Hand wash laundry techniques are being perfected onboard Visit Finland. Temperature is high and therefore clothes get dirtier quicker.
It may be a surprising fact that I used smaller number of clothes during the North Pacific crossing than now during a hot, coastal leg south to Panama. It is unnecessary to change clothing often during cold legs if one doesn’t sweat, for example one layer of thermals can be worn easily for two weeks when combined with socks, mid-layers and a dry suit. Hot climates are an entirely different matter: one sweats just by sitting still in the sunshine and suncream sticks to clothes the moment it’s been applied. During these first two weeks I have already gone through majority of my warm leg wardrobe and therefore my laundry hangs out on the rail drying.
I’ve discovered that 1-2 hours of soaking in the bucketful of soapy water does the trick. The clothes can be rinsed by trailing them in the sea from the back of the boat – it could not be any easier! It goes without saying that a sail tie or a safety line needs to be put through all clothes before throwing them in the water. A very short rinse is enough for hand washing soap, therefore even drag is not a problem with this laundering technique. It is however advised to check the jellyfish situation before doing any washing!
Substitutes
Ssshh! I’ll let you in a secret: Bovril (beef extract) makes great Marmite substitute. We’ve got two small pots of Bovril on board, so I think it will see me through to New York unless the secret goes out. We have only sweet snacks on board, so I’m guarding the Bovril like crown treasures as I much more prefer savoury stuff.
Is this like an alcoholic switching from brandy to anti-freezer? Perhaps not – I can live without Marmite or Bovril, but they just make life so much better when comforts are few and far between.
Sun is already out at 0530! It’s lovely warm here in America Trench at 15.31.38N 098.42.83W
A gannet landed on our windex yesterday evening, blocking our views to the only working wind instrument currently available to us.
Hitch-hiker sea birds are not only nuisance for swimming turtles but also for us on board Visit Finland. A gannet started circling us late yesterday afternoon, spending several hours attempting to land on deck and helm pulpit before giving up and going for the mast instead. It’s frequent approaches and last minute take offs freaked out the helmsman and crew at the aft of the boat. The Jets watch called him (or her?) Brian, Brian the Bird.
Wind direction: tail feathers
Brian had not obviously seen spinnakers before, or that’s what one could assume when he attempted to land into the spinnaker and bounced to the sea as a result. The on-watch crew, Jets, got little bit worried about his sharp beak so close to our most cherished, fine and pristine spinnaker. Claws and beak could damage our lightweight spinnaker quite easily if charging into it headlong.
Brian perched on the windex for good six night hours. The windex has an arrow and lights on it indicating wind angles and making it visible during the night time, but now Brian blocked everything. Instead of wind direction we could see fluttering tail feathers and an occasional turn of the beak lighted by the tricolor lights at top of the mast. We had to drive the wind just by the signs of backing main sail, spinnaker collapses, curling edges and good old gut feel. I drove several hours by the feel of the wind at my left elbow, correcting my course if also my right elbow started getting some breeze.
Oli the Skipper demonstrated once again his lovely calm and positive attitude when facing this odd problem of wildlife on a racing yacht. While I was thinking of putting together a pea blow pipe and aiming high, Oli just thought that perhaps Brian is our lucky bird in need of rest. He’ll fly away sooner or later.
Shower time!
Yesterday afternoon a fire hose was rigged dangling from the boom for the first time during this leg 7. The crew lined up with soaps, shampoos and sponges to enjoy refreshing and cleansing shower after a week at sea. I decided to wait until first test bathers had finished, because yesterday we went through a massive patch of jellyfish that could potentially be sucked into the water pump. The salvage pump takes the water straight from the sea, and out it comes from the fire hose with considerable pressure. I’d like to clarify that this wasn’t just cheeky way to avoid inconvenient stings but rather to avoid fatality! I’ll get an allergic shock from a simple bee or wasp sting, so I’d rather not think what could happen as a result of jellyfish hugs or *gasp* snake bites. (So long, cruel world.)
