A lazy Sunday Morning! Bliss. I’m loving my life but sometimes I feel I’m being swept along in a very fast flowing current and I need to crawl to the riverbank, collapse face down and catch my breath. Apart from checking the few remaining cows left to calve, today is more or less a blank page! I actually have the perfect excuse to do nothing too…I hurt my back yesterday, it went crunch when Jim and I missed our stride into a cross country fence. It’s better today than yesterday so I’m confident that it’s not impacting on an old injury, but all the same it’s a warning to slow down and look after myself if I’m to set sail in September. I ought to be studying my Clipper training manual but am stuffing my face with peanuts and binge watching Netflix instead.

It was great to be back competing yesterday and Jim, as dependable as ever, galloped clear in both the show jumping and the cross country. And was wonderful to catch up with so many people I hadn’t seen for ages. Yes, I’m missing the eventing, but then again you can’t do everything. Though I seem to be giving it a good try!

Sailing Wednesday evening from the Royal Northumberland Yacht Club, a friend and I crewed on a new boat to the club and were made very welcome by her friendly owners. It was a glorious evening to be out and we were meant to be racing but somehow we missed the start, and were so far behind that by the time we returned the finish mark had been collected in and everyone was already in the bar. Never mind boys the only way is up!

Thursday I hiked twelve miles for a cream scone (don’t ask) only to get to my destination and have a full English breakfast instead. And the rest of the week seems to have flow past in a blur. Tonight I have the option of going to the Yacht Club for and ABBA night (yes I’ve got my flares and a wig) or heading to Weardale for supper with other friends. Or then again I may do neither.

This is not how I saw my life unfolding, but maybe that’s true of all of us? I was happy (and probably quite complacent) in myself and my marriage until the bombshell of Chris’s illness hit us in 2007. Then followed a few years of denial…from us both, and then the reality of his deterioration and ultimately his untimely and horrible death. I honestly thought my life had ended too, I just could not envisage a future without him, the pain was unbearable. The fall out too. Chris was the centre of our family, the one we all depended on, and his death affected the family dynamics in a way we have never fully recovered from. Then there was the practical stuff to deal with…it was a never ending nightmare. So much has happened since then, I am certainly not the person I used to be.

Yet that’s not a bad thing. I’m very content, I don’t take life very seriously, I really don’t sweat the small stuff (or anything else for that matter) and I am happy in a way I have never been before. Every day is a gift. It is precious, our friends are precious and I certainly count my blessings.

Nothing is guaranteed. Enjoy every moment.

Now we are all assigned to our individual boats and skippers the real team development begins. Reading through the crew notes Wavy, our skipper, has sent to us, I wasn’t surprised at the order of “no jewellery,” I have heard the horror stories of rings catching on winches and fingers being “degloved” As we have up to 40t load on any individual winch these can be highly dangerous if not handled with care, just recently in training someone was taken to hospital with a crushed hand. Earrings too can be a menace, I hadn’t realised this until one of my sea survival courses. I jumped into the water and my lifevest went pop and blew up as it’s supposed to, fitting snugly around my neck and behind my head. Then I realised as I turned my head to look for the spray hood that the pointy bits on the backs of my earrings were scraping against the inflated vest. Probably not a good idea to give yourself a puncture…so earrings will be left at home unless I find some with safer fittings.

What did surprise me, in the recommended kit list, was “underwear not advised” UNLESS it was proven to be quick drying variety and most certainly not cotton. Now I have realised by now that most of these ocean going skippers don’t wear underpants…there can be no secrets on these boats! No, I haven’t (yet) been witness to it, but the subject has been a topic of conversation on a few occasions, with talk of “crotch rot” and “yachtie botty”. Well I’ll be trawling Amazon for sailing pants and if I can’t find any I’ll invent some…I have to get out of my bunk to put on my trousers, and I’m not standing there knickerless, not even for a scary skipper!

The other things to look forward to are salt water boils and mouldy hair (yes seriously). Thankfully there are no mirrors on board, so I won’t be able to see my roots growing in (mind you they probably will be nicely covered by the mould anyway…every cloud and all that). I won’t be able to see my eyebrows and facial hair growing in either. I should imagine by the time we get to Uruguay I’ll have a moustache to rival Waveys…in fact you may not be able to tell us apart.

Well, unless we pull down our trousers…he’s the one without the knickers.

