! This resulted in the skipper screaming for the Code 1 to be put back below before it got blown off the deck.

A little later I took over the helm. By now it was pitch black and we were healed over doing 12+ knots - what fun! Then I looked up the mast to see the windx and saw the stars and I was just in awe at their beauty. After my shift on the helm, I just lay on the deck for 5 minutes just looking at the stars.

The wind did some funny things over the next 24 hours, ranging from nothing to a good old blow! The following day we finally manage to get the kit up with a struggle, only to have to bring it straight back down!

The next day was our last. The morning was scheduled for the boat tow and other exercises. This started well, with us being the towed boat. When it was our turn to get ready to do the towing at became apparent that everyone had drained their main water tanks. However, as we had three fully Jerry cans of water. We prepared to do a transfer with the boat with the least amount of water. Their first attempt at heaving a line fell short. Their second attempt landed on one of our instruments cracking the screen!

Once the transfer was completed, we restarted the towing exercise, which is when it all started to go horribly wrong. As we were maneuvering round the other boat we ended up smashing into their stern quarter and as the skipper was trying to prevent this happening the throttle/gear selector broke with the engine full-throttle in reverse!

The team lept into action with Doug shutting
down the throttle and putting the drive into neutral. We then spent the next hour working on a jury rig to get us back to Gosport. This was achieved be creation of a speaking tube and Nick controlling the throttle and gear selection from the lazarrete. Once the Clipper maintenance team had fitted a new lever, we return to the Solent to complete our exercises before finally anchoring (however, not before suffering loss of steering) for the last time.

It was a very eventful week!

Crew Allocation Day

The second most important day in the whole process, that's how Clipper bill it. The day in which you find out who your skipper is, who your crew mates are and if you are lucky, your boat sponsor.

I could have gone down to Portsmouth Saturday morning, but that would have meant loosing an opportunity for a warm-up session on Friday! Luckily I was working from home on Friday, so I managed to sneak off a little early and catch a train. My room mate Mike, had already arrived and was enjoying the sights and having a prewarm-up  or two.

Once I got to Portsmouth it was quick check-in and off to find the red jackets. Were we the only two wearing ours? Well it appeared so, everyone else was keeping a low profile, though we did find a few more Clipperati red jackets as the evening wore on. That's not to say nobody was about though as the beers and nips flowed gently through the evening whilst catching with familiar, as well as the occasional new face.

The 5 minute walk to the Guild Hall saw a mass of red jackets. Bumped into Tim from Level 3 inside and he showed a copy of the first of his articles for the Scunthorpe Telegraph on his Clipper adventure.

The other big question waiting to be answered was, were was the race start going to be? Thankfully this was answered and it was London. What a relief - friends and family can easily attend.

Once the updates had been provided, it was finally time to meet the skippers and find out who were you going to be sailing with. Each skipper stood up and read out half their crew with the process repeated for the second half of the crew.

Mike's name was called second and as the skippers progressed, so other familiar names were called out, but not mine. The process started for a second time and the tension in my stomach became tighter. Diane Reed stood up for a second time and finally my names was called - and relax!

A branded boat as well. When the process was finished, we all went into separate rooms to start the bonding process. So Diane is Canadian, the sponsor is half-Canadian so guest what? So are half the crew. So you could say this is the Canadian boat. After spending a few hours talking about who we were, our goals and starting to get to know each other, it was time for the mass photo on the steps of the Guild Hall.

After the picture, it was then time to loosen up at the bar! The only problem was it was now 6ish on a Saturday in Portsmouth and 600+ excited red jacketed people descended in the pubs. This stage wasn't too bad as the teams were told to go to specific pubs in order to spread us out, but we were still just general public and had to fit in were we could. After a couple of beers it was then time to find somewhere to eat, but who would have room for 25 people at 7:30 on a Saturday when there was another 11 teams floating about?

Luckily Coast-To-Coast squeezed us in a space upstairs and all was well, though for some, it was bit of a shock.

Level 3 Training

And I finally get to play with a Clipper 70!

There were only seven crew on my Level 3, so why was that out of the several hundred that are going through the training, I knew all bar one of the others!

Our skipper was Matt Mitchell, skipper of Mission Performance in the previous race. It was good to hear his side of the story and for those that don't know what that is:-

Mission Performance are a business that specializes in team building and team performance enhancing. The irony is that the boat Mission Performance came last.

So why should that be? As with most things in life, this is not a simple answer as it would appear a number factors were at play here. One of the big issues though, was that were running with minimum crew on most legs. This of course puts a lot more strain on all involved.

As for the Level 3 training, it was great to finally sail a Clipper 70. Though only 2 foot longer than the previous Clippers, the design is very different, the chief one being a very wide stern with twin helm. These are down wind sailors and also design to sail at 45 degrees, which make it "fun".

The main objective of Level 3 is to learn how to handle an asymmetric spinnaker. My personal objective was to manage my seasickness. Were these objective met?

The sailing bit is easy. Well, when I say easy, I mean that is is a mechanical processes. Pull the correct ropes at the right time and things will generally be fine. Rigging a spinnaker takes a bit of thought as all the lines have to run outside and on top of everything else. We also learnt the hitchy-hitchy-twisty-twisty-hitchy-hitchy knot. A better name for this knot is defiantly required! As my leading of a kit hoist was fairly successful and I returned home with man-hands again, yes I think the first objective was achieved.

For the seasickness, on this occasion I tried the patches and on the whole, I think they worked. We didn't have that much weather during the course, but I did start to feel queasy when trying to cook dinner in a F8, so bailed out from finishing the job in order to maintain my health. So jury probably needs to be convinced on this one.

The USS Theodore Roosevelt - it is massive! 

I Get A New Jacket!

10th January and we all converge in London for another crew briefing. This time is different to the other briefings though. This time:

• We get the first of our official clothing, a red jacket with logos and RACE CREW on the back
• We have our official publicity photos taken
• We are addressed by Sir Robin for the first time.

We also got to find out more about the details of the race route. So much of it is still to be confirmed as contract negotiations continue around the world. Most importantly we found out that race start is 30th August, from a south coast port.

This time though, Leg 1 is a good old drag race from the UK to Rio with no stops in between.

After the official stuff, it was of course, time for a drink! Roll on 25th April for crew allocation day, but before that L3 training in March - can't wait.