Mother rotation
Today I’m mothering again with Thomas, but fortunately we will be preparing bacon sandwiches for lunch instead of last weeks noodle disaster. Annoyingly during this leg our watch rotation does not alternate, meaning that half of the mothers will never get to sleep until one o’clock watch change, while the other half ALWAYS sleeps in! This probably does not make any sense to anyone who hasn’t been on watch rota, but all you’ll need to know is that this is a truly stinking situation for those unlucky mothers.
Shaking my fist and cursing unlucky stars at 17.23.79N 102.42.66W
Visit Finland has found a new gear in the darkness of the night. Yankee 1 hoist doubled our speed at the start of the night watch.
We are sailing upwind for a change after a week of downwind drift. When our tacked lightweight spinnaker failed to pull us any further forward, we swapped to a windseeker, and later on to Yankee 1 when the apparent wind strength allowed us to do so. We hoisted even the staysail which hasn’t been up since the race start.
After a week of sailing downwind the upwind heel feels like a novelty feature. Even bagging a windseeker felt fresh, again we haven’t flaked white sails since the race start.
Camera crawl
I’ve been having a ball on board recently since taking up the media role, although shared one with Del & who ever feels like writing daily clipper blogs. The conditions are dry and easy for photography, so I’ve been crawling, crouching and dangling while looking for new perspectives to otherwise mundane tasks onboard. I am well pleased with the results, and now looking for changes in conditions – it would be great to document variety of sailing instead of just light winds.
My interest in the job has gone to lengths of staying up on deck or sorting out the harvest while everyone else on my watch goes to bed. I’m trying to capture everyone on both watches doing something more dynamic than sitting on the rail. I can only document sailing evolutions of the opposite watch, as obviously one cannot helm and snap photos simultaneously during my watch.
Turtle stream
Today the nature has gone crazy with the variety of wildlife in sight. In the morning we saw a pod of dolphins kettling a shoal of fish by the boat, a 70ft shadow and a blowhole stream not far away – a whale of some kind, lots of jellyfish in the water and a stream of turtles almost all swimming to the north.
Turtles are so sympathetic! They swim persistently upstream waving their flippers / legs with hectic breast strokes, while the shell pokes out from the water like a very large floating coconut. The turtles poke their heads above the surface every now and then for air. (Or maybe they were taking a look at us?) We saw some birds sitting on back of them, ruthlessly exploiting a free ride. I can imagine a turtle getting frustrated with these cunning sea birds: *OOMPH* oh great, another free rider. FLY AWAY, you’ve got wings you %^&*@ seagull!! If I were a turtle, I’d learn to roll in water to avoid such nuisance. Turtles, take heed.
Visit Finland is now in belt of light winds, ghosting along Mexican coastline at electric 1.6 knots of speed over ground.
The temperatures have been steadily rising during the morning watch, at 0700 the Giants stepped on deck wearing light summer clothing instead of salopettes that we still donned four days ago. At midday the air temperature is roughly 35C, and the water temperature is 30.5C. All very pleasant for sun and warmth deprived individuals, who are not many amongst us though. I am delighted about the sunshine and lapping it up, however some crew are grumbling about the heat already.
The helmsman has a bucketful of sea water by his/her feet for an occasional splash of cooling foot bath. An umbrella has been rigged to helm pulpit to give shelter from the sunshine. The view towards the helm looks like a surreal film scene from Mary Poppins meets Tim Burton’s Sweeney Todd located in a racing yacht, especially when Greg is helming and wearing his stetson-like hat. Check out the photograph of Greg and umbrella at the Clipper Race website, where I’m going to send it today. (Publishing time may vary though, so please have patience.) I cannot remember the exact address, but the post should be found following links to Clipper website, Teams > Visit Finland > Crew Diaries.
Leaderboard shuffle
I’m extremely delighted that we’re in second position at the moment. Goldie has gone further offshore to hunt winds, while we VF, cloggies (DLL), Yorkshire, New York and Qingdao are taking an inshore route in hopes of some sea breeze closer to the shore. We will see how these tactics fare in the long run. We have increased our lead to DLL this morning despite of light airs and flopping spinnaker – we must be doing something right at the moment.
The light airs will continue for several days, unless we’ll manage to inch our way across south-going ocean current towards the mainland. This may be challenging, so at least the current is working for us!
