New Zealand was a great place, we had a warm reception and the people were very friendly. Just out of interest the bar/restaurant on the marina was owned by the drummer from AC DC and he turned out in one of his 25 super cars everyday, Ferraris and lambougini etc interesting to find out where people end up. It was lovely to see mum and dad who had travelled via hong kong to see me, it was a slightly longer stop over than we have had before, typical that Mandy was not there for it. I managed to have 2 full days off and the first day visited Fiona an old friend from England who now lives in the beautiful countryside with her family, it was good to catch up and we had a restful afternoon with some excellent home cooking. The following day we went we went to some thermal sulfurous hot springs, we took a helicopter ride over the volcanoes and landed at hells hole, a mud pool and sulferous landscape, fantastic to see and we were the only people there which made it all the more spectacular.
Back to the sailing! Yes the winds were against us again and we had to beat our way up the side of New Zealand, it was beautiful scenery with all the mountains and islands but extremely slow progress, it seemed to take an age to get round the headlands and set a straight course to gold coast.
Paul a good friend of mine on the boat has developed a hernia, so was out of the shift system for the whole race, and Karen injured her shoulder so we were a little short staffed on our watch (Paul was operated on within 24 hours of arrival in Southport and due to key hole surgery should be all right to sail with us on Christmas eve!)
Barry ( baz) on the other shift bought a fishing reel in Tauranga and we attached it to the back of the boat, trawling a squid lure with a bit of salami on. There was much excitement and shouts when an 8 pound blue fin tuna was landed, a magnificent fish. We gutted it and cut it into steaks feeding all 17 of us, fresh tuna for lunch a very welcome change.
The whole clipper race is supposed to follow the winds round the world and be a downwind race, so far we have had very little of this type of sailing, the weather patterns have been abnormal for the time of year. However for once we did put up the kite and sailed with it for nearly 2 days. I got up for the 6 am shift and went straight onto the helm which is usual, we had the spinnaker flying shy (that's not out the front but down the side) down the port side of the boat, the wind was picking up and at times it was hard to stop the boat rounding up to wind. By 6.30am an extra strong gust blew and the boat really rounded up, with the spinnaker up the more she rounds up the more powerful the sails become, within a flash the boat was overpowered, I could not control the wheel and the toe rail dipper into the water. Karen jumped onto the wheel to help but even with full lock on the boat would not come round, it went further and further over until the boom was dragging in the water, skip appeared at the hatch "we're going to breach" (lie flat in the water) there was nothing that could be done, either something had to break or the wind drop a little, allowing the boat to be brought under control, the latter happened and the boat righted itself with a huge adrenaline rush I took some seriously deep breaths and carried on helming!!
3 days before we arrived at gold coast I was on th 10pm until 2 am shift, it was a totally clear night, with all the stars and planets on clear view, we had no idea but someone said what is happening to the moon, over the next hour we watched as there was a total eclipse, it gradually covered over and the moon glowed orange before reappearing white on the other side. Another amazing memory.
After the start of the races the boats seem to disperse across the ocean and we very rarely see any other yachts sometimes until we reach port. This time we were really lucky and on the last morning of the race a yacht could be seen behind us! Yes, for once we were not 10th. New York, with full spinnaker up was clearly gaining, 3 miles and closing. The last 2 hours were really exciting, it felt like we were racing for the first time, we held them off and at the finish line a second yacht Geralton could be seen behind new York, we waited outside the Marina for the other 2 boats to put their sails down and come in together with us at the front! Only 7th was a great feeling for all the crew. Jean and Keith and Catriona were there in team shirts to welcome us in team shirts and the gold coast yacht club gave us a warm reception, the boats are all lined up outside and awaiting being lifted out for cleaning.....more blog coming soon but Happy Christmas if it's not before then!
Thursday, December 22, 2011
Tuesday, December 13, 2011
Movember
One of my good friends, James from the Welcome to Yorkshire boat, grew a moustache for Movember. This originates in Australia and raises money during the month of November every year when guys grow moustaches in aid of testicular and prostate cancer. At the prize giving ceremony in Tauranga there was an auction where you could bid to be the person to shave off the facial hair. I convinced James to go on the stage and my bid won the honour of being able to wet shave his moustache off. Our pictures made us celebrities at the crew briefing. Great fun in a good cause.
