In case you missed them on the Clipper website, here are my contributions to Garmin’s daily crew diary.

1. Mother watch. 10.9.2015

Having just finished my stint as ‘Mother’, I thought I’d write a little report explaining the mysteries of this role.

As in Nelson’s time, the day begins at noon with the creation of lunch. The logistics have largely been taken care of by our excellent victualling team, and the waterproof wipe-clean menu book tells Mothers where that day’s food has been stashed, and how to prepare it. My fellow-Mother (we hunt in pairs) kindly ferreted everything out the night before, while I was having fun on the bowsprit.

Then there is just the matter of two of us working in a galley that measures 8ft by 10ft – including work surfaces and hob – and is in constant motion. Salami pasta today, in quantities sufficient to power a 19-strong crew burning off thousands of calories battling with mother nature. However, since our crew have been zipping along semi-clad under African sunshine, only changing a sail when we break it, there was plenty left over to share with the dolphins/porpoises/whatever they were.

The lack of surface area means that washing up starts as soon as bowls and pans are empty: sea-water for the wash, then rinse with a splash of fresh to avoid that ‘why does my cereal taste salty?’ moment in the morning. Clearly, a logical and regimented procedure is required for optimum efficiency, and for those of us blessed with a slightly obsessive nature it’s a challenge to persuade well-meaning crew members not to mess with the system…

The on-going watch get fed first, then go up on deck to relieve the other watch, who come down for their food; though in these balmy latitudes many choose to eat on deck rather than in the muggy heat of the galley and saloon. As Mothers we’re strangely isolated from the process of sailing, and this will be the longest I’ve gone without helming, so a chat with the off-going watch over meals is a chance to re-connect with the whole racing thing.

Lunch rolls straight into dinner preparation – lamb madras. Again, my uber-efficient co-Mother got the lamb out of the freezer last night, so while I finish washing bowls and pans, she starts chopping onions, and I’m just left to decode the mysteries of a catering pack of madras sauce which, on opening, looks like a green solid-emulsion paint tester.

We get the curry cooked on a gently-rocking hob and then put it aside, make up two loaves of bread and pop them in the oven, and then it’s time to enjoy the first luxury of Mother duty – a ‘bird-bath’, which involves changing into swimming gear and taking it in turns to sit on the lee quarterdeck while the other chucks buckets of seawater over you.

If this sounds unpleasant, bear in mind firstly that the sea is warmer this far south, and less salty than at the seaside; and that secondly it’s rather entertaining. Clean (or as close as we’ll get till Rio), there’s time for a nap.

A couple of hours later we’re up again to re-heat the curry and to ponder the length of time required to cook brown basmati rice on our reluctant hob; then it’s back into the mild mania of serving up, washing up (don’t mess with the system…), and stowing the cleaned forks and bowls. Crew are either hungrier or greedier in the cooling evening, and the marine mammals are cheated of their portion.

Then, with the crew fed and happy and the galley clean, it’s time for the second luxury – sleep. Despite having been in a watch pattern for over a week now, I’m asleep within minutes of hitting my pillow; though dimly aware through the night of watch changes and gybes, as Mother I can enjoy that guilty pleasure of sleeping while others work, and I don’t wake until its time to prepare breakfast. Toasting yesterday’s bread in the oven improves its rather heavy character, and it disappears rapidly, along with cereal, 18 hard-boiled eggs, and three pots of proper coffee.

The last run of washing up (really? you still want to mess with the system?) and when the galley is clean and shiny and we’ve remembered to eat something ourselves, we’re done, and there’s time for me to write this.

How were your last 24 hours?

2. Doldrums. 18.9.2015

The Doldrums. Glassy sea, not a breath of wind; sails hang limply in the sultry, oppressive, heat as the boat spins slowly in her own length at the centre of a congealing pool of jetsam and seaweed wrack.

Or not.

After a short period of drifting in light airs, changing sails and chasing the breeze, we picked up a strong southerly wind which drove us through the night. With no anemometer it’s impossible to gauge accurately the true wind strength and direction, so when helming Garmin I’ve fallen back on the dinghy-sailing skills I learned as a child in Cheshunt and Stevenage; I wouldn’t recommend racing a 35-tonne 70-foot dinghy in the dark to those of a nervous disposition.

But in the daytime, sailing upwind and ‘back to basics’ has provided an opportunity to get less-experienced crew on the helm, vital if we are to have strength in depth for the colder, rougher, Southern and Pacific Oceans.