Supplies Our fresh fruit supplies will finish in two days, also we’ve already gone through ridiculous amounts of cheese and sausages as mothers go off-piste from the menu plan in attempt to avoid cooking not so popular dishes. I hate to see waste especially knowing that our supplies are already low, so my blood pressure has been rising couple of times when half-eaten apples have been thrown overboard. Why waste food that will run out in two days with normal consumption rate? I do not comprehend.
Fortunately I have managed to off-load water making duty to another crewmember, who will have tough time guarding our precious water supplies when the heat continues and people will start washing their hair and clothes. I have exhausted my patience seeing so much wasteful behaviour onboard, that these days I’ll just rather apply more sun cream, enjoy the sun and leave babysitting for others.
Steady light winds give crew a break from sail changes on board Visit Finland. We have spent already a week in fixed positions, and tomorrow we’re going to rotate jobs.
Me and Nigel will become the helm team, while Ed, Linda and Paul move on to trim and Jess and Nick start working at the bow. We are trying this new rotation system for the first time, so the results may vary. Certainly a 6-hour shift of helming between two of us is pretty hefty task, but fortunately Greg as a watch leader will act as a “floater”, helping where ever help is required. Let’s hope that the winds will continue being steady, as it would be horrible to spend a helming week bobbing in no wind, for example when approaching doldrums. There is no perfect system I suppose, that’s why we try different rotations after all.
Today has been a wonderful, sunny day. We had a thick cloud cover in the morning watch, but by noon the sky was already clear and sun warming the deck. The afternoon watch was boiling, so I’m hoping that the same pattern repeats tomorrow. We have just finished a night watch (boat time 1900-2300) admiring cloudless, starry sky. Unfortunately our steaming light disturbs the night vision and therefore we cannot quite enjoy the full, deep 3D effect of the milky way and it’s billions of stars of various lightnesses. It’s spectacular anyway.
Wild west
There has been more wildlife in this stretch from Oakland to Mexico than during whole North Pacific crossing, it seems. We saw a seal bobbing tummy up in the surface waving his flippers, some dorsal fins that Linda reckons were basking sharks, and my all time favourite fish – sunfish. That was an odd one: there was a waving fin on the surface, and we passed this blob of a fish perhaps 5m away. The shape was so distinctly round, that there was no question about it’s kind.
Carl’s watch (Mets) saw yesterday sperm whale pod with calves, but our watch (Giants) has been less lucky. Nigel was alert the other day and saw a turtle swimming past, while everyone else was looking at the spinnaker that was threatening to wrap itself around various objects. No wonder one little turtle went unnoticed!
I’m off to get some sleep now before our night watch from 0300 to 0700. This afternoon I did not sleep much, as I was roaming the deck with camera at hand documenting various jobs that were going on. It was all very enjoyable and productive, however camera & media work means less sleep for me, so don’t be surprised if I turn up on deck being horribly grumpy before the first cup of coffee. Before my caffeine fix I am unavailable as a rule.
Steady light winds give crew a break from sail changes on board Visit Finland. We have spent already a week in fixed positions, and tomorrow we’re going to rotate jobs.
Me and Nigel will become the helm team, while Ed, Linda and Paul move on to trim and Jess and Nick start working at the bow. We are trying this new rotation system for the first time, so the results may vary. Certainly a 6-hour shift of helming between two of us is pretty hefty task, but fortunately Greg as a watch leader will act as a “floater”, helping where ever help is required. Let’s hope that the winds will continue being steady, as it would be horrible to spend a helming week bobbing in no wind, for example when approaching doldrums. There is no perfect system I suppose, that’s why we try different rotations after all.
Today has been a wonderful, sunny day. We had a thick cloud cover in the morning watch, but by noon the sky was already clear and sun warming the deck. The afternoon watch was boiling, so I’m hoping that the same pattern repeats tomorrow. We have just finished a night watch (boat time 1900-2300) admiring cloudless, starry sky. Unfortunately our steaming light disturbs the night vision and therefore we cannot quite enjoy the full, deep 3D effect of the milky way and it’s billions of stars of various lightnesses. It’s spectacular anyway.