Saturday, December 10, 2011
Leg 4 Geraldton to Tauranga NZ
Well I think you can safely say that I got what I signed up for on this leg! The storms came and they were huge. However, let me start at the beginning. The race start. Geraldton was a small town but like so many places Scotsmen come out of the woodwork when the purple beastie sails in! It seems wherever you are you can find someone in a kilt who plays the bagpipes, and Geraldton was no exception except they found 6 piper and a drummer!
At race start I was lucky enough to be helming round the two marker buoys near the coast in front of the marina, it was like dinghy sailing, tacking for position and racing close to the other boats. Unfortunately that's where the similarity ends, tacking one of these huge boats is slightly more complicated to say the least and much to my dismay some of our new crew members were not up to speed with the drill! I called the tack to cut in front of Yorkshire and Qingdao which would have given us a mid fleet position but as I shouted "ready to tack" the person bringing the back stay back was too slow and instead of turning in front of the oncoming boats and making them bear away I had to bear away myself and go behind them so very frustrating. The last mark was a gybe right in front of the crowd on the breakwater (most importantly Mandy), we were in 10th position but thankfully the gybe was brilliant and apparently the crowd were impressed and gave us a huge cheer to send us on our way.
At the start of day two the storms hit and for the next two weeks we had mega strong winds or full storms almost constantly. This was exactly what I had signed up for, the waves were huge, literally the size of houses and breaking on the top like you see those huge rollers on the beach. The boat performed amazingly, a wave would come from the side and you would see it coming and think it was going to absolutely swamp us but the boat would just ride up the side of it, wobble a bit and then slide down the other side. Incredible.
As we say on board..There's no such thing as bad weather just an inappropriate sail plan.....and for 16 hours we most certainly were inappropriate! The foresail halyard (the rope holding the sail up) broke and we had to take the foresail down. If you have no foresail you are unable to put reefs in the mainsail to make it smaller and reduce the size for the strong winds. The wind was blowing 50 knots (force 10) and much too windy to put up another foresail so unable to reef the main we sailed for 16 hours with a full mainsail. In these conditions the boat is really difficult to handle and it rounds up into the wind. On one of our 4 hour shifts during this period it took 2 of us to steer the boat, Keith on the wheel and every time it rounded up there was me hanging on and trying to force the wheel back. All this in the howling wind with huge waves breaking over you. Looking back it was great but I can still remember we were very grateful to finish our shift and pass the wrestling on to someone else.
I cannot begin to explain the sea state in the storms, it was like something you see on the films but worse. As I said before the waves were massive but in between the waves the sea was all surf and froth with spray being taken off the tops of the waves and blown into the air. Sometimes we had torrential rain, sometimes hail storms, thunder and lightening, we got so so wet.
On a different day we were up at the front changing the head sail to a smaller one. This involves carrying the sail from the sleeping area below, through the saloon, up the steps near the wheel and then the length of the boat to the front, quite an exercise in stormy weather, as you heave the sail along the deck the boat is pitching and rolling. The sail which is up has to be lowered and unhanked off the forestay and the new one attached. Paul Rayner is the person on our watch who usually hanks the sail on as he is the tallest, I was number 2 feeding the sail to him and Czaba was behind me feeding more sail forward. The sea was massive and we were pitching up and down with waves crashing over the bow. Then suddenly we were airbourne, my feet were 6 feet off the deck and I was freefalling towards the deck, an unbelievable feeling. Fortunately for for me (unfortunately for Czaba) my landing was cushioned by the sail and Czaba (his is ok, I weigh less than I did!). I staggered to my feet and looked for Paul who had been standing on the front rail, he was nowhere to be seen! I reached around the front of the sail and felt his life jacket and managed to haul him back onto the boat. We gave each other a pat and just burst out laughing, more out of shock than anything else I think.
A few minutes later a huge wave broke over us and with a loud bang my life jacket inflated automatically causing more hilarity, just another day at the office as Gordon would say.
As those of you following the Race Viewer will know we won the speed trial and were fastest between two imaginary lines on the chart. This was great for morale, it's the only thing we've ever won! I can't actually say we were really trying, it was just during one of the massive storms and we were hanging on for dear life.