As I write this, our passage south is being assisted by Mr Perkins, our very capable straight-six diesel engine (not Mr. Perkin without an S, one of our round the worlders), as we’ve started the 60-hour motoring period each yacht is allowed in order to reduce the impact of the Doldrums on our arrival times in Rio; fine in glassy seas, but a bit lumpy now that we’re motoring into 15 knots of wind and a ‘moderate’ swell. The Clipper 70 yachts are optimised for downwind sailing and have a sharp bow and a flat hull, like a Laser dinghy, to allow them to ‘plane’ (surf) down the larger waves.

Unfortunately this means that when going upwind and into the swell, Garmin has a tendency to lift off one wave and slam her flat hull down on the next, which is perturbing when trying to get to sleep, but performance-enhancing when sitting on the loo.

The crew are using this time to rest and recuperate before the last stretch to Rio, and we’ve broken the watches down to maximise time off-duty although, as we share bunks, there is something of an accommodation shortage and people are stretched out in the saloon, sail locker, and on deck. Our skipper, Ash, disappeared into hibernation as soon as we started motoring, and emerges only briefly to forage for crisps. He has been heroically omnipresent since race start – teaching, helming when needed, resolving our kite-mares, poring over the weather GRIB files and routing software, sleeping in snatches of one or two hours – so, short of hitting an iceberg, we don’t plan to wake him.

I’m doing my bit by sparing him further exciting trivia. Bough, cough, thorough, though, thought and through, in case you’re still wondering.

3. Night watch 26.9.2015

“Mike… Mike… MIKE! Time to go on watch”. The gentle voice of a member of port watch (or not so gentle, given that I have form when it comes to falling asleep again and having to be re-woken) at 2245. Actually I’ve been half-awake for a while: the boat has flattened out a little overnight but my bunk was canted up to suit yesterday evening’s heel. Consequently I’ve spent the last half an hour wedged into one of the cave lockers that lie between me and the hull.

I allow myself to count down 30 seconds in my head – a minimum period, I reckon, to fire up sufficient grey cells – and then begin to extract myself, first releasing the lee-cloth (a multifunctional piece of material that serves as curtain, black-out blind, washing line, and – hopefully – saviour in the event of the boat suddenly lurching) and then the pulley system that pivots the bunk up to a horizontal position. My bunk is at the aft end of the port corridor – currently the ‘high’ windward side as we’re heeling about 30 degrees – and looking forwards I can see limbs stretching out from other bunks and tentatively probing for foot- and hand-holds on the opposite wall. I do the same, and by the time I’m out the limbs have resolved themselves into the bodies of my watch-mates. Standing around in our pants in the dim, red, night-vision-friendly lighting we look like the inhabitants of one of the less glamorous circles of hell. Or a desperately low-budget brothel.

By now everyone has learned to stash their night gear somewhere handy, so in a few minutes we are all dressed and staggering forward to the companionway to collect life-jackets, where we are met by the Midnight Biscuit Fairy, in the form of Ash – our Skipper – who has recently taken to dispensing encouragement and ginger-nuts at the changing of the night watch.

Encouraged, biscuited and jacketed, we tumble up on deck and receive a handover from port watch. Helmsmen exchange information on course, wind, sea-state, and how the boat is generally behaving; in the pit, it’s details about which lines are on which winches – not immediately obvious in the dark – and for watch leaders it’s about how many Bourbons are left in the packet stashed behind the helming position.

Night sailing under clear skies can be poetically beautiful, with the moon picking out the white horses and glittering off the flatter water between; under dark cloudy skies it’s decidedly prosaic, and occasionally Anglo-Saxon, as unseen waves punch the boat from either side and the helmsman struggles to keep his or her feet, let alone steer the boat, the visible world shrunk to the 65 feet from illuminated spinnaker to glowing binnacle.

Tonight, however, is one of the Masefield variety and is a good chance to give crew members more experience helming in the dark. Consequently I spend most of the watch standing on the windward rail, an arm hooked round the running backstay, while our most experienced helmsman backs up those who are learning. I’ve got one eye on the kite, one on the crew, and one on the horizon where I’m sure I just saw the glimmer of a ship’s light. It’s reassuring to know that there is life beyond our 70-foot Tupperware pot; but we are sailing well and most cargo ships cruise at around 13 knots, so there could be as little as 15 minutes between friendly twinkle and forty-thousand tonne nightmare.

Circumnavigators over the years have varied in their approach to the problem of traffic: some have set alarms to wake them every twenty minutes; others have lashed the tiller, had a stiff whiskey, and curled up for a good six hours’ sleep.

You’ll be pleased to know that the Clipper Race advocates the more pro-active end of the spectrum, and consequently our navigator ducks below to check the AIS (Automatic Identification System) data, which commercial ships broadcast via their VHF antennae. This information identifies the ship and contains details about its speed, course, size, and destination, all of which is fed to our navigation software, which then calculates our closing speed and the all-important ‘closest point of approach’ (CPA).