Wild west
There has been more wildlife in this stretch from Oakland to Mexico than during whole North Pacific crossing, it seems. We saw a seal bobbing tummy up in the surface waving his flippers, some dorsal fins that Linda reckons were basking sharks, and my all time favourite fish – sunfish. That was an odd one: there was a waving fin on the surface, and we passed this blob of a fish perhaps 5m away. The shape was so distinctly round, that there was no question about it’s kind.
Carl’s watch (Mets) saw yesterday sperm whale pod with calves, but our watch (Giants) has been less lucky. Nigel was alert the other day and saw a turtle swimming past, while everyone else was looking at the spinnaker that was threatening to wrap itself around various objects. No wonder one little turtle went unnoticed!
I’m off to get some sleep now before our night watch from 0300 to 0700. This afternoon I did not sleep much, as I was roaming the deck with camera at hand documenting various jobs that were going on. It was all very enjoyable and productive, however camera & media work means less sleep for me, so don’t be surprised if I turn up on deck being horribly grumpy before the first cup of coffee. Before my caffeine fix I am unavailable as a rule.
The most expected weather phenomenon since North Pacific, the big round yellow sphere in the sky, has made a warm appearance for us on board Visit Finland today.
Today has been the first day of shorts and t-shirts for me during the morning watch from 0700 to 1300. The north wind is still a little bit nippy, but that’s nothing for us rough sailors. The legs and arms are out for an airing at least for sunny hours. During the night the temperatures plunge and dew covers the deck, so light salopettes do still have a job for the time being.
Miracle meals
I was mothering yesterday with Thomas, and somehow during that day we slipped from 3rd to 7th position. Was the food really that bad? I do apologise wholeheartedly. For lunch we cooked Chinese noodles (the from-firm-to-mushy-in-10-seconds variety), broth and sweet corn. Three ingredients that do not make a great meal together. We were wondering whether it was supposed to be a soup or a noodle dish with seasoning, and the clients of our greasy spoon restaurant were wondering the same. A horrid mess. I want advice from professional chefs how to make anything edible from these ingredients. Protein drinks were in demand after the meal, perhaps that’s why we have so many of those huge protein shake bottles in the galley. The evening meal of instant potato mash, gravy with peas and nice meaty sausages went down well with obvious relief both for us mothers and the greasy spoon clients.
Various mothers have discovered missing items from our victualling, salt being the most obvious one. We have been making bread using half sea water, half fresh water. I suppose we can do the same when boiling pasta or rice, however seasoning food is little bit trickier. Skipper Oli suggested that we’ll start brushing our guard rails for crusts of sea salt. Maybe we will.
Honey, syrup, salt, marmite and jaycloths seem to be most the most sought after items, while we have excessive amounts of black tea, protein drink shakes, chilli-based condiments and sweet snacks. Two bin liners full of tea bags were stowed into upper bunk lockers to make more space in the galley. All very interesting. There must be a purpose to all this.
Let’s see whether tonight we’ll see more suicidal squid jumping up to deck. Last night there were dozens of them, I was told and also witnessed the dark spots on deck where they had landed. Why do the squid jump on deck? Probably for the same reason that some fish do fly. A mystery to be inspected.
Visit Finland has left the US waters and is now sailing down the coast of Mexico in pleasantly dry weather and clear skies.
These first days of race 10 have been busy. Spinnakers are being dropped, packed, hoisted, gybed, dropped, packed and hoisted again. It has been great days of bow work for me, I’ve done frequent outings to the spinnaker pole spiking and swapping kites at the pole end, including a mast climb yesterday.
Our two watches have been split to further three groups: helm, trim & snakepit and bow team. Each group spends a week working in these areas, as the aim is to become proficient in specific jobs. After a week the groups rotate. This week I am working at good old bow with Nigel.
Wind speed guesswork
Our wind instruments are not behaving themselves. We’ve lost the wind speed and direction instruments already the other day, and therefore mast climbs were necessary for troubleshooting. First Paul K. went up to inspect the instruments, and yesterday I was sent to clean up some corrosion that he had seen in the connecting pins. Armed with a knife, roll of electrical tape, nail file and a can of WD-40 I was hoisted all the way up to the mast.
