Jaffa cakes. Well they’re ok, bulky and not much nutrition but I suppose they’re relatively light.

What I don’t understand, and I would like to ask McVities, is why they don’t supply them to other countries? It’s a source of wonder to me the sheer excitement and ecstasy the sight these biscuits can elicit in our friends from abroad. We have a coffee break, out come the biscuits, we all dive in…but bring out the Jaffa’s and it’s a feeding frenzy!

Imagine the most determined of shoppers at the opening of the January sales, watch out for flying elbows and carefully aimed feet. And before some of you tell me that technically they are a “cake” – we’ve had that conversation.

The Americans among us believe biscuits are something served fried with bacon (and maple syrup?) for breakfast. Everything we refer to as biscuits, they misguidedly call “cookies”. Jaffa cookies do not sound right at all.

Anyway all I can say is that if Jaffa’s are coming racing, then so are fruit pastilles.

So. That’s one (or two) of our simple pleasures to look forward to on the long days stuck in the Doldrums. That’s the patch across the equator where there is next to no wind and the temperatures and humidity are even worse than we are experiencing at the moment. I didn’t know such a place really existed until fairly recently. Sheltered life and all that.

Pain? There is that aplenty. Physically the usual aches and pains, bumps and bruises. Let’s hope as a crew we avoid too many broken bones and ribs, but it will happen. Mental pain to some may mean missing a daily beer or two, a pet, a favourite soap star, or even a spouse.

To me it means missing a daily shower. After returning to port after a week at sea, my crew mates would always gallop along the pontoon and I would be with them – until we were through the gate. Then they would turn left for the pub, I would turn right for the showers….Bliss.

Of course I would wander along later and join them, but a shower after a week without washing, is one of the purest and simplest pleasures ever.

As for other basic pleasures…hmm, well, no chance! For one thing there is more privacy in an overcrowded lift. Though I have heard some crew refer to the sail locker as the “honeymoon suite”.

Well if a fumble amongst wet sails in an extremely bouncy part of the boat with the EXTREME likelihood of someone either opening the hatch above and peering down at you, or the door behind and clambering in with you (or most probably both) does it for you…

Even if you do find the prospect of this an extreme turn on, then you would have to have the skills of Houdini to extricate yourself from lifejacket (with crotch strap) and waterproof smock and salopettes.

All at an extreme angle too. Trust me a trip to the loo has to be planned with military precision, so I really can’t see how the most determined of lovers could manage a liaison. All this times two?

One of the crew reckons she’s sorted. She’s bringing a sex toy.

Where she’s going to get the time or the energy I have no idea. And she could become a real casualty if the boat heels violently without warning.

I don’t think that’s covered on the medics course

• 

This time last year, if someone had told me that I’d now be googling “What to Eat on an Ocean Race” I would have thought them many, many, sandwiches short of a picnic.

But here I am, frantically searching the web for help and inspiration. Apparently I have been elected to do the victualling on the first Leg (I think perhaps the second one too…and the delivery trip).

The delivery trip is easy, it’s from Gosport to London and whatever I feed them, no one should die or suffer severe malnutrition in the space of two days.

Even though apparently we each consume an average of 5,000 calories a day.

Yes that’s correct, so if you want to lose weight (or find a new partner – the other thing it’s famous for) then apply to do the Clipper RTW Yacht Race. I don’t need to lose weight (though so far I have, after every training level – despite non stop eating). And I certainly don’t want a partner, well not for life anyway, although I absolutely love meeting new friends.

I haven’t been let loose on this task on my own, Candela is lead victualler and is doing much research and number crunching, though as she lives in the US she’s doing it from afar. As a farmer (and one time farmers wife) feeding people was just something I did. So it can’t be difficult can it?

Wrong. It’s not easy when you need to calculate ‘just enough’ food to get us to the next stopover…too much and we slow the boat down, not enough and we will have to stop racing and start fishing!

And then there’s storage. With twenty of us on board, and all our gear, all our sails, we have very little space for food so what we have needs to be used wisely. Tins are out, too heavy. In fact all unnecessary packaging is a nono. Fruit and veggies will only last so long before deteriorating. Dried food seems the way forward, yet we must ensure it includes sufficient protein, fats and carbohydrates. Also at sea mealtimes are the one thing we really look forward to. Something hot and tasty is a morale booster on a bad day.