A CPA of more than one nautical mile is acceptable; less than this and we will watch for a few minutes and, if there is no change, wake Ash for a Skipper-to-Skipper chat. Garmin broadcasts her own AIS data and, in fairness, most commercial ships alter course when they realise we are a sailing vessel. Tonight’s ship will cross three miles ahead of us, so we can safely ignore her.

Behind me, the helming continues: sailing with a spinnaker is all about apparent wind – the breeze we (and the sails) feel on deck is a combination of the prevailing wind and our own speed. As Garmin accelerates, the component from her own motion becomes more significant, and the breeze appears to come from further forward. Unless the spinnaker is trimmed in, or the helmsman bears away a little to compensate, the sail will collapse and begin to flap noisily (and destructively).

On flat water with perfectly constant wind it’s a simple equation; add waves, variations in wind angle and strength, and the occasional tropical squall, and it’s more akin to off-road driving. Learning how to use the feedback from Garmin’s rudder and deck to your hands and feet is as important as checking the compass reading.
The last hour of this watch tends to drag – at some point the munchies set in, and someone nips below to rustle up biscuits, crisps, chocolate, or hot drinks. At 0245 sharp we wake up port watch. Once they’re on deck and we’ve handed over, we go below, pull off life-jackets, reprise our representation of Dante’s bordello, and clamber back into the just-vacated bunks for another three hours of sleep, lulled by the sounds of water rushing past the hull and port watch discussing how long it would take to walk to the moon, if you included lunch-breaks.
4. Time and Motion 17.10.2016

Ninety-five percent boredom, five percent panic, is how an anaesthetist colleague once summarised his working day to me. The stats are rather better on board Garmin; but there are certainly times where you find yourself hanging on to the same bit of string for hours. These periods don’t make it into the promo videos, and don’t really feature in our training as then we are busy learning how to tack, gybe or change sails.

But out on the ocean whole watches can pass where the only real action is on the helm: the helmsman sweating and fighting with the wheel while the rest of the crew sit in ‘standby’ mode in the pit, dozing or chatting or – if the weather is foul – just trying to stay warm and dry.

But when the action comes, it comes now: a tangled trip-line accidentally releases the spinnaker tack – the foremost, lower, corner of the sail – turning our most powerful sail into a huge flapping flag. We have just minutes to wrestle down thousands of square feet of canvas before the sail tangles and tears itself apart. With one person managing the halyard, three ‘hunter-gatherers’ rush to the coach-roof to pull the sail down and wrap their arms around it to prevent it re-filling. Failure to get this bear- hugging correct can result in a Mary Poppins moment for those people still holding on to the sail.

With two more crew below to receive the sail, it gets stuffed down the companionway ladder and into the boat where it spreads out – a soggy canvas tide filling the floor, lapping up against bunks and saloon benches – and is then rolled up and re-packed; meanwhile, the deck crew are re-running lines and hoisting the Yankee and staysail to maintain our speed. As soon as it’s ready the spinnaker must be lifted back on deck, re-launched, and those temporary headsails have to be dropped and secured. Only then we can relax.

Because walks of more than 70ft tend to end in a splash it’s very hard to maintain cardiovascular fitness at sea, so after such a burst of activity we’re all gasping and sweating, regretting the warm midlayers we were grateful for earlier in the watch. It’s not just fighting the sails and working the winches that takes its toll: it’s also the physical effort of doing all this on a living, writhing deck. For those on the coach-roof this means keeping their footing on a deck that’s angled at thirty or forty degrees while hauling that sail in. For those on the bow, it means bracing against (or jumping clear of) waves that surge over the pulpit, or occasionally enjoying a freefall experience when the bow drops faster than gravity and you must use the levitation time to arrange your limbs for the landing.

We are all getting better at this, and better too at simply moving around the boat. We are now mid-Atlantic again, about 300 miles from our halfway mark of Tristan da Cunha (which the Brits presumably pinched from the Portuguese at some point, and then – bizarrely – renamed the capital city ‘Edinburgh’) and sailing downwind, which means a regular rolling swell from the port stern quarter. If you can time your movements around the boat to this motion, you can stroll across the boat with feline nonchalance, munching an apple as you go; get it wrong and the deck either lurches up or falls away, and like a Saturday night drunkard you stagger from handhold to handhold, stumbling and cursing and providing entertainment for your crewmates.

