Decision Day, Saturday 14th Jan

Well there we were 350 miles behind, no wind and no chance of reaching Singapore in time let alone Batan. At 6am shift change a discussion was had between 7 of us around the wheel. Do we go North and try to keep sailing or put the engine on and motor and then face the consequences? The race had already been cut short and motoring the last stage had been sanctioned but we were 10 days away from there. I called skipper and after the customary grumpy early morning verbal blasting he calmed down enough to have a constructive discussion. As you may have read this was of course a crew decision, letting the skipper off the hook.

The scenery became more interesting after that with islands and fishing boats to see. Yorkshire and Finland were instructed to wait for us so that we could travel together over the areas where there had been instances of piracy. Eventually after 3 days motoring we met up. Considering Finland had waited 3 days and Yorkshire 2 and a bit they were surprisingly good about it. We all rafted up together, took on their spare fuel and had a party with punch and beer which miraculously appeared from somewhere. There was some jumping and diving from the spinnaker pole for entertainment before we started the long and boring "follow my leader" convoy across the sea to Batan.

Five days later and we were all nearly out of fuel so we called in at Kota Kinabalu in Malaysia to refuel. Luckily because they were waiting for a fuel delivery we were allowed ashore which none of the previous teams had been. We had beer, food and showers in the afternoon and a hearty evening meal it was great. Unfortunately the fuel delivery arrived and we set off motoring again at 7.30pm. Five more days of motoring and it was getting very tedious especially as it rained continuously until we reached Batan.
Batan was a holiday stopover to allow the the crew to let off steam before we got to the posh Keppel marina in Singapore who are important Clipper race sponsors. We duly partied hard in the bars and did as many boat jobs as we could to complete the leg. Four of us shared a villa in the grounds of the hotel and began our fattening up process whereby we seemed to consume a third of our body weight in food and drink every day to compensate for the boat food.

Saturday all the boats sailed to Singapore for the award ceremony and a weeks stopover in the city. Paul, Keith and me stayed in a 5 star hotel on Sentosa Island. Keith had his wife Mary and granddaughter Leiha over so it was lovely to spend some time with them and gave me an excuse to go to Univsal Studios theme park with Leiha. Karen Murray and I did all the sights together, including Singapore sling (s) in the Long Bar at Raffles, visiting little India, China Town plus lots of other places. Most visits involved lots of food and drink. We also went to a Burns supper in our kilts and I was lucky enough to be chosen to go to a cocktail party at the British High Commissioner's house wearing, yes you guessed it, my kilt! It's fantastic I'll never be stuck for an outfit again.
Baz's sister, who lives in Singapore, had organised for us to do dragon boat racing with the British team. After some training we challenged Gold Coast to a race and yes dear fans WE BEAT THEM!!!! By a half boat length in the closing seconds of the race. Maybe this should be the preferred mode of transport for the Edinburgh team.
In the final few days we had some discussions with Clipper and our Skipper to try and understand our poor performance in the race. Not sure what will happen now but there will be some changes to haggis and neaps watches and some role changes so watch this space and see how it goes.
Sorry for the late publishing of this blog but didn't get chance to do it before we left for China.....too much enjoying myself! Thanks for the ongoing support, more from China soon.