Panama To New York

Panama Canal

Panama Old and New

First Lock

The system for the canal is quite peculiar all boats and ships have to pay in advance, no credit cards and no definite transit times, so there is a lot of waiting about for all vessels. We knew we had a few days so it was usual boat jobs the first day, however the President had died so it was a day of morning and there was no alcohol being sold, what bad timing for a clipper race to end . We did manage to find a steak house that allowed wine to be drunk out of plastic cups so no one could tell. More boat jobs the next morning then 9 of us went down to the Canal museum which is by the first lock. Fantastic to see the lock so close with huge container ships going through, and giving us an idea of what we were to expect the next day. We visited the old town of Panama which was a mixture of very old decrepid buildings rather like Cuba and recently renovated smart buildings next door. People living doors open onto the street but seemed to be a lot of police or security with guns. We found a really good restaurant and had a set 11 course meal and nice wine. Next morning was a 4.30 start as we had a start time from the marina at 6 to pick up our pilot at 7 out in the mouth of the bay leading to the canal. Everything is very fluid, it is compulsory to have a pilot on every boat, but he can arrive at any time and if his shift finishes and you are half way through the canal system he just leaves and you have to wait until the next day for a new one to arrive. There are 3 locks on the Pacific side and then a huge lake system with passage buoys throughout with rain forest all around the shores leading to the 4 locks on the Atlantic side. We met up with 2 other clipper boats and rafted together to go through the locks. It was fascinating the mule men threw us lines and pulled our lines up the side of the lock then walked us into position so other boasts could come in behind us or we were behind them.  Once tied off the water was let in and we rose up, all on web cam , to the next lock level and so on. It was a funny feeling as the first lock gates closed behind us and that was the end of the Pacific and that side of the world. We have spent so much of the race over that side of the world and it really felt like we were on our home run, the transit through to the home side of the world and civilisation as we know it. A quick flit up to New York a mere Atlantic crossing then Ireland which has got to be near home. Yet we all wait for our 2 week summer holiday and we still had 9 weeks to go.  The locks on the Atlantic side were special as we had a Japanese war ship in the canal with us. We had lost one of the three clipper boats as the pilot had run out of time so there were just 2 of us and this huge ship behind us . I asked a question about the ship to our pilot and he did not know the answer so I asked him to phone a friend, he got on the radio to the pilot on the bridge of the war ship and a whole conversation unfolded , it appeared they were off to New York for the festival and we were invited on board to swap photographs when we got there.

Our Travelling Companions

Goodbye Pacific

The Canal

The marina at the far end was very small and had one bar / restaurant , can you imagine 10 clipper boats 15 to 20 on each, they could not cope. The second night they ran out of beer and had to close early, this small peaceful marina who usually deal with transit yacht did not know what had hit them. Clipper's problem was one of the boats had a broken gear box and parts were expected to arrive any day, of corse they didn't and someone flew out with one in their suitcase but this all took about 4 days and we were on stand by to leave every 6 hours. Luckily after a further delay a few of us off different boats went to the 3rd most dangerous city in the world....Colon (great name too). We went to a very basic hotel but it had a pool and was gated so we were safe and it was so much better than sleeping on the boat!

Container ship in Canal...inches to spare either side

Last Lock, with a Japanese Warship

Eventually we were given the ok to set sail with the other boat and gear box to follow shortly afterwards . The plan was always to motor for approximately 50 miles to where there was more wind. We set sail at 6.30 pm and motored through out the night and the next day and did the  Le Mans start just before night fall at least we were nearer to our destination. Yes I was sick again! not bad but all that waiting on land I had lost my sea legs. Mainly as I was on mother watch and we were crashing into the waves with Y1 flying.