We’re forecast another big weather front later today – one of these huge south Atlantic lows that spin round the world unchallenged by land – and in anticipation of stronger winds we are preparing for a change down from spinnaker to ‘white sails’ (the normal Yankee and staysail headsails). So it’ll be back to living on the edge for a while and, if symptoms of malaise return, back to hard tack at mealtimes: a combination of seasickness for some and a stomach bug for others – thankfully only four crew-members – has depleted our numbers for the last week, meaning that the culinary creativity of Leg 1 has been replaced by easy meals from our storm packs for much of that time. But with most people now on the mend and no new tummy problems for 24 hours, we should still manage a celebratory halfway cake…

5. Clothes 10.11.2015

‘What’s it like on deck?’ is the first question crew ask on being woken to start their watch. Actually it’s often the second question; the first is shorter and unprintable.

It’s important to know the conditions, since getting your clothing right determines your comfort for the next four or six hours. The other factor is the job you’ll be doing on deck – dress up warm for helming and you’ll be sweating buckets if you have to jump on the coffee grinder; dress too lightly and you’ll be soaked if you’re needed to help with a sail change on the foredeck.

Since I first thought about this blog we’ve hit dry-suit territory and the process has become simplified: once you’ve decided to seal yourself snug inside the bright yellow Henri Lloyd suit, complete with rubber gaskets at neck and wrists and integral Gore-Tex socks, all you have to think about is how many layers to wear underneath, and which hat to choose.

But previous legs were not so straightforward: too hot for the dry suit, too cold for a fleece, too wet for a windbreaker. What to wear?

For me there are certain non-negotiables: Helly Hansen boxers and t-shirt are constant (and occasionally renewed) attire, and if it’s chilly then a pair of leggings too. A pair of tough sailing shorts – now patched with sailcloth and some nifty stitching with slightly heavier thread than I’m used to in my day job – stop the cold from seeping through from the deck when I sit down. Then it’s Sealskinz socks, ‘foulie’ (foul-weather gear) salopettes, and my amazing Le Chameau sailing boots which are just as good at keeping the sweat in as keeping the water out, but are worth it.

The top half is trickier: in warmer weather, I might risk a t-shirt or our lightweight red Henri Lloyd jackets; so for cold or potentially soggy days it’s a Gore-Tex thermal mid-layer jacket and that red one over the top.

Then lifejacket (currently damp and heavy), with tools and knives and safety strop dangling off it like a travelling tinker’s coat, a cap for the sun or a hat for the cold, and up on deck.

But today is definitely a dry suit day. Fifteen hundred miles into the Southern Ocean and we’re the most southerly boat in the fleet, almost up to the ice limit imposed by the Race Office (a reassuring 600 miles north of the most recent ‘berg sightings), and sitting under a frontal system that’s been raining on us for a day and – as we’re travelling only slightly slower than the system itself – is likely to do so for a while yet. The sea is 2 degrees above freezing, the air only slightly more. It’s bracing.

So I’m vacuum-packed into my yellow ‘duck-suit’, as they’ve become called on Garmin. I’m indistinguishable from several other crew members in the same kit. Except that, since true individuality is marked by the small differences, I’m sporting a particularly natty buff – blue with white snowflakes on – that my mum gave me in London. After all, life is a catwalk…

6. Free time 21.11.2016

By now you’ve read about the challenges of sailing, steering, sleeping, changing sails, eating, dressing, cooking, cleaning and all the other usual activities of life on board; but we’re in a 1-in-2 watch system on Garmin, so what do we do with all our free time? Twelve hours a day, right…?

It’s 0700 and after four hours on deck you stumble down the companionway to the galley and a well-earned breakfast. There will be cereal (if you can face UHT milk – I can’t), fresh bread, fruit, and maybe porridge or bacon rolls or even pancakes. Mindful of the diuretic consequences you decline the Mothers’ tempting offer of fresh coffee – it’s the long sleep next and the last thing you want is to have to get up to pee…

By 0720 most have finished eating, and after a parade of tooth brushing it’s time to deploy your sleeping bag in your recently-vacated bunk, and to decide how to spend the next few hours. Kindles and iPads abound on Garmin – lightweight, low bulk and low power consumption make them perfect for sailing, and most of us have one or both loaded with books, movies, TV or radio programmes and audiobooks. For the diligent there’s the task of keeping journals up to date, for the conscientious the option of washing or shaving, and simply going to the loo can take ten minutes in bad weather; you’ll be woken at 1200 for lunch and then have a 6-hour shift on deck, so you must choose wisely how to spend the next 270 minutes.

For me, on this leg at least, sleep wins every time. On Leg 1 the cruisey conditions meant less fatigue and more time with the Kindle and audiobooks; but Leg 3 has been more grueling and we’re all a bit run down (as evidenced by the tiresome upper respiratory tract infection currently doing the rounds) so I’m straight to bed.

Sleep is sometimes fitful as the life of the boat goes on: the winch that’s bolted to the deck six inches above your head is in constant use, the cleaning team need to pull up the floorboards to empty the bilges, if the boat tacks you’ll be rolled across your bunk, and port watch are singing an adaptation of the hokey-cokey (with actions) in order to keep warm while on deck – but it’s amazing what you can learn to tune out.