We travelled very fast along the south coast of Australia and as a fleet we were making good progress, in fact the arrival window was brought forward. However this was a false hope as we when we reached NZ it all went wrong. More storms but this time wind in the wrong direction. It got very hairy and morale was low as we had made so much time up only to loose it all in the last 250 miles. The wind was right on the nose and we were crashing and banging through the waves, living conditions were very difficult, sleep was impossible and we were all just so desperate to get there. Getting dressed was such a trial too and as I said to my crew mate Alex you wouldn't wish it on your worst enemy. Having been to the award ceremony last night the local harbour master said that they had not experienced storms like that for many years so I think we were just unlucky.
At one point in the race we were 5th but a bad decision to go out to sea off the East Cape and the fact that we broke reef line number 3 on the mainsail and ripped the staysail along a seam meant that we were unable to sail at the correct angle to the wind and we dropped to 8th. Arrival at port was 3 or 4am and 5am by the time we tied up on the pontoon, a very chilly Mum and Dad were there to greet us which was lovely. A quick beer (5am!) and then off to the hotel for breakfast and a shower before we went back to the boat for 9.30 to start the jobs.
The stopover was a whole week with 2 full days off (poor Mandy, the only stopover she hasn't been to and we get time off!!!) I had a great time with Mum and Dad, on Wednesday we went to Hamilton to visit my very good friend Fiona and her husband Scott and children Islay and Faye. they live in a beautiful rural location and have a wonderful eco house, a well tended garden and a veg plot, not to mention two jersey cows, chickens and a dog! Fiona has visited us many times at home so it was lovely to see where she lives and have a home cooked meal and wine with them all.
Thursday we went to Rotorua to see the mud pools and sulphur volcanic geothermal fields. We had a helicopter flight up around the volacno and the 5 lakes before landing at Hells Gate, a very active (smelly) geothermal park. It was deserted apart from us and the pilot so we had a lovely walk around and then back in the helicopter to be flown down to the lakeside landing area. An amazing experience and one which we were so glad we had done.
So tomorrow (Sunday 4th December) we are off again, a short trip (I hope) to the Gold Coast where the boat will be lifetd out and antifouled. Mandy, Penny, James, Jean and Keith are visiting at various times so I am really looking forward to that.
Enjoy the Christmas preparations and think of me trying to cook a full christmas dinner for 12 on two rings with the cooker at 45 degrees, not sure when to put the turkey in, what do you think?
Thanks everyone for your support, for your cards and emails, it means so much to me to know you are thinking of me.
At race start I was lucky enough to be helming round the two marker buoys near the coast in front of the marina, it was like dinghy sailing, tacking for position and racing close to the other boats. Unfortunately that's where the similarity ends, tacking one of these huge boats is slightly more complicated to say the least and much to my dismay some of our new crew members were not up to speed with the drill! I called the tack to cut in front of Yorkshire and Qingdao which would have given us a mid fleet position but as I shouted "ready to tack" the person bringing the back stay back was too slow and instead of turning in front of the oncoming boats and making them bear away I had to bear away myself and go behind them so very frustrating. The last mark was a gybe right in front of the crowd on the breakwater (most importantly Mandy), we were in 10th position but thankfully the gybe was brilliant and apparently the crowd were impressed and gave us a huge cheer to send us on our way.
At the start of day two the storms hit and for the next two weeks we had mega strong winds or full storms almost constantly. This was exactly what I had signed up for, the waves were huge, literally the size of houses and breaking on the top like you see those huge rollers on the beach. The boat performed amazingly, a wave would come from the side and you would see it coming and think it was going to absolutely swamp us but the boat would just ride up the side of it, wobble a bit and then slide down the other side. Incredible.
As we say on board..There's no such thing as bad weather just an inappropriate sail plan.....and for 16 hours we most certainly were inappropriate! The foresail halyard (the rope holding the sail up) broke and we had to take the foresail down. If you have no foresail you are unable to put reefs in the mainsail to make it smaller and reduce the size for the strong winds. The wind was blowing 50 knots (force 10) and much too windy to put up another foresail so unable to reef the main we sailed for 16 hours with a full mainsail. In these conditions the boat is really difficult to handle and it rounds up into the wind. On one of our 4 hour shifts during this period it took 2 of us to steer the boat, Keith on the wheel and every time it rounded up there was me hanging on and trying to force the wheel back. All this in the howling wind with huge waves breaking over you. Looking back it was great but I can still remember we were very grateful to finish our shift and pass the wrestling on to someone else.