The journey up was much more inconvenient than the work at the top, as there is a stretch between second and third spreaders with very little to hold on to. I was clinging on to the mast on the leeward side, engaging my best wall climbing finger muscles around the mast track, and slowly inched up to very top of the mast where it was much easier to perch against the spinnaker halyard blocks and foot support steps.
Disconnecting and cleaning up the pins were the easiest part of the job, although it requires care not to accidentally drop anything of significance, such as the instrument to be cleaned. Sometimes this may be a challenge, as two hands are required for working but third for stabilising oneself in the swinging mast and fourth for digging tools from pockets. Spinnaker halyards gave me every now and then a worrying squeeze when the kite was moving around in the wind, so there were quite a few things to be aware of whilst doing the job I went up for.
Unfortunately the corrosion was mainly in the female end of the instrument, where I had no access nor cleaning tools, so after a while the instruments stopped working again.
Halyard highway
On the way down things got infinitely more interesting when Oli called for a kite change. For this job a bowman needs to be sent to the spinnaker pole to spike (release) the clew for a drop and connect the new clew into the spinnaker sheet. As I was already aloft the mast, on the way down I just needed to descent down the pole up and take a short cut to the spinnaker pole instead of descending straight to deck and then go up to pole again. This manoeuvre was like taking an exit from a highway, and swiftly I found myself perching on the spinnaker pole for a change. It was very enjoyable climbing!
Fruit bath
I’m off to crack a whip and get the fresh fruit washed in bleach solution. The fruit was brought on board in plastic bags, and in those bags they remained for any strange reason. Fruit goes mouldy really soon in plastic bags, and usually they are also bleached before stowing as to kill the mould and fungi before they get hold of the fruit.
I will twist Carters arm to get the fruit washed today, as he yesterday lost his balance and fell into my bunk breaking my leecloth and Kindle e-reader in the process. Obviously I’m irresistible, but I rather not have men toppling into my bunk if this is the result!
This is the most upsetting setback in the race until now, I must admit. Mournfully I’m gazing at the bottom third of my Kindle that still works, revealing a fraction of a page I was reading, now unable to carry on. The history of the first conquer of the Mt. Everest has to wait until New York then.
Growing as a person and learning to forgive in 29.20.48N 118.42.99W
Visit Finland got a good start in very exciting kerfuffle on the start line to leg 7, race 10 yesterday. We dodged Singers and Edinburgh with such close shave that left hearts beating drum’n'bass for minutes afterwards.
The start from the Golden Gate was exciting. This time I was roaming the deck with a video camera at hand documenting the start instead of participating in the manouvers. I happened to be at the bow when we barely dodged Singers and Edinburgh, and phew, it really was a close call. A minute before the start gun goes off, the start line gets pretty crowded when ten 68ft racing yachts are all looking for the perfectly timed slip over the line. We did well and passed the line third, as far as I could observe it. We are currently leading the pack and trucking south towards Los Angeles.
Fortunately the sea state is moderate and we are flying a spinnaker while the boat gently rocks on waves. Not many crew are feeling sea sick, therefore our watches are almost in full powers. Now it only takes few days to adjust into the watch system, and then just keep sailing hard until we win this race! We all are keen to do well.
The weather is cloudy but dry, and temperatures should start rising steadily day after another. At the moment we’re still wearing foulies at night, but in a week or two shorts and t-shirts should be making their outings from the dry bags.
Where’s the honey, sugar?
This morning revealed a disaster. We cannot find honey anywhere. Nor syrup. Could it be possible that these were forgotten from the shopping list? Or maybe they are just very well hidden, so that we’ll only find them when approaching New York in a months time. The breakfast porridge was enjoyed with dollop of strawberry jam, second helpings with hazelnut chocolate spread.
Even worse disaster is that we have run out of Marmite! How can I ever survive a leg without Marmite? Can the Clipper maintenance team bring few emergency tubs to Panama for me, please? The troubles will be rewarded generously with kind words and ruthless flatter. Thanks!
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.