Me sitting on the Rail.....we tried so hard

It all sounds very glamorous sailing up the side of Jamaica and up through the Caribbean islands and round the tip of Cuba but it is not, it is nice and hot but very sweaty below decks and you see nothing but sea sea and more sea, we did not really see land! The run soon changed to spinnakers and we learned a lot from Flav peeling them from light to medium and back again. The big decision was which way to go round a particular island , the fleet had gone west and we decided to go into stealth and go east . This proved to be a blinder as you all know as we came out of stealth in 1st place . All the other boats were rooting for us and we had loads of mails, including one from the skipper of Gold Coast, congratulating us. We fought really hard sitting on the rail day and night, moving ballast around the boat everything we could to stay in front . However this Yacht racing is as much about luck as effort (except Gold Coast) we drove into various wind holes or light wind areas and as much as we tried (and we did, we changed sail,s put wind seekers up, trimmed trimmed and trimmed again) we watched as boat after boat who were further west over took us. The rest is history we came 5th and were all so disappointed not to be on the podium, third would have done. Yes I know one of my favourite expressions is if you come second you have lost but I think this race has changed me!! Two days from the finish line while I was watch leader , we just pushed too hard Flav was on deck as he always is and it was just getting dark, we had the mid weight kite up and the skies were darkening behind us. I had taken over from Lynn on the helm and the wind blew a huge gust the boat rounded up and I managed to control it but then off it went again this time the boat went right over, the sheet was released and the spinnaker flew free, the boat came up and they started to sheet in. The wind was far too powerful and the spinnaker ripped into two pieces , also ripping the foot and tape off the side , a real mess!!! Yes I was at the helm and felt dreadful it would have happened to anyone as the crew said )along with calling me Shredder) !! Just a bad day, but no one was hurt which was the main thing. All efforts were made to keep our place right up to the finnish line however you could see the disappointment on Flav's face especially as he had had little or no sleep for days. The finish was about 50 miles outside the entrance to the Hudson there was no checkered tape or yellow ribbon just more sea. A little toast of whisky was had to celebrate and then we took down the sails and motored in towards the magnificent sky line of New Jersey and Manhattan. It was great to come in with the rest of the boats and 5 behind us, our best result yet.

Coming up for air - mother watch

Flav

Me and James before the Central Park Run

Five days in the posh Hyatt with magnificent view of the Statue of Liberty and the New York sky line with many late nights eating and drinking before Mandy and Penny arrived and I moved across to the New York side. Mandy had arranged a loft apartment down town which worked out really well and allowed us to do the compulsory shopping we all have to do in New York. On the Thursday before Mandy arrived on the Saturday there was a 6K run organised for Great Britain Day and the Jubilee weekend, 6K I thought easy, but having only walked 68 feet up the boat for the last year I was totally out of condition. Running in a kilt did not help and Central Park has quite a few hills. I managed it with out stopping but my legs suffered for days afterwards !  One more day on dry land then off again for a quick tip up to Halifax. Our new skipper Piers has changed a few things around such as watch systems and hot bunking. Lets see how we do. Next stop Halifax , home run here we come.

Girder from World Trade Centre outside Hotel In New Jersey

Finishing in New York

     

Panama

Panama.

It's been a tough leg

So that was that, we had been 5th or 6th one day then we drove into a wind hole , had 24 hours of sitting around doing 1.5 knots got up the next morning we were in 10th. We could see one boat in the distance and spent the next 2 days chasing it. As mentioned before if the breeze is up the boat goes fast if there is light airs we are dead in the water. After day 12 or so our paths crossed with Derry which was quite funny 2000 miles and they came at us from the starboard side full spinica up and had to give way to us

passing close to Derry

There were a number of gates at which the race could be cancelled at and we knew the race was going to be shortened but unfortunately when we had the mail confirming it we had no time to catch anyone up we were all very disappointed because we had been doing so well but also we wanted to do well for Flav he had tried so hard and it would have shown the world it was not the crew but the skipper that gives us the bad results. So who is it?

Our "Italian" noticeboard by Baz

Have to see on the next leg to New York. Race over and the long motor to Panama in the stifling heat 1200 miles about 10 days. We sailed a bit if the wind picked up and was in the right direction mostly to save fuel. Keith was hoping we were going to have to refuel in Costa Rica . We did actually meet Derry and give them some of our fuel as they were running low. Shifts were split so we either did a 2 hour watch at night or one 4 hour one if we had 2 shifts that night , this gave us more rest but it was so hot it was hard to sleep, some people took to sleeping on deck on the sail bags. The wildlife was great, lots of turtles , we saw at least 3 more with birds standing on their backs.

Bird catching a ride on a turtle

We saw a marlin jump 3 times in front of the boat and something you would not believe , manta rays jumping, at first we thought dolphins must be tossing them in the air but there were none around and it was on 3 separate occasions . There were so many dolphins at one point they must have covered a square mile , around the boat yet still jumping and splashing around almost on the horizon. Day shifts were taken up with boat jobs, we had a fire practice with the fire hose out, we did two mornings when we practiced the Le Mans start , main sail up then all run to our positions and hoist the 2 fore sails as quick as possible . I was on the coffee grinder and in that heat doing it 3 times in a row took some effort, we managed by fine tuning on the second day to get it down to 1 minute 10 seconds. Have to see how we do at the next race start. The rest of the time was relaxing or trying to find shade, the talk on board between the RTW crew is very much of race finnish and going home. There is a real feeling that once we pass through the Panama canal and say goodbye to this side of the world we are entering home waters . A 2 week race to New York then the party leg as we call it . The last leg only has about 24 days sailing in it. 3 days to Halifax the 2 weeks ish across to Derry a quick flick round Scotland to Holland then home.
The last day motoring into Panama was great we saw so many pelicans dolphins again, 2 sharks , but the best bit was we had the line out and caught a reasonable tuna which I gutted and Flav was busy filleting to make sushi when the line went again and we had a 4ft, 12 lb mahi mahi on, it stopped out line and I had a real effort to wind it in made more exciting by the fact dolphins were all splashing around and Baz was shouting shark shark all the time. The fish was filleted and we had enough for lunch and tea much to Pauls disgust as we were going to have egg mayo sandwiches and he had to cook the fish. It tasted so good only an hour or two out of the sea so as fresh as it could be.