Until now racing around the world in a relatively small capsule seemed something that would happen somehow and sometime to someone in the distant future. Nothing to worry about as it’s so far away and not real… But now we have a boat, a skipper and a crew and suddenly it’s hit me! Gulp! Team emails and correspondence are coming thick and fast, there’s so much to arrange, lots of work to do on the boat, the delivery trip from Gosport to London, the food to buy (can I smuggle enough fruit pastilles on board) and all the other ten million things…now time seems to be galloping at a great rate towards our departure date. Wow! I’m really going to do this…and at times during the day I remember and it suddenly hits me – the enourmity of what I’ve signed up for!

Occasionally I wish I was doing the whole thing, all eight legs, and at other times I think will I manage the four I’m doing? When I leave the boat in Cape Town will I be pleased to get off? or annoyed with myself that I’m not carrying on. I rejoin in Seattle in May for the race to Panama, then up the east coast of America (New York?) we don’t know yet. Then Leg 8 across the Atlantic and home to GB. I hope I can avoid injury and be fit enough mentally and physically to be an asset, there’s no room for passengers.

How on earth did this happen anyway? My hobby (or more accurately passion) is horses, I love eventing! Facebook has a lot to answer for. Friends from London say it was the posters on the tube that got to them, looking at the freedom of the ocean and adventure on their boring daily commute inspired them to think there’s more to life than the daily grind. But I love my job, I love the hills, Northumberland, the animals, my friends, last but not least my family. So going away for the full race of eleven/twelve months could not be an option, Ok, I’m doing half of it but still feel I’m missing out on the other half, yet I’m lucky as most of the crew are doing just one leg, although there’s no ‘just’ about it, each leg has its unique hazards and dangers and is a challenge in its own right.

One of the things we need to decide as a crew is our boat song. This will be played each time we leave port, we leave at 2 minute intervals and must have our own theme tune blasting out, something with not a long intro…we don’t want to have sailed round the corner away from the crowds before it gets going. Any sensible suggestions are welcome…so far I know what we DON’T want. Not Bee Gees ‘Staying Alive’ or ‘Tragedy’ ABBA ‘Rock Me’ Kaiser Chiefs ‘I predict a riot’ and definitely not ‘Lost at sea’, I can’t remember who sings that. Anyway, thinking caps on!

I’m not sure I have the answer to why I’m personally doing it. It’s a question I get asked on a daily basis. As a friend answered for me one day “Because horse riding isn’t dangerous enough”. If you know anything about me at all then you will probably know that over the years I’ve managed to fall off and break just about every bone in my body, some of them twice. I have metal rods in my spine and thigh, pins in my ankle and shoulder, and a piece of dead American in my left knee. The latter was put there by a surgeon in Newcastle who assured me a bone graft using a “dead American” would be a lot less painful than using a lump of my own hip bone…I often wonder who donated and if he/she is happy with his/her new ‘life’.

So to the best of my knowledge my motivation is the thrill of mastering a new sport, the people, yes, most definitely the people…the travel, the challenge, the danger, the adrenalin rush and the sheer challenge of it all. For others, well a lot of the above for sure. Some have never set foot on a yacht before, some are good sailors with qualifications, though it is still a huge learning curve even for the experienced.

Others, dare I say it? Ok I will. Others are possibly going through a ‘mid life crisis’. M feels his marriage isn’t on the best of footings and feels the need to escape for a year (well that will kill or cure!). And so far I have met more than a few who are in a similar situation. A has a high powered job in the city, he wants to get away from constant interruption and daily pressure, or at least to a different kind of pressure! Yangzi, a 28yr old Chinese girl who was on last training is from Shang Hai is an ambassador for China, the Chinese government are sponsoring a fair few of their people to do a Leg on one of the Chinese sponsored boats. Sailing is definitely the new black in China – they can’t get enough of it. If they’re all like Yangtze then we have serious competition. Though she has never sailed before and is quite petite she whirls around mentally and physically ahead of just about all of us. Christian, from Sweden, well he will be very happy as long as the victualler stocks the boat with as much Branson Pickle as possible. They don’t sell it in Sweden. Then there’s D, a multi millionaire businessman who is also a shark expert, he has swum with just about every make of shark, all without a cage. In fact he has this fantastic photo (one of many) of him and Jaws (a great white) holding hands and smiling at the camera.