It’s not just fuel.

And then there’s water. No way could we carry what we will need, even without washing (which we don’t). So we have water makers. But apparently these don’t make water.

Confused? I was. Apparently they make “product”, and yes we drink it and cook with it. But it’s not water. Why? Because it contains absolutely nothing. No minerals, nothing! Hence we have a mineral supplement on board that we all are advised to take. And we are told to bring vitamin supplements too.

So where does this leave my fruit pastilles?

Sadly probably at home.

Returning from the pub late one night on Level 1. Climbing onto the boat and down the companionway, through the dark galley and forward to the bunks to find someone snoring away in my place. Luckily I realised just in time I was on the wrong boat.

On the same theme, a bleary eyed stranger came backwards down the companionway after his morning visit to the marina showers. He turned around to see us sat eating breakfast staring at him.

In my bunk, in the marina and just dosing off as the rest of the crew returned from the pub. Expletive followed by frantic running a loud crash and roaring laughter. All lines are black in the dark.

Level 2, sailing through the night I popped down below to make hot drinks, on my return I found two of the male crew curled up in the snake pit together fast asleep. Sweet.

Level 2, At sea, off watch and asleep in my bunk one night when the boat heeled over considerably. My leecloth was tied and kept me in place but someone else’s wasn’t. A heavy thump, 10 seconds silence, then a quiet “F*ck”

Level 4, during the night, I appeared in the saloon fully clothed and ready for my anchor watch. It wasn’t my watch, I had just dreamt that it was.

Race start on Level 4, we were distracted by a crew injury and needed to tack, mid tack a horn sounded five times. This is boat speak for “what the eff are you doing.” We looked behind to see a large tanker bearing down on us. Panicking, we stopped mid tack which stopped our momentum. We were sitting ducks.

Dan doing a rig check

Man Overboard drill on Level 4. I was the nominated swimmer (rescuer). I duly went over the side and into the water, grabbed Bob and attached a halyard to him. We were both hoisted up but instead of stopping at the toerail so I could climb over the guardrail and back onto the deck, I kept going up, ..and up. The grinder on my halyard was on a roll. Eventually he realised when I was dangling half way up the mast and the crew were shouting at me to do a rig check.

My first attempt at feeding the crew on Level 1. The crews’ faces when I served up green scrambled eggs. Enough said.

Do you know you very probably have Class A drugs in your house, or even on your person, or have taken a Class A drug very recently, maybe given your child a Class A drug.

You think not? Well in South Africa Ibuprofen is a Class A drug, you will be imprisoned for carrying it. So we have been warned to be extremely careful on what we pack in our personal kit. There is an extensive range of drugs onboard for our use, everyone up to and including Morphine. But that’s medical supplies, they are allowed and only the skipper can sanction use of them, ibuprofen included.

In other countries (none of which we are visiting thank goodness) alcohol is classed as a drug and also a banned substance.

I had a very interesting talk with a crewmate who works as a Diplomat for the foreign office, she makes regular mercy trips to British Embassies in alcohol free countries. As a diplomat she carries “diplomatic bags” which are sealed and immune from being searched. Occasionally there are important papers put in them, but mostly it’s gin and whisky, the recipients impatiently awaiting her arrival with much needed supplies.

It’s not just sailing, in fact, the sailing really comes second. I’ve met some amazing people with amazing stories and still more to meet. Nnennya, a very very beautiful Nigerian girl who lets nothing get in the way of her goals. And her main goal is raising awareness in Nigeria of cervical cancer. Apparently the vast majority of women there have never heard of it and it claims many many lives. She has set up a funding page specifically aimed at funding education and regular smear tests. How good is that?

What I have learned from living on board with so many different nationalities, personalities and age groups, is that deep down, at heart, we are actually all the same, any differences are only superficial.

Well nearly all of us. There are a small percentage of strange people out there. It’s too long a story to go into here but we were shocked to find out that one of our team absconded with £2,600 of our crew fund. We later realisedshe was not at all the person she pretended to be and had taken another crew member for a considerable sum, and has since fled the country. Like most con artists she was very plausible and very charming. Anyhow better she’s gone now than we found out mid Atlantic.

