Race 10 of Clipper Race 11-12 was fantastic. Not only Visit Finland finished third, but also the climate and wildlife were spectacular during the race from Oakland, California to Panama.
Finally we spent most of the race under a spinnaker. Downwind sailing is so much more comfortable than beating into wind. The boat just gently swings from side to another, and there you are, sleeping in your bunk like a baby in a cot, instead of hanging onto the leecloth all teeth and nails!
Spinnaker work is so much fun, even though still we haven’t done a one single spinnaker peel during the race. This is because we hoist spinnakers using two halyards (they sometimes snap because of chafe), therefore we have no spare spinnaker halyards available for peels. Sailingwise this previous race was easy, the only real challenge was to keep the boat sailing through calm spells.
I love working at the bow when sailing downwind. As a bowman you’ll get to climb to the spinnaker pole for kite changes and drops, and what would be a better place to enjoy the sunshine, gentle breeze and glittering sea? This is great contrast to upwind sailing, where you’ll get constant bashing at the bow and foredeck. You won’t get wet either!
The sunshine and warmth were fantastic after the North Pacific madness, I thoroughly enjoyed every sweaty moment of this last race. My suncream consumption was 100% higher than across the Pacific! Wildlife was fantastic – huge pods of dolphins and turtles kept passing the boat from very close distance. Unfortunately I didn’t see any whales, but some of my crew saw a lot of them, so it seems to have been just a case of poor luck this time. Some shark and Manta Ray sightings were also reported, not forgetting the sunfish (Bola bola) that was bobbing on waves in the very beginning of the race.
I also had great time taking photos from the race 10, below is a slideshow of my favourites. They can be also seen in my Flickr collection Clipper Race favourites.
The transit through Panama Canal was memorable. Two sets of three locks separate the Pacific Ocean from the Atlantic. In the middle there is a sweet water lake, where we rafted up with Geraldton Western Australia and the Gold Coast for half a day waiting for our turn to exit the Canal. The Panama Canal is the only feasible route connecting these two oceans apart from Cape Horn, so I felt that we were taking a shortcut of historical significance.
CV11 Visit Finland left China on 4th March and arrived 30 days later to California. Those four weeks in North Pacific were incredible. They were demoralizingly wet and tedious days of sailing from storm to gale to storm. Thank goodness it is over. Leg 6 of Clipper Race 11-12 required above all mental endurance.
It may be difficult to imagine the level of dampness onboard unless one has spent weeks wearing wet socks and boots, every shift pulling them on and heading up on deck to spend watch after watch in cold air. Salty sea water spray was flying across the deck on every bounce, waves crashed regularly to cockpit wetting everyone. The helm was punished by enraged wind, which whipped face, eyes and any exposed body parts with rain drops and salty spray, until only red slits remained of what used to be bright and healthy eyes.
Wet weather gear was all of the time thoroughly wet. Mid-layers became the most cherished barrier between all penetrating water and dry thermal layers. Waterproof socks were treasured, until they also gave way to dampness. The generator compartment was crammed with dripping wet gloves, hats, socks and boots. Most of the time we had to transfer sails through companionway and therefore buckets of water entered saloon area in folds of sails and sail bags. Water poured in from coffee grinder winch fittings in saloon, and the unlucky, unsuspecting victim got every now and then extra salting in their dinner or worse, in their electronics. We practically lived in a pool of water, bailing it out from the bilges every day.
Comforts
I cannot praise enough my dry suit. The Henri Lloyd dry suit, HL waterproof mid-layers, Sealskinz knee-high socks, Ocean Sleepwear waterproof sleeping bag and five big chocolate slabs were the most important items in this journey, which no doubt kept me relatively sane across the North Pacific ocean. Sanity is only relative however, for any sensible person would not cross N Pacific during winter season, I was told.
We saw hardly any sunshine during the 30-day crossing. This was the single most demoralizing aspect of the trip. Had there been one sunny day every week, it all would have been reasonably enjoyable. But the days merged into one endlessly long, grey and wet slog; a ground hog day one after another.
Sugar and honey consumption increased steadily towards the end of the leg, as our low-energy diet left me flagging miserably even shortly after meals. I have always preferred savory snacks to sweets, but as BLT sandwiches and cheese were not part of our stocks, I found my way to honey and hazelnut spread tubs. The last week of the Pacific crossing I had degraded to a level where table spoonfuls of spread were enjoyed straight from the tub. (Forget crackers or bread – give me fat!)