And there are the stories of previous races. One highly respected consultant signed up to do the whole race but had to leave at Cape Town as he just couldn’t manage without his daily alcohol and was becoming quite ill. Another ‘circumnavigator’ went ashore after the first Leg to Uruguay and promptly ‘fell in love’ with a local girl and refused to get back on. He’s still there now. Yet another was firmly put ashore in South Africa – a Polish lady this time – because she refused to participate at all, and she was supposed to be going all the way…did she think it was a cruise? We have tax inspectors, hairdressers, at least two teenagers, an ‘entrepreneur’ (I always think Del Boy), a physiotherapist, vet, nurses, doctors, sailing instructors, business people and quite a few retirees, if that’s a word. I have another farmer in my crew, he’s a dairy farmer from NZ and will be doing Leg 8 with me. I should imagine we will bore everyone witless.

So much more but it’ll wait for another day, goodnight!

Well I’m home! Curled up on the sofa in front of a log fire and tea is cooking in he oven. Heaven!…and I’ve only been gone two weeks. Two very action packed weeks, I don’t think my feet have touched the ground since I arrived on the boat for Level 3 training. Such a lot has happened, I feel as if I’ve been away for months, anyway the most important event was Crew Selection yesterday. There will be a maximum of 22 crew on the boat per leg, 8 are doing the full circumnavigation, the rest doing 1 or more Legs. I’m currently doing 4, though may yet add another, in for a penny and all that…

The atmosphere was electric, as crew we were allowed to take one supporter with us, (mine was my friend Sally – she’ll go anywhere for a party) and what an amazing day they had too. I’m really excited to be on David’s boat. Wavy as he’s more generally known is a hot favourite to do well, he’s most definitely in it to win it, and our crew meeting yesterday afternoon was very inspirational. More on Wavy another day, my tea is nearly cooked. We had a fantastic night out with crew and supporters last night, so fantastic my legs went wobbly and wouldn’t work properly. We had a quieter night on the Friday, Sally and I visited Portsmouth Sailing Club (Sir Robins local) where we were made very welcome and treat like royalty…I even came away with the Commadores phone number “Call me anytime Susan, anytime at all” I do like these sailing people!

2019-2020 Clipper Race details published yesterday

Race Start, London
Fleet arrival 22 August
Activation window 24-30 August
Crew Changeover day – all Leg 1 Race Crew to register 28 August
Race Crew Party 30 August
Fleet to depart St. Katharine Docks, parade of sail 1 September
Race will start early on 2 September off Southend
The Clipper Race has organised official spectator boats for Race Crew and Race Crew Supporters to watch the departure and parade of sail on 1 September. Details on how to purchase tickets will be made available shortly.

Leg 1, the Atlantic Trade Winds Leg
Ports: London, a stopover – location TBC and Punta del Este
Two races
Race 1 Start London, UK 1 September 2019
Race 2 Start TBC
Total distance approximately 6,300nm
Total duration approximately 30-36 days at sea
Arrival Window into Punta del Este, Uruguay 14-16 October 2019

Leg 2, the South Atlantic Challenge Leg
Ports: Punta del Este and Cape Town
One race
Race 3 Start Punta del Este, Uruguay 23 October 2019
Distance 3,600nm
Duration 15-19 days at sea
Arrival Window into Cape Town, South Africa 7-11 November 2019

Leg 3, the Southern Ocean Leg
Ports: Cape Town and Fremantle
One race
Race 4 Start Cape Town, South Africa 17 November 2019
Distance 4,750nm
Duration 22-27 days at sea
Arrival Window into Fremantle, Australia 9-14 December 2019

Leg 4, the Australian Coast-to-Coast Leg
Ports: Fremantle and the Whitsundays
One race
Race 5 Start Fremantle, Australia 22 December 2019
Distance 3,400nm
Duration 18-21 days at sea
Arrival Window into the Whitsundays, Australia 9-12 January 2020

Leg 5, the Asia-Pacific Challenge Leg
Ports: The Whitsundays, Sanya, SE Asia and Zhuhai
Three races
Race 6 Start Whitsundays, Australia 18 January 2020
Arrival window Sanya, China 10-15 February 2020
Race 7 Start Sanya, China 21 February 2020
Arrival window SE Asia 25-26 February 2020
Race 8 Start SE Asia 28 February 2020
Arrival Window into Zhuhai, China 2-3 March 2020
Total distance approximately 5,600nm
Total duration approximately 30-37 days at sea