Four and a half hours later you’re tenderly woken for lunch, initially a sullen affair as still-sleepy brains catch up with bodies; but after a few forkfuls people are their normal chatty selves. Then pack away your sleeping bag and make sure that any extra kit you might need during the watch will be easily accessible without disturbing your snoring bunk-buddy, on with the gear, and straight up on deck to avoid the eighth deadly sin – being late on watch.

This is the long one, with six hours on deck though – if your watch leader is more clement than the weather – you’ll be rotated off deck for a break.

At 1900 the other watch tumble up, rested and fed, and you repeat the morning’s downward stumble into the warm, but to a welcome dinner rather than breakfast. You’ll be woken in just three and a half hours to get back on watch for 2300, so every minute counts and dinner is not protracted – most crew are tucked up again by 1930.

The 2230 wake-up call comes around all too soon, and in a monosyllabic huddle the watch shuffles up on deck for the Graveyard Shift from 2300 until 0300. There’s little good to be said for this particular shift, other than it’s just the one, while the other watch have to do two (1900-2300, the Sunset Watch; and 0300-0700, the Dawn Patrol). It’s not long till you’re thinking happily of your sleeping bag again – going off watch at 0300 you should manage another two and a half hours’ sleep before being woken at 0600 for brekkie.

On average, twelve hours off-watch time yields only eight hours of down – time in which to sleep, read, write, watch, shave or wash. So please don’t be too surprised if, when you meet them in port, your nearest and dearest are tired, ill-informed, stubbly and smelly…

7. Stopover 9.12.2015

For all of us on Garmin – leggers, round the world crew and even Skipper Ash – the stopover is a huge carrot on the end of a very long stick. Actually, it’s more like a six-pack of beer on a stick. And a burger. And a dry, stationary bed. And a horizontal loo, etc…

Stopover fever begins about four days out, when the distance to finish drops below 1000 nautical miles and every time you go on watch there’s another decent chunk knocked off. People emerge from nooks and crannies, conversation lifts, and suddenly everyone wants to know our position and speed, and sail trim becomes a little more diligent, helming a little more focussed.

The last day or two can be very frustrating, with fickle inshore winds leaving us bobbing about or choppy inshore seas knocking us back. We frantically calculate and re-calculate our probable arrival time: will customs be open or will we be confined to the boat? Who has got their hotel booking spot-on, and who will have to sleep on the boat for another night or two? And how quickly will the Clipper Race support team bring us our crate of interestingly local beer..?

Once there’s less than a day to go, the canny crew members start fishing out their Garmin t-shirt and fleece in case we’re required to wear them as we cross the finish line; Garmin caps have, for some of us literally, gone by the board (mine is somewhere near Rio) and are no longer part of the dress code. Shore kit – real shoes and jeans! – is located and examined for social suitability, and dirty sailing gear is bagged up for laundry.

Arrival is usually, more than anything, a huge relief: to see land, houses, cars, and people who you can’t instantly recognise simply from the dirt on their dry suit is almost a shock. At night it can sometimes feel like an anti-climax; but in the day, and if the sun is shining, you feel like a conquering hero regardless of race position. There’s a bit of fuss dropping sails and making sure our Garmin media-materials are acceptable, and then we can come alongside, moor, and step off the boat…

The first hotel shower is bliss – standing in the stream until you can no longer taste salt in the water that rolls down your face – but the first night in a hotel bed is often disturbed by the ingrained watch-pattern that wakes you after four hours. And after a few weeks in Garmin’s bunks I tend to sleep ramrod-straight on the edge of the bed for at least the first night or two, until my sleeping brain realises there’s room to starfish.

Unfortunately once we’re in port the work isn’t over: deep-cleaning Garmin from keel-bolts to deck-fittings takes at least four hours (and loud music, a strong stomach, and beer) and then there’s maintenance and repair of all those little snags (broken lines, chafed halyards, jamming winches, leaking bilges, smashed oven doors…) that have cropped up during the race and been noted in bosun Mal Anderson’s little red book. This can take a couple of days and must be fitted in around the Clipper Race schedule. Much talked-about tourist trips can evaporate into corporate hospitality sailing for the sponsors, refresher sailing for the new leggers, and refuelling trips.

It’s been worth the extra effort thus far to have more time in each port: those boats further back in the fleet may only get 48 hours before the next race starts.

Before you know it, it’s ‘activation time’ and we start revving up for the next race with briefings left, right and centre, and once again the process of folding and stowing twenty lives into one 70-foot yacht.