Mahi Mahi and Me

Tuna

We arrived at the marina in Panama at 6.30 pm and went to the hotel for a good shower!

Panama Hotel

South Pacific!

What a difference a Flav makes. Well I suppose it helps that we have clear blue sky some days not a cloud in sight. The boat is flat just the steady rock from side to side as we sail in the calm South Pacific. The mood on boat is full of the joys of spring, optimistic and fired up under our new leader. Well how is he different? To be fair we needed a change and so he had a good chance anyway. He started with a safety brief and before the start we had a meeting to show us the route he wanted to take what to expect etc . The race start was fantastic we were only metres away from the other boats and because we were on the right tack others had to give way to us as we barged our way through the fleet to cross the line first or we thought we did unfortunately us and one other boat allegedly crossed the line too early and had to go back round the pin end boys then over the line again. Never the less it was really exciting and to sail back under the Golden Gate Bridge and back out to sea was fantastic. Mandy tells me that the crowd on the shore were going wild!

The Crowd!

Race Start

Race Start

The first night we poled out the yankee 2 until the early morning when we put up the medium weight kite (MW) , yes at last down wind sailing , this is what we were told most of the race would be like. Day 2 and we had a wrap, that is the spinica wraps itself around the fore stay or if unlucky both fore stays. We were so impressed as Flav took control of the situation and we gybed and headed port and starboard until the wrap came undone. Next evolution was to peel the spinica most of us had never done this,basically you have two spinicas up at the same time one in front of the other hen you take down the one you don't want. That way you do not loose speed. Day 4 we have a serious wrap in the night this one is round both stays and a halliard . What a mess it would not come down . Flav was up the mast hanging upside down swinging around like a monkey between stays for about 2 hours , he came down exhausted having unwrapped some of it. Baz and I spent the rest of our shift untangling it from the bottom. At shift change we were sent to bed by Flav even though we wanted to carry on. Apparently he went up the mast again for a further few hours. When we came on shift it was still in a mess back to it on the for deck unwrapping it from the bottom and Flav had another go up the mast in day light. For no apparent reason one last turn and it fell to deck. We have had 3 wraps and the kits have come down with no more than a few pin prick holes and a few minor snags to repair we have been so lucky. However I did ask the question what is the point in having in having a safety belt in the car and not wearing it. We have an anti-wrap net on board but Flav was not used to them or was not fond of using it. A bit of persuasion and we are now using it and up until now we have had no more wraps. The only problem is we were doing well in the table but lost considerable time , the main one took 24 hours to undo. So why else is Flav good , a list, some you may think are peculiar to comment on , he is always on deck , he runs every evolution, ( easy for the watch leaders ) he congratulates us ,he is positive, he makes drinks, swept the ghetto floor, apologises when he thinks something or a decision is his fault. Basically he has everyone behind him and the team want to do well as much for him as for ourselves. If anything he is too much of a training skipper or a mate as that is what he is used to doing, however that is no bad thing as the kites have hardly been out of the bags so far on this trip so we could all do with the lesson. Even Keith is right behind him, need I say more?
So what is life like on this leg? Well as I sit here writing I am dripping in sweat, it is bright blue sky very little wind and we have the light weight kite flying. This requires far more work than the white sail as we need someone to helm someone to stand and time, holding a rope pulling in as a third person grinds on the coffee grinder. The art is for the timer to watch the edge of the spinica and release the sheet until the sail folds at the edge then he says grind and the grinder winches in a bit of sheet until it unfolds this happens continuously and gives the trimmer a bad neck as they are permanently looking up. We rotate every 30 minutes. We are also
jibing quite a lot and this process takes about 20 to 30 mins and involves erecting a new pole (quite heavy) and taking down the other one. So we have been doing this for 2 weeks with the odd day when the wind is so light we have to put up the wind seeker , a light weight head sail like a yankee.
The food has been good , the fresh food lasted a week or so and the new space food is better than the old stuff. As you can all see from the race viewer we are having a variety of success, at the moment not
good in 9th. basically if the breeze gets up we go fast but in light winds we just die in the water. Not sure if our boat is heavier or what but that seems to be the situation. We are all trying really hard even in this
heat, Flav is all over us trim trim trim, re distributing weight around the boat , only filling one