It was worth the trouble
Despite all the miseries of smash-crash-shake beating, low-energy diet and wetness, in the end the experience was positive. Helming was fantastic. We spent wonderful weeks of beam reaching and surfing in massive ocean swell, and I surfed my personal record of 24.4 knots down a wave. I have seen the giant waves now, and I am well impressed. I steered our way through 67 knots of true wind in moonless night.
The glory of the sunshine was unbelievable after weeks of sun deprivation. The relief of the last day was unimaginable – sunshine from the very morning, and promise of the approaching land as we were drawing near the Californian coast.
Monster surf
Massive ocean swell in San Francisco coast gave us a memory that cannot be easily forgotten. We surfed towards Golden Gate with breathtaking 27 knots of boat speed (50 km/h). This is nothing for Volvo Ocean Race yachts, but for us amateur racers and Clipper 68′s it is very respectable speed.
It was crazy.
Run to the hills
The Californian stopover was truly crowned by a camping expedition to Yosemite National Park. Serenity of empty and quiet wilderness was most welcome experience after a month in packed boat. Cooking in fire, washing up in icy river, waking up to howling of wolves, taking a sip from the water bottle frozen overnight, being paranoid about bears emerging from hibernation – all pure bliss. I wish we had had couple of more weeks in the wild for thorough recovery from strains of sea.
Qingdao has been delightful, beautiful, crazy, surprising, vast and (did I mention?) crazy stopover in The Clipper Round the World Yacht Race 11-12 series.
It started on our arrival. We approached the harbour wall at 8:55 in the morning, and there didn’t seem to be anyone welcoming us, unlike we had been told during the race briefing in Singapore. We motored gently past the harbour wall, then the fireworks went off. The drummers started drumming. Hundreds of drummers wearing bright red uniforms with bright yellow details. We berthed to a little pontoon, each crew member was greeted by a child who gave a bunch of flowers and led us to the stage surrounded by brighly coloured lion dancers. The feast of dress colours was absolutely gorgeous: bright reds, yellows, fuchsia, green, turquoise – you name the colour, it would have been bright and radiant. What a lovely sight for a designer deprived of range of colours for 4 weeks. We were given fluffy white hats and red scarves, which was most welcome as the weather was (and still is) nippy in Qingdao.
We were treated like rock stars, skipper Oli even got a golden yellow cape, fit for a hero returning from a war.
Visit Finland crew and skipper in Qingdao. Photo by Clipper Ventures / OnEdition
Maintenance spree
The stopover started with boat deep clean, where I had the pleasure of scrubbing the floorboards with Carter – it was nice to work outdoors in sunshine. Medium weight spinnaker repair needed to kick off as soon as possible, and the few following days I was going to spend in the basement of Olympic Sailing Museum, in a sail repair space which was probably the best we have seen by this far. Over the course of following days the medium weight spinnaker was stitched back together, sent to sail loft for tape repair and returned few days afterwards.
The watermaker pump got removed and plonked on maintenance crate, where Jay received it with suspicious enquiry “What is that thing you’re holding?” A new pump needed to be flown all the way from UK, so we just had to wait and see it coming back to our boat. Yesterday, a week later the pump was finally installed, but it does not look quite the same. Better that we’ll test it properly before getting too far from Japan during the forthcoming race 9 from Qingdao to San Francisco.
Lisa takes a break from her main sail repair and stays for a while for a natter.
Laoshan, my love
The highlight of the stopover was definitely a day trek to Mount Lao, locally known as Laoshan. Brett, local crew of Qingdao yacht took few of us for a day trek, which I was aching to do after spending few sunny days trapped indoors. The trek day was sunny and crisp, and we didn’t start too early – at 0800 in the morning.
We took a path starting from a little village by a dam, crossed dry rivers hopping from stone to another and following it higher and higher. The path merged to an asphalt road leading to a military base at the top. The landscape on the way was beautiful, but my only regret was to see so much plastic rubbish out there in the nature. It is such a shame to spoil nature by being plain lazy for not caring to carry plastic waste back home.
I was surprised how strenuous the walk was, although not feeling 100% healthy I was huffing and puffing all the way to the top. My legs have lost a lot of strength since New Zealand, and my oxygen intake hasn’t exactly improved either. Although the following days until the race 9 start I spent nursing a cold that just does not seem to go away.
The mountain was just gorgeous. Brett was perfect guide to the Laoshan. He goes there every week, often up to 3 times a week. He knows every stone of the mountain and he entertained us with the stream of stories of his journeys, even those when he got lost in the dark. We stopped for a lunch on the way up, and what a lunch it was in one of the most beautiful picnic spots in the world! Brett had carried fresh shellfish, noodles, steamed bread, beer, sweets (beef flavour!), grilled chicken and pork sausages in his backpack including a camping stove and a pot. What a trooper – and he was singing the whole way up and down the mountain when everyone else had to catch for breath! Thanks for a wonderful day out, Brett!