Leg 6, The Mighty Pacific Leg
Ports: Zhuhai, Qingdao and Seattle
Two races
Race 9 Start Zhuhai, China 9 March 2020
Arrival window 17-19 March 2020
Race 10 Start Qingdao, China 26 March 2020
Arrival Window into Seattle, USA 19-24 April 2020
Total distance 6,950nm
Total duration 32-39 days at sea

Leg 7, the USA Coast-to-Coast Leg
Ports: Seattle, Panama and East Coast USA
Two races
Race 11 Start from Seattle, USA 2 May 2020
Arrival window Panama 27 May – 1 June 2020
Race 12 Start from Panama 5 June 2020
Arrival Window into East Coast USA, estimated mid-June 2020
Total distance approximately 6,200nm
Total duration approximately 36-44 days at sea

Leg 8, the Atlantic Homecoming Leg

East Coast USA, Northern Europe and Race Finish London exact destination TBC

Two or three races

Race Start from East Coast USA, estimated late June 2020

Race Finish early August 2020

Race Finish, the Clipper 2019-20 Race will finish in London exact destination and date are currently being finalised and will be confirmed in the coming weeks.

I was looking forward to resting up on the days between finishing Level 3 training and Crew Allocation Day. Not a chance.

Absolutely. Not. A. Chance. Not with friends like mine.

After deep cleaning the boat on Monday morning and our crew lunch we said our goodbyes and instead of flying home this time I had brought the car as it wasn’t worth returning to Northumberland for just three days. We are allowed one friend/supporter to accompany us to the Allocation day I had no choice but to bring Sally, I was told very firmly she was coming with me and that she had everything sorted for our few days “off”.

So after collecting her from the airport (rather the worse for wear as she hates flying and had to dose up on flying juice), we caught the ferry over to the Isle of Wight to stay with a friend of hers in Cowes. Well, if Sally is mad, Sarah is even more bonkers! I had been looking forward to a lazy few days but absolutely no chance. Drink, party, hot tub, repeat.

They kept waking me up insisting I go for walks (like I really need the exercise?) they fed me prosseco when I would rather have had a nice cup of tea, they coerced me to sit in the hot tub into the early hours each night. My skin is so waterlogged it sloshes as I walk…or is that the alcohol?

I did manage to fit in quick visits to the relatives

Starting this blog is rather like untangling lines and sheets (ropes to you and I), there’s just so much happened in a short space of time.

Ok, day 1 then, that’s logical. This was a classroom based course on off shore safety. Having done two sea survival courses I wasn’t quite sure what I would get from this. What all of us got was terrified.

The Law of Sod states that if it can happen it will happen, and that’s just life. But add the ocean and the weather and heaven knows what else into the mix and it’s genuinely terrifying. We will look after our boat, regular checks and maintenance, but even so it will break, we will do our best to look after ourselves, but even so we will break. Apparently in the last Clipper Round the World Yacht Race there was an average of eight broken ribs per leg. And there’s eight legs, do the maths! That’s not counting the broken limbs, serious cuts, concussions, near drownings and poor Simon Speirs, who went overboard and did drown when his safety strop failed. There are other fatalities in previous races, and while Clipper make safety paramount the fact remains we are competitively racing NOT cruising, and as such both crew and boat are pushed to the limits.

So that’s just the crew…as for the yachts, two hit whales, one smashed the bow (front pointy bit) in, the other damaged the steering so badly they had to botch it up and head back to port. The rigging can fail in heavy seas, the keel could come off as in Cheeky Rafiki several years ago. All boats leak, they just do. Hourly bilge checks and emptying is the norm. The Clipper fleet is supposed to be 12, it’s 11 now as one boat was blown aground off Africa in the last race and although the crew were all rescued the boat was unable to be recovered in one piece.

So, on that note we started our weeks training. I presumed as there were around nineteen of us in the classroom we would be on one boat, but no we were split into two. Eight of us on a 70ft yacht which is brilliant from the learning point of view…so many jobs and nowhere to hide. And of course these are the real deal, not the training boats and they are different in lots of ways, more learning! Still, I thought, it can’t be any more of a boot camp than Levels 1 and 2. Wrong. This was torture on a whole NEW level.