However despite all these competing pressures, we always seem to make it to the pub once or twice and, far more importantly, spend time with friends or family who’ve made the trip out to meet us. On which note a huge hello to James, my little nephew, who turned one as Garmin rounded the Canary Islands and who, now that he’s mastered walking and talking, is bringing his parents and grandma out to Sydney – I can’t wait to see you all.

8. Birthday 20.1.2016

If there’s one thing you can do on board a Clipper 70, it’s reflect; and as today is my birthday (nearly a notable one, but not quite) I have been feeling a little retrospective about life, the universe, the Clipper Race, and what I’ve learned so far.

I’ve learned that the Clipper Race is tough, and that the heroic video clips of crew getting washed around the deck or fighting to hang on the helm only tell half the story: once you’re off watch the heroism continues in a thousand tiny ways below deck, whether in battling to get into your bunk (and stay there), tidying up a mess you didn’t make, or fetching an orange for a fructophilic crew-mate who you know just can’t face the struggle to get across the saloon. These trivial acts of kindness are magnified by the conditions, and bind us together as a crew every bit as much as the on-deck antics. And in a race where endurance counts for as much as performance, this team spirit has kept me going.

None of which means I haven’t had days where I’ve wanted to get off (these always occur, fortunately when that’s not an appealing option), and days I’ve had to get through one watch at a time; but I’d be disappointed with myself to get to the other side of the notable birthday and look back at what I’d failed to achieve. So, despite the gloomy, grumpy moments (and those still to come) I know that the shared gritted-teeth smiles of my crew-mates will help get me through until we bear away, the boat flattens out, the sun appears, and life is good again.

I’ve learned a huge amount about sailing – sail selection, reefing, peeling, trimming, navigation, maintenance, helming, wave-riding: in short, I could sail already; but now I know how to race. I’m not sure I’ll ever sign up for something as crazy as Clipper Race again; but even if I spend the rest of my sailing career simply pottering round the south coast (or perhaps the Caribbean…) the skills that Ash – and Ross – have taught me will always be there.

I’ve learned about people, and more specifically about being a good leader.

As a doctor I’m used to leading from the front – ‘see one, do one, teach one’ being the old medical mantra – but as a watch-leader I’ve had to learn how to lead from the back, standing by the helm as I ask people to go forward onto the wet, windy and unpleasant foredeck to check the trim or change a sail. I still find that uncomfortable and guilt-inducing; however important it is that I keep a watch on the big picture while these evolutions are going on. And I’ve learned the value of identifying the best person for a particular role at a particular time, and not assuming I’m it.

Finally, I’ve learned about me. I’ve pushed the limits of my endurance, strength and bravery. I’ve found how (disappointingly soon!) my physical environment affects my mood; but also how I can manage myself and keep going. And I’ve realised how little I need the distractions of 21st century life.

Most of all, I’ve discovered what amazing family and friends I have. Not that I was unaware of it, after the last few years; but the emails, text messages and video messages, faithfully sent and often unreplied-to, have been a wonderful source of encouragement and support. And, of course, there’s absolutely no point sailing round the world if you don’t have a bunch of people you can bore with reminiscences for the next fifty years…

So here’s to you all, thank you, and I look forward to celebrating next year’s Notable Birthday with you in person.

9. Valentine’s 14.2.2016

There’s been a marked lack of enthusiasm on board Garmin for writing the Valentine’s Day blog, so I thought I’d take one for the team because – far more important than remembering the patron saint of florists and restaurateurs – the 14 Feb is exactly halfway through the 2015-16 Clipper Race. With five and a half months down, and the same to go again, we have already sailed more than 180 degrees of longitude and continue to clock up the miles on our magical mystery tour.

I’ve never been good at keeping journals; but I do keep a list of things worth remembering so that, when I’m a cantankerous old goat dozing by the fire with an equally disobliging cat and a glass of Lagavulin (a state I aspire to attain fairly soon), I’ll have memories to ponder.

So I remember Leg 1: the razzmatazz of leaving London, and the rather more prosaic race start the next morning in drizzle off Southend pier; then flying along on the same tack all the way from Ramsgate to the Canaries and learning to sail to a spinnaker at night; my first experience of ocean sailing and the logistics of living with 17 other people in a 70ft tub, and my first maritime equator crossing.

Leg 2 will stick in my mind for two things: firstly, the brutal weather and the equally vile enterovirus that meant we only had three days with a full crew. Secondly, the astonishing katabatic winds off Table mountain as we arrived in Cape Town at night. One moment we were almost becalmed, sails gently flapping as we struggled to make progress to the finish line; the next, we were laid over by screaming 60 knot gusts, Garmin powering up almost instantly and Skipper Ash fighting the helm to keep us on course as we tumbled around the deck trying to ease sheets and bring her under control.