Brett presenting us ice.
Vivi, David, Jocelyn and myself on the way to the top. The sign prohibits lighting fire in the area.
The mountaintop was quiet, peaceful, vast, majestic, ancient, serene. It is difficult to describe the serenity up on a mountain, but you can imagine the effect of the contrast between a crowded boat in flattish horizon and the small party walking amongst vast vertical rock structures on a mountaintop. The peacefulness was pure bliss. I bet it gets crowded during summertime, but now in off-peak the mountain was a place for quiet recovery and reflection.
What’s so crazy?
Qingdao seems like a lovely city, worth returning to later. Sailing is big around here, and we were treated like rock stars from start to finish. I had a privilege to see some kung-fu by local school kids, visit a tea museum and experience a tea ceremony, visit a local bakery and practice baking steamed bread. The dinners served in Chinese style suit me very well – you pick and choose from various dishes brought to a table for sharing. This is great for sampling, and if you like something, then just spin the table!
I had some expectations of China, but they did not quite match what I thought. I was expecting more rustic environment for some reason, not the modern, shiny, wealthy city like this. Although I stayed in a hotel next to marina, I have not seen how the local people really live.
The scale is crazy. The scale of the country. The majesty of the mountains. The synchronized spectacle. China is certainly a place worth a second visit. Perhaps a trans-Siberia train could be my next adventure with stops in Siberia, Mongolia and ending to China seeing the Great Wall and Beijing. I’m sold.
Do I need to start learning russian and mandarin now?
I have uploaded a bunch of photos to Flickr showing life on board Visit Finland during the race 7 from Gold Coast (Australia) to Singapore. Third of the journey was done under engine, therefore there is unusual amount of swimming and rafting photos in the mix! Normally this isn’t part of yacht racing at all.
Highlights of race 7 in nutshell:
Dolphins’ light trails. The most beautiful natural phenomena I’ve ever seen out in the ocean. Read the blog post about this event.
Tuba. A great waterspout formed nearby our boat, giving us a sighting resembling a mini-tornado. Read the blog post.
Rain water showers. We got regular showers during this race, keeping us clean and fresh! Very enjoyable. Read the blog post and another.
Unfortunately the Flickr plugin does not show the photo titles or descriptions, therefore you’ll have to click on the photo to read what it is all about. Sorry about that blip, I haven’t had much time to do photo troubleshooting unfortunately.
Only six minutes separated us and Gold Coast Australia in the final charge towards the finish line, which we crossed first thanks to relentless trimming all the way until the very end. The video shows Tea sitting on the pulpit and Carl standing next to the inner forestay calling the trim of their respective sails. I manned the staysail winch during the approach to the finish line.
It is very funny to see yourself and the team on video, after all we never get to see ourselves from outside the boat. Those few walking steps that I take on video does resemble very much a gait of a baby gorilla, and somehow I think this is perfectly fair comparison. After all we trot around the deck with bent knees and taking knuckle support from which ever surface happens to be on the way to the destination, and bagging salopettes do not help either. We’re less hairy though, however give it another 7 months and perhaps we’d start looking more like our big ape cousins.
The approach to finish line was nerve wrecking, thanks to Gold Coast steaming on our heels. The finish line was marked with two yellow buoys. We were expecting a hoot of some sort from the committee boat, that’s why we kept checking the buoys behind the headsails as we were not sure whether we were across the line yet or not. The hoot never came, therefore the cheer was a little late from the actual crossing.
Visit Finland team before setting off from Tauranga, NZ to Southport, AU in The Clipper Round the World 11-12 Race 6. From left to right: Perttu Monthan (FIN), Lexi Van Geest (UK/NZ), Tea Melsom (FIN/UK), Carl Palmer (SWE/FR), Greg Puttock (UK), Riikka Puustinen (FIN/UK), Paul Arkell (UK), Paul Knighton (UK), Nick Brooke (UK), Jo Poulton (UK), MC Chapman (UK), Carter Croft (UK/FR), Derek Baker (UK), Skipper Olly Osborne (UK). Inga Monthan (FIN) is missing from the photo.
Support team on shore waved flags on our arrival. Photo by Kit de Guymer.
Visit Finland after finishing Clipper Race 11-12 race 6. I'm holding the big Finnish flag in the middle with Carl.