Could have been a MOB (man overboard) situation!

And our boat? CV21 now carries the name GoToBermuda…complete with triangles in Bermuda colours. And YES! We ARE going to Bermuda! And New York. And Londonderry. Or Derry as my Irish friend has told me to call it…

Wavy finally revealed this to us while we were at sea last Tuesday, he had the go ahead from Clipper to tell us about an hour before the official press announcement. As we had no phone service mid channel we couldn’t have blabbed even if we wanted to. All the ones (me!) doing leg 8 were literally bouncing at the news, others, the ones not on leg 8 were frantically trying to email clipper office to be added to the already substantial wait list for that particular leg.

As our partners Bermuda subsidise the cost of our race by two thirds. For people doing the full circumnavigation the cost is actually in the region of £150k, of which Bermuda pay two thirds, and the same, pro rata for the rest of us. The Royal Bermuda Yacht Club is one of the most prestigious in the world and I’m sure we can expect a very warm welcome…ESPECIALLY our boat!

Apparently Dark and Stormy is their cocktail of choice, which I think is rum based, I’m sure we will cope, pretty thirsty work sailing down from New York!

I hadn’t realised how much a having dirty bottom can hold you back. Take it from me it’s a real disadvantage. Especially when racing.

As one of our crew, a writer, commented “this last week has given me enough material to pen 3 separate books”. And she’s not wrong, it’s been somewhat of a blur, and no, not because of alcohol, just because of pure adrenalin and busyness. So where to start?

I’ll write this blog on the practice race, I can tell you about the other stuff another day.

So, with all eleven boats in Sandown Bay, Isle of Wight, on Friday morning we had a couple of practice starts and then the real thing, the route being west to a mark (around a buoy) back to another mark and across the channel to another two marks near Cherbourg and Le Havre and back to Sandown Bay.

It may have been “only” a practice but believe me we were all in it to win it and the excitement was palpable, so much so that all the male crews’ bladders (or bowels?) went into overdrive and for one worrying moment they all disappeared below to fight for a place in the heads (toilets).

Thankfully they reappeared very quickly back on deck, all fumbling to reattach the crotch straps on their lifebelts and we took up our positions for the countdown. Circling around at the start is very like riding a horse in the warm up arena… some boats to trying to intimidate others to give way, others attempting to stay out of trouble, some trying to push their way into the best possible position. I think all of my horsey friends can identify with this.

To me it was the same feeling of quiet anticipation and excitement I feel when being counted down in the start box of the cross country phase in Horse Trials. Priceless.

Then the final horn from the committee boat signifying we’re off! And all hell broke loose as everyone crossed the start line. We were awarded a penalty for getting to close to another boat, which meant a 360 degreee turnaround, which was a nuisance but on a long haul race not a disaster. But then we did have a disaster! Andy dropped heavily to the deck clutching his thigh in agony.

We abandoned our posts to bring him back from the foredeck, while Wavy radioed the committee rib to report the casualty. We were told we would have to return immediately to Gosport so Andy could be swiftly taken off to hospital. Andy said no. And he said no again. And again. He was in excruciating pain but was not going to miss the race or let us miss the race. I don’t think Clipper were very happy about this, they take safety very seriously (and rightly so) but they could not persuade him to change his mind. They were mollified a little when crew member Sheila pronounced she would give him some drugs and keep an eye on him – (Shiela is a heart surgeon but I’m sure she knows a bit about legs too), though I rather think her priority was the race rather than her patient, and that was ok by us and especially by Andy.

So after strapping him up with a sail tie and wedging him next to a forward winch, off we eventually set to find the others, remembering to tack him over every time we tacked the boat from side to side. Actually he still somehow managed to play a vital part in the sailing despite his injury, he manned winches, transferred halyards and did lots of other stuff. I think everyone was in absolute awe of his grit and determination. I haven’t yet heard how his scan went, I just hope he’s done no further damage.

Realistically we were never going to win the race, as unlike the bright shiny coloured boats, CV21 had not been out of the water since last November and we were carrying a whole ecosystem on our bottom which holds the boat back much more than you can imagine. So our race was between the other three “unbranded” boats who were carrying around similar baggage on their bottoms.