Cape Town itself was a fantastic stopover, for all sorts of reasons. And it started on a high thanks to the unflappable night manager of the Table Bay hotel who didn’t bat an eyelid when, at 4am, a dozen weary smelly Garmin crew trooped into his lounge and flopped down on expensive sofas and chairs: he assessed us with a glance, then sent a waiter over with club sandwiches and red wine. Stay cool Barney.

Leg 3 was marked by wind, whales and waves. The Southern Ocean held back a little for us: but we still got to experience the desolate expanse of grey rolling empty sea, marked occasionally by breaking waves which – for a few minutes – leave the water a striking Bombay Sapphire blue. And, although we saw no other shipping, the ocean itself was full of life: seals and dolphins watched us leave Cape Town; albatrosses and brown-backed gulls kept us company through the howling wind, their effortless, subtle, gliding something of a contrast with our upwind slamming and crashing; and whales – the descendants of those whose flesh and oil founded the town of Albany – heralded our arrival in Australia with fin-slapping and sounding. We thought the majority were humpbacks (recovering from the slaughter of 97% of their population during the operation of the Albany whaling station), but just once the water was broken by a long, smooth, back that seemed to go on for minutes, and we hoped and smiled and told each other we had seen a blue whale.

I remember the return to the cold and damp southern ocean in Leg 4, and finally raising the bleak basalt flanks of Tasmania. Keeping Garmin steady as we ran before 75 knots of wind around that island took two of us on the helm – Ross on one wheel and me on the other – and at times we were sailing so fast that we caught up and smashed through the waves ahead.

Just a couple of weeks later we were back there, after the chaos of the Sydney-Hobart race start, and the image that will stick in my mind forever: 3 a.m. and the sails suddenly dropping limp as a huge, horned, black cloud boiled up in the night sky, and then slammed into the fleet, creating a spectacle more akin to the Pamplona bull run than a yacht race. With thirty of ninety yachts forced to retire, the Clipper Race boats shouldered their way through the weather to finish in a creditable middling position, and to enjoy the genuine kindness and respect of the Hobart crowds.

And now the end of Race 7 is in sight (again) and I’ll remember this one for the place names: the Solomon sea, the Bismarck sea, New Ireland, Bougainville; for the bizarre lack of sea-life, and for the challenging helming conditions. Keeping Garminhonest as she surfed at 25 knots down 25-foot rollers, breaking waves sweeping over us from astern and leaving me knee-deep in foam, a cross-swell intermittently swiping her bow sideways, all in the pitch-dark with no stars, no horizon, and nothing to see other than the instruments, pushed my skill to the limit. Actually slightly beyond it, since it all ended rather abruptly with a broken sail…

The next 24 weeks will undoubtedly add to my list of memories – we still have to cross the Taiwan straits, the North Pacific, the Panama canal and the Caribbean sea, the North Atlantic and the north coast of Scotland (Cape Wrath, we meet again; but this time I won’t have been out drinking with the Kinlochbervie coastguards) – but there’s a definite feeling that, once we leave Qingdao, we’re on our way home.

Actually, compared to all that, a bunch of flowers and a nice meal out doesn’t sound so bad…

3.6.16

It’s good to be back.

As many of you will know, I had to fly home from Seattle for a hernia operation and so missed the race down to Panama. It was bitterly disappointing to have to stand on the harbour wall and watch my boat and crew leave without me; but the op needed doing and I was only too aware that, given how brutal the north Pacific had been, I had got off relatively lightly.

So while Garmin bounced around on lumpy seas outside Puget Sound, I consoled myself with some retail therapy in Seattle and then, for the second time this race (the first being a crazy four-day trip from Sydney to London for a job interview at Christmas) I headed for Heathrow.

I’m very grateful to Prof Douglas McWhinnie for patching me up so promptly. Literally, in fact, since the operation involves using a goretex patch to close the troublesome gap, which led some of my more sympathetic crewmates to point out that, if I had chosen a more useful surgical speciality than ophthalmology, I’d have been able to sort myself out with a penknife and a spare bit of drysuit.

Thanks too to my sister and her husband for having me to stay with them while I recuperated, and to my mum for ferrying me around and for the constant supply of chocolate, doughnuts, fruit pies, and other comestibles essential for the recovering patient (and yes, I’m being careful and not overdoing it!).

For three weeks I had the odd experience of being on the wrong side of the Race Viewer, watching the little black triangle work its way down the US west coast, checking first thing in the morning, last thing at night and every hour in between, looking at the weather, and generally doing the things that all you faithful supporters have been doing for nine months. I also had the pleasure of getting to grips with Facebook to keep the Garminions group up-to-date – you’re an amazing bunch!