Everything we did had to be done at racing speed, and everything that could go wrong went wrong. MOB drills still had to be done, it was blowing force 6/7 with big waves and as we all looked at each other waiting for a volunteer my mouth yet again engaged before my brain and I went over the side to rescue the dummy. The waves were big and kept hammering me into the hull but I had a hard hat on so no damage apart from a headache. Unfortunately no photos of my daring mission as everyone was far too busy looking out for me. Other stuff happened, far too much to list here…. I want my breakfast! But when it went right it was absolutely amazing, the speed is phenomenal, and we were nowhere near the boats potential. As a previous crew told me the adrenaline rush is so great that it sometimes ran down his leg…

Injuries this week? Not bad, Phil had suspected broken hand but was ok after a hospital X-ray. Tim has torn knee ligaments, hopefully they’ll mend quickly. Usual bumps and bruises, I have a fat knee where one of the crew (don’t remember who) lost his balance and landed on top me, I also managed to knock a front tooth loose when I fell onto the pulpit (the Titanic bit at the front of the boat) more a pet elephant moment than a Kate Winslet one. All of us have stiff and swollen fingers and yesterday were moving really badly, but we did manage to make it to the Indian Restaurant on the final evening and we had a ball!

Grannyonthelash….😂

It’s MAD! How am I going to describe all that’s happened/happening?

Limited time and no WiFi, I’ll hopefully resume blogs tomorrow… if I survive today! It’s tough, dangerous, but enormous fun, Short on crew (only one off to hospital so far) but then it’s more of challenge and we are proving we can do it…. not always well, but we are sailing this beast of a boat …Fast!

A good nights sleep courtesy of Lennie Hendry’s favourite chain hotel, though I doubt even he could afford to stay here that often! A lesson in booking ahead…wandering in at 11pm asking for a room is tantamount to covering yourself in pet food and going for a swim in a tank full of hungry sharks.

Well at least the bed was comfy, my last good sleep for five nights, the ‘beds’on board aren’t named coffin bunks for nothing.

Exciting! Though today we have an all day off shore safety course today (classroom based, unlike the sea survival course of which I accidentally managed to do two), and then tonight we spend our first night on the Clipper 70, the actual, racing boats! Now THATS exciting!

Up until now we have been on the Clipper 68’s, the training boats. There are differences with the layouts, both on deck and down below. At least on the 70’s we won’t be sleeping with wet sails, though I’m sure it will still be damp, hopefully I can grab a bottom bunk as condensation rains onto the top ones. The galley is different too, it’s set in the middle of the boat with seating either side. Apparently the change in design came about because of so many broken ribs and injuries as on the 68’s (which are the old race boats) there’s quite a large space in the seating area. When the boat heels over in rough seas it can be likened to living in a washing machine on a fast spin. Having been face planted into the hull while tucked up in my bunk during the last training session I’ve had a taste of that (literally) and I really can’t be doing with any more broken bones, I’ve really had more than my fair share thanks to my other hobby/passion.

Oh well, I decided I wouldn’t have breakfast due to exorbitant prices, I need another coffee or two (no biscuits I see, or rather don’t see). The USB port doesn’t work either…that’s two marks deducted!

What a beautiful day. Riding through the heather on the ‘hill’ as we call it, this afternoon it suddenly struck me that I’m mad. Ok, friends and others may have suspected it for years…but the “mad” I’m actually referring to is mad that I want to swap farming for sailing…albeit temporarily.

Jim (my horse and acting shepherding “pony”) was bouncy and full of the joys, the curlews and the skylarks noisily going about their business, butterflies, not a cloud in the sky and best of all lots of proud new mums with very cute lambs at foot. All good in the world and no stress.

And tomorrow I set off on the long drive down to Gosport on the Solent. Now that in itself is stressful, especially since indicators went out of fashion.

Then six days of intensive training in the English Channel with a bunch of strangers. Actually I lie, one of them isn’t a stranger, Mad Maria, a Spanish lady I know. We did our first weeks training together and we only stopped laughing to pass out from exhaustion. She’s redoing her Level 3 (oh god it must be hard if she’s having to redo it!). But at least I know there’s at least one other female on the boat. Sailing seems a predominately male sport (or at least the Clipper version is) and while I readily admit to enjoying (most) male company, it is nice to have other females on board.

Mm..speaking of the opposite sex, I’m supposed to be meeting an old boyfriend for a drink tomorrow night in Portsmouth. We haven’t seen each other since we met in Cowes as teenagers in 1976… wonder if he’s changed?

Oh and update… Yesterday’s tiny lamb with the smelly tarry bottom is clean, happy and bouncing today… life is good 😄