We picked off one fairly early I think, I must admit as we were doing four hourly watches throughout the night I was automatic pilot and my brain wasn’t too much engaged on anything but the immediate task, so I can’t actually remember what happened when. As another boat would come into sight Wavy would tell whoever was on the helm at the time to “Go Fetch” and we would buckle down to the serious business of catching up and overtaking. Yes, as a rookie crew we made some mistakes, potentially the worst was a spinnaker wrapped around a forestay, but some expert helming (from Wavy) got us out of that one, so we were saved from having to drop it and untangle and re wool and re hoist the bloody thing. That was another disadvantage, others were flying Code 1’s (the largest) and we only had a Code 2, which is smaller and less powerful, but hey, what we lacked in sail we more than made up for in Wavys brilliant racing tactics. He watched the weather and tide all of the time, finding the best lines to take, he taught us about fine tuning the sails for speed according to conditions, he never slept (is he human?). The rest of us would just pass out on our bunks fully clothed until (if we were lucky to not be needed on deck) three hours later when it was time to go on watch again.

Eat, sleep, sail, repeat.

My most abiding memory, and most rewarding moment was when rounding a mark off the French coast neck and neck with two other dirty bottomed boats (the shiny ones were uncatchable, it was always going to be four of us against each other). We dropped the staysail (the second front sail), and prepared the spinnaker (as we were going to be turning downwind) and as we rounded the mark with Wavy screaming at us to “hurry the fuck up, it’s a fucking race” and other expletives, we hoisted the spinnaker and dropped the Yankee (very front sail) absolutely seamlessly and literally sailed through the turn gaining momentum.

The feeling of accomplishment was overwhelming, we were truly working as a team. We looked back to see the other two boats dead in the water, having all sorts of problems with the manoeuvre. Even better was Wavys beaming grin, he doesn’t give praise very often but when he does you can be sure it was well deserved. What a feeling. There was more, but suffice to say we won the race of the dirty bottomed boats.

Oh and there was a second race. Engines on, sails packed and flat out back to port, arriving at 2255hrs Sunday evening. Lines tied, boat secured and everyone leaping off the boat like lemmings. Literally galloping up the wooden pontoon, through the gates and around the corner to the Castle, our local pub.

Filthy, smelly, and unbelievably tired…but just in time for last orders.

Well that was Team Building weekend. Ok, I’m not sure quite what I expected, maybe that it would be a fairly serious affair with lots of in depth discussions on roles and tactics. Wrong. It was one riotous party.

Paul, the crew member who took on the task of arranging this weekend has done an incredible job of finding just the right place for us to stay. A rabbit warren of a house with an enormous kitchen table which easily seated all 20 of us. Situated in the beautiful village of Lyndhurst in the New Forest it was absolutely ideal.

A great mix of ages and nationalities, yet how quickly we bonded. Some of us already knew each other, many didn’t. Everyone pitched in with cooking and washing up, we all brought alcohol and there were lots of trips to the nearby shop for yet even more beer and wine. I’m collapsed on my hotel bed in Portsmouth writing this and praying I recover enough to start my final race training on Tuesday morning.

The most exciting news is that we have a boat partner. The most frustrating news is that we don’t know who it is!

We tried our utmost to persuade our skipper Wavy to tell us, but despite feeding him enough alcohol to loosen the tongue of the most determined secret agent we must wait until the official announcement on Tuesday. The only hint he has given is that the partner is “an incredibly cool brand/port/country” (delete as applicable) and hasn’t been a race partner before. As this will be CV21’s offial boat name, and the port/brand/country we will be working with and representing for the next 13 months, we are all very very desperate to find out.

Voting for the boat song was fun, some wonderful tunes up there. Sadly my choice (ELO, All Over The World) was second, with Queen winning by just one vote. Oh well, it will be on our playlist as “songs to sail to” with all of the others that didn’t make it.