I was hugely relieved to be able to make it back to Panama in time to join Garmin for the canal transit, which was strangely both boring and a highlight at the same time. The logistics of shuffling through the various locks, waiting for pilots to come and go, and waiting for the tanker we’d been buddied with to catch us up again were a little tedious; but you still can’t help but be impressed by the engineering – and sobered by the loss of life – that went into making the world’s greatest shortcut.

And now it’s back to the familiar routine of Garmin at sea: meals, watches, sail changes come and go; it’s stinkingly hot as we approach Guantanamo Bay, and we’re in first place. Joining halfway through this leg, there are a few faces I haven’t sailed with before, and it’s pleasing to see how those I do know have developed in terms of helming and seamanship. I’m also aware how much fresher I feel having had a few weeks’ break – it’s been said before, but this is a long race and there’s no doubt that by Qingdao the round-the-worlders were starting to feel the cumulative fatigue of multiple ocean races.

Otherwise, apart from the odd rope having been replaced, not much has changed. Hopefully the wind will pick up once we’re clear of the ‘Windward Passage’ between Haiti and Cuba, and it’ll be a speedy run to New York.

Finally, I promised my fellow watch-leader Mike T that I’d mention his father in my blog, since it’s his birthday today, so happy birthday!

29.6.16

So this is it. The antepenultimate race of this amazing experience. Third time across the Atlantic, watching the longitude ticking down to Greenwich, and home.

There’s a definite sense, among the worlders at least, of winding down to the race finish. Not that this means we are less diligent or active in keeping ‘Gertie’ (I know…) moving: quite the reverse, in fact. 

We’re keen to push hard and make our way past Sneaky Pete and the GREAT Britain crew to third place on the podium, and the crew are giving their all to make it happen, keeping the sails going up, down, in and out with a will.

But I think we’re all ready for this adventure to be finished – or rather, to be completed – and to continue with life outside the Clipper Race bubble.

Occasionally you’ll catch someone quietly gazing out to sea, leaning on a rail or a backstay, trying to imprint the image of the open ocean on their mind, to be able to recall it at an office desk in a year’s time. 

The sight of the – currently calm – sea beneath a perfect hemisphere of sky, and the feeling of remoteness that accompanies it, is one of the memories I will treasure.

I can’t say I’ll miss the moments when that sky fills with rain, hail, and filthy black clouds, and the world turns into a giant washing machine; I won’t miss fighting sails on the foredeck or fighting to keep my balance on the helm, hands cramped with cold and eyes full of spray; I won’t miss staggering down the companionway at watch’s end, water streaming off my foulies, only to find that my bunk is wet and at an absurd angle.

But I will miss the elation of a tough job well done, when my whole watch has worked well together to achieve a tricky sail change or recover from a broken line; I’ll miss the purity of steering by a single star on a clear night; I will miss the rush of surfing a forty-tonne boat down five-metre waves; and I’ll miss the joy of making landfall after a long voyage, seeing a new country as it was first seen.

We’re reminded every day how harsh the marine environment is, wearing through ropes, sails and steel; but it also erodes the veneer and polish we each put on our own characters. Being cold and wet and tired rapidly strips you down to your true personality, which can of course result in conflict; but also allows friendships to be built on a far more solid foundation than is sometimes the case in the real world.

And so most of all I’ll miss those friendships, forged in trying conditions and cemented in the pub at the next stopover, and embodied in the image I imprinted on my mind as I helmed through sunset last night: both watches on deck, enjoying a sun-downer and quietly chatting in groups of twos, threes and fours – nurses, engineers, accountants, policemen, teachers; ages spread across four decades; but all one crew – as the sun dipped below the horizon, and we glimpsed the green flash of its light refracted through the surface of our last ocean.

Final post. 22.7.16

If you can keep your socks when all about are losing theirs then lend them to a friend who’s lost their own. 

If you can pull on clothing in a storm,

Then clamber up on deck to sheeting rain And meet the night with humour all the same.

If you can learn the names of all the sails and sheets and halyards, blocks and lines.

If you can face the foredeck with a smile in forty knots of wind, and breaking waves, 

And help your mate, who’s not so sure, to feel more brave.

If you can sit in sun or freezing spray

For boring hours at a time.

If you can jump to action when the kite

Drops in the sea or splits in two,

And get the damned thing in and fixed and wooled.

If you can steer a course in blackest night Without a star or light and through the storm.

If you can surf the waves with aching arms, Keep boat on course, and fast, and safe, Rest for an hour and do it all again.

If you feel your spirit lift at sight of land After weeks of only sea and sky.

If you return to home somehow changed;

But grateful for those things that are the same. 

If you can hear day-sailors loudly boast, And hold your tongue with quiet grace, Then the seas are yours and – what’s more – you’ll have done a Clipper Ocean Race.