Visit Finland arrives to Southport Marina
Visit Finland crew and skipper make their way to Southport Marina Yacht Club for a breakfast reception. Photo by Kit de Guymer
The Clipper Race 11-12 starts tomorrow Sunday 31 July from Southampton. All teams need to go, ready or not. The race can be followed through Clipper Race website, where a race tracker will show boat positions and latest developments in the race fleet. Keep your eyes peeled to Visit Finland yacht, that’s my team and I’m on board through thick and thin. Race tracker information will be updated every 3 hours, so keep refreshing that browser window for the latest news!
I will post more news either from the VF boat or Madeira, if my boat email will not be yet functional during the first race. Meanwhile here are few photos from the preparation and race village in Southampton.
Clipper Race teams have been revealed in Crew Allocation yesterday in Southampton. No surprises here since the news about Finnish boat went out already on Thursday: I am now part of Visit Finland team, sponsored by Finnish Tourist Board. It was great to meet the skipper Olly Osborne and the crew, I am looking forward to sailing with them. We have now started race preparations with an afternoon of brainstorming for strategy, team values and identity, shopping list etc. as preparation for the Clipper Race 11-12. Read more
Yesterday I bumped into an interesting video by Teamorigin, British America’s Cup team. The video introduces the history of America’s cup and features a duel between Team Oracle (US, current title-holder), and Teamorigin skippered by Ben Ainslie. The teams recreate the very first race around Isle of Wight island in Solent, which was the starting point for this long lived yacht match race cup in 1851. The race footage on board is interesting, however it would be great to see more – one cannot find enough material of this good quality for education: commentary, anecdotes, tactics and boat handling! Read more
Catalans know how to do it! The media coverage of the Barcelona World Race 10-11 looks amazing. The non-stop live broadcast features pre-start inverviews, commentary, footage from the docks following yachts to slip lines and head out to the start line, footage from helicopters, twitter feed explaining what’s happening prior to start etc. The only inconvenience for non-Spanish speakers is that the live TV commentary is in Spanish only, however the twitter feed is in English. For Spanish speakers the commentary is very informative and interesting (ranging from medical information to boat construction), so now it’s good time to brush up some language skills.
The armchair ocean racers can play BWR game, which has been specially developed for the race by Universidad de Pompeu Fabra. The game looks great, however non-Spanish speaking players have to proceed with the strategy of trial and error figuring out how it works, as currently the game instructions are in Spanish only. The gamer community has already given critique on the limited range of colours that are available for boat customisation, and surely enough, all colours are depressingly dark and the range of them is plain ugly. There is no way one can build a dashing yacht in the game, but these are the crinkles that hopefully will be ironed out for the future releases of the game. The vast number of female players might also want to see a female sailor in the 3D view instead of the generic short-haired guy sitting in the cockpit.
<update Sat 1 January 2011>
Teething problems have been a prevailing issue with the BWR game during the first day of the regatta. Many players have been locked out unable to enter their game account and therefore they cannot change sails, or worse, running to ground. I suspect that this newly developed game may not have gone through a thorough testing with thousands of players before, and therefore these problems crop up when 14 000 players try to participate simultaneously. Hopefully the developers will fix quickly these bugs, as the gamer community already shows signs of impatience, especially the non-Spanish speaking population which does not seem to have equal opportunity in the game due to language restrictions. Understandably for game admins it is quite a handful to sort these problems out, and quite possibly they have been caught by surprise with the volume of support requests. The forthcoming days will be critical for the success of the game, so good luck and godspeed.
I’ve always loved Barcelona, it’s without doubt my favourite city in Europe and a strong hometown candidate, should I stay in Europe. Everything about these race preparations and available information just enforces my opinion how good Catalans are with digital media and communications. Really good job, BWR media team! Hopefully the standard of the media will remain equally high for the rest of the race.
The Barcelona World Race is the first only double-handed (two-crew) regatta around the world. This is a non-stop regatta with some outside assistance permitted, although subject to rules and penalties.
The Barcelona World Race 2010/11 is the second edition of the regatta. The first was in 2007/08. The third edition will take place in 2014.
The course is from Barcelona to Barcelona via three capes: Good Hope, Leeuwin and Horn, Cook Strait, putting Antarctica to starboard.
The length of the course is approximately 25,000 nautical miles (46,300 km) along the Great Circle line, the shortest route traced on a map across the world.
I will keep my eyes peeled on two teams: Mirabaud (Dominique Wavre & Michèle Paret) and GAES Centros Auditivos (Dee Caffari & Anna Corbella). Michèle Paret is an inspirational character, being 55 years old and competing in top level with her partner Dominique Wavre. A recent interview gives some insight into her approach to racing. Dee Caffari & Anna Corbella are from younger generation of top-class sailors who have already proven their ocean racing skills.