Saturday we divided up into groups of five and was mostly spent hiking around the new forest (or in my groups case getting extremely lost in the new forest), something we didn’t admit to the other teams. Each team were given a list of things to spot and had to provide evidence in the form of a photograph of whatever with at least one of us in the picture, and points scored for each photograph. So we saw a frog, but it really wasn’t interested in being in a selfie, and hopped off. The ponies were easy, I bribed them with apples, cows weren’t too bad…we could take selfies with their mucky bums as they lumbered away. We used our initiative and visited a stuffed toy shop for the badger and snake selfies….100 points for each! Unfortunate our home made four leaf clover didn’t stand up to scrutiny.

We also found a vehicle down one of the many forest tracks we were lost in, and took a photograph of two of us peering in…but as dogging wasn’t actually on the list we sadly didn’t earn any points for that one.

Other games were played over the weekend but I can’t really remember what they were, so it was a complete surprise to me when it was announced on Saturday night that I was in the lead with Andrew, both of us with equal amount of points. As the prize was a bottle of really good champagne then there had to be a final “game” to decide the outright winner. Wavy said it was to be a knot tying competition. We were both tasked with tying the same eight sailing knots against the clock.

As Andrew is very capable, and extremely competitive I knew that despite being a little worse for wear I really had to concentrate.

I think I beat him by about 15 seconds.

And well…the Champagne? That’s one of the reasons I’m a bit under the weather today.

Packing! I seem to be forever on the move, and Friday I’m off again. Back to Gosport and Clipper training this time, the very last training level.

But that’s next Tuesday, first we have a team building weekend in the New Forest. Twenty three of us in a very large house and all sorts of shenanigans planned!

I’m driving down so I’ll collect two fellow crew from Southampton station, and on the way to our venue we will do the victualling (a very large shop) for the weekend…all good practice. We have some major decisions to make on the upcoming race, not everyone is able to join us for the weekend so one of the more techie minded crew is creating a live link to the rest of the crew. One decision, our boat song, has been the topic of conversations since crew allocation day with some wonderful suggestions. So we will vote on that. We are still awaiting information on our “race partner” that’s our boat sponsor and CV21 will take on our partners name and colours and identity. Most of the other boats have their race partners are painted up and looking good, the three Chinese ones are very colourful, I love the blue of the UNICEF boat (I had rather hoped that might be us – that colour really suits me!).

So we are still waiting…never mind it just adds to the excitement. Barbecue on the Saturday night, lots of music (and hopefully a bit of a boogie) A day off for me on Monday, I may get the ferry to Cowes and visit relatives, and then Tuesday the dreaded Level 4….surely it can’t be any worse than what we’ve already been through…

They say time flies when you’re having fun. Well time has flown. And we’ve had lots of fun. Mind you it hasn’t all been plain sailing (there I go again…excuse the pun). The first five days were fairly serious, Brian our skipper/trainer/examiner, was extremely professional and we were tested from dawn ‘til dusk on our skills and knowledge.

Chris was the surprising one – having never set foot on a yacht before he had absolutely no idea what to expect and unsure if he would even like sailing and living on board. He took to it like a duck to water, not only did he complete his Competent Crew certificate but navigation seemed to come easily to him as well as helming the boat, sail trimming and parking! The relief when us other three gained our Day Skipper qualification was tremendous….then the party started!

Brian then stepped off the boat and two more friends, John and Sally Hodgson stepped on. We were then let loose to sail on our own.

Highlights? Too many to mention, but include one night anchored off Kalamos when we were all swimming from the boat in a thunderstorm, crashing thunder, large flashes of lightning and very warm rain…very atmospheric!

A tremendous sail in 28-30k winds, Chris helming as if he’d been doing it all of his life.

My first attempt at berthing (parking) stern to and succeeding without damaging adjacent yachts.

Night sailing…to our own individually and carefully worked out passage plan, we didn’t hit any land or rocks! Though I’m advised I do need to include more detailed information and not “wing it” so much.

A riotous night with fellow members of the Royal Northumberland Yacht Club at Vliho Yacht Club – I was telling Jan about my late husband Chris and his horse Dougalyoubastard…ten minutes later Jan stood up and read out a poem about them that he had quickly jotted down on a paper tablecloth. It was excellent, he summed up their antics in very funny verse and I will treasure that piece of tablecloth forever….Thank you Jan, you are a very talented man! Also your rendition of fiddler on the roof will stay with me forever!

The last night we anchored again in Vliho bay and took the dinghy to a taverna on the opposite shore, it’s quite a novelty when the waiter pauses in serving a customer to catch your painter (dinghy tie up rope) and help you out of the dinghy and into your seat literally three steps away from it.

As well as the usual hopeful cats around our legs we also had fishes in between the dinghies poking their heads out of the water in anticipation of a few scraps (they weren’t disappointed…Fish Lots, Cats Nil). After copious amounts of food and alcohol (us, not the fish) and even some Greek dancing by John Hodgson who invented some interesting moves of his own (mostly onto Di’s toes) we were helped back into our dinghy by the now very friendly and quite tipsy waiter.

David and I were on the first delivery run to our yacht and we were pouring nightcaps when we heard loud and out of tune singing from far away as Chris returned on the second dinghy run, in the black dark, no lights, trying to find the right boat, and when they finally reached us, he could only steer in circles before managing to get anywhere near the transom (back) so I could catch the painter and help them stagger back on board.

We are responsible Dazed Kippers…honestly!

• 

Well, not much to pack for 10 days on a boat in a hot climate you would think.  But then again…Factor 50 sun screen or Factor 15? better take both.   And of course, After sun, and a floppy hat, and plenty Mozzie repellent…and antihistamine pills and antihistamine cream as I will, inevitably, get bitten anyway.   I always do.  

Then there’s my Yachtmaster Log book, and whatever text books I might need for studying my Dazed Kipper.

And clothes, I always take much more than I need but Clipper training now has me travelling (a little bit) lighter.    All going well then Di rings me…she’s packed lots of spices, apparently she’s planning on cooking a Tagine (?) one evening while we’re at anchor.

A what?

And then if I can cook one evening too… EH?   But I’m on holiday (ish) can we not eat out every night?   And if we are at anchor then as long as we have alcohol who needs food…oh, ok then, bread and olives to soak up the gin. Sadly I have a feeling that something more is expected from me.

Now Di is one of these amazing (and slightly scary) women who excels at everything, from cooking to skiing to tennis to sailing and everything in between.  No doubt her tagine will be wonderful, so what on earth am I going to cook?

Searched my cupboards for inspiration and hey presto! 

Sorted…just need a bigger bag!

The RYA (Royal Yachting Association) runs many courses and exams leading to recognised qualifications. One of them is the Day Skipper – a “driving licence” that enables the holder to charter a yacht anywhere in the world. I enrolled for a six month shore based course last September, before I had even heard of the Clipper Round the World Race, it was a challenge I suppose, something to exercise the grey matter over the long winter evenings. I certainly didn’t find it easy, then again anything worth doing usually isn’t. My attempts at working out navigation, having to take into account tides and leeway and numerous chartered hazards would have sunk or grounded my poor boat and crew numerous times if I’d been doing it for real. But the penny dropped with me eventually, and the devil is in the detail…there’s no room for error. Of course the ironic thing is I will very probably never have to use this method of “course to steer”, as yachts, like cars, are nowadays kitted out with sophisticated navigation systems.

That’s part 1 of the Day Skipper (or dazed kipper as a friend refers to it), the fun bit, part 2, starts in just over a weeks time. Even more fun because four of us are doing it together. And in Greece!

This is the practical, five days at sea with a skipper/examiner and we should be certified at the end of it, well I hope at least one of us is, as we plan to deposit the examiner back at his base and take the yacht exploring for a few more days on our own. Having done so much training on the racing yachts I’m going to be pretty embarrassed if I fail, and yet I don’t think it will be done deal. I’m still new to sailing and I lack experience.

Two of the others, Di and David, do have many nautical miles under their belts, so I’m confident they’ll sail through (ok, groan). And the fourth, Chris, hasn’t a clue. He’s never been on anything smaller than a cross channel ferry. He’s coming along for the holiday, and, not to be left out is doing a Competant Crew qualification, which he seems to think involves scrubbing the deck with a beer in his hand. He did send off for the Competant Crew Handbook six months ago, and it rarely leaves his side, he sends me photographs of it in many locations here and abroad.

But he is yet to open it. Watch this space!