I cannot begin to explain the sea state in the storms, it was like something you see on the films but worse. As I said before the waves were massive but in between the waves the sea was all surf and froth with spray being taken off the tops of the waves and blown into the air. Sometimes we had torrential rain, sometimes hail storms, thunder and lightening, we got so so wet.
On a different day we were up at the front changing the head sail to a smaller one. This involves carrying the sail from the sleeping area below, through the saloon, up the steps near the wheel and then the length of the boat to the front, quite an exercise in stormy weather, as you heave the sail along the deck the boat is pitching and rolling. The sail which is up has to be lowered and unhanked off the forestay and the new one attached. Paul Rayner is the person on our watch who usually hanks the sail on as he is the tallest, I was number 2 feeding the sail to him and Czaba was behind me feeding more sail forward. The sea was massive and we were pitching up and down with waves crashing over the bow. Then suddenly we were airbourne, my feet were 6 feet off the deck and I was freefalling towards the deck, an unbelievable feeling. Fortunately for for me (unfortunately for Czaba) my landing was cushioned by the sail and Czaba (his is ok, I weigh less than I did!). I staggered to my feet and looked for Paul who had been standing on the front rail, he was nowhere to be seen! I reached around the front of the sail and felt his life jacket and managed to haul him back onto the boat. We gave each other a pat and just burst out laughing, more out of shock than anything else I think.
A few minutes later a huge wave broke over us and with a loud bang my life jacket inflated automatically causing more hilarity, just another day at the office as Gordon would say.
As those of you following the Race Viewer will know we won the speed trial and were fastest between two imaginary lines on the chart. This was great for morale, it's the only thing we've ever won! I can't actually say we were really trying, it was just during one of the massive storms and we were hanging on for dear life.
We travelled very fast along the south coast of Australia and as a fleet we were making good progress, in fact the arrival window was brought forward. However this was a false hope as we when we reached NZ it all went wrong. More storms but this time wind in the wrong direction. It got very hairy and morale was low as we had made so much time up only to loose it all in the last 250 miles. The wind was right on the nose and we were crashing and banging through the waves, living conditions were very difficult, sleep was impossible and we were all just so desperate to get there. Getting dressed was such a trial too and as I said to my crew mate Alex you wouldn't wish it on your worst enemy. Having been to the award ceremony last night the local harbour master said that they had not experienced storms like that for many years so I think we were just unlucky.
At one point in the race we were 5th but a bad decision to go out to sea off the East Cape and the fact that we broke reef line number 3 on the mainsail and ripped the staysail along a seam meant that we were unable to sail at the correct angle to the wind and we dropped to 8th. Arrival at port was 3 or 4am and 5am by the time we tied up on the pontoon, a very chilly Mum and Dad were there to greet us which was lovely. A quick beer (5am!) and then off to the hotel for breakfast and a shower before we went back to the boat for 9.30 to start the jobs.
The stopover was a whole week with 2 full days off (poor Mandy, the only stopover she hasn't been to and we get time off!!!) I had a great time with Mum and Dad, on Wednesday we went to Hamilton to visit my very good friend Fiona and her husband Scott and children Islay and Faye. they live in a beautiful rural location and have a wonderful eco house, a well tended garden and a veg plot, not to mention two jersey cows, chickens and a dog! Fiona has visited us many times at home so it was lovely to see where she lives and have a home cooked meal and wine with them all.
Thursday we went to Rotorua to see the mud pools and sulphur volcanic geothermal fields. We had a helicopter flight up around the volacno and the 5 lakes before landing at Hells Gate, a very active (smelly) geothermal park. It was deserted apart from us and the pilot so we had a lovely walk around and then back in the helicopter to be flown down to the lakeside landing area. An amazing experience and one which we were so glad we had done.
So tomorrow (Sunday 4th December) we are off again, a short trip (I hope) to the Gold Coast where the boat will be lifetd out and antifouled. Mandy, Penny, James, Jean and Keith are visiting at various times so I am really looking forward to that.
Enjoy the Christmas preparations and think of me trying to cook a full christmas dinner for 12 on two rings with the cooker at 45 degrees, not sure when to put the turkey in, what do you think?
Thanks everyone for your support, for your cards and emails, it means so much to me to know you are thinking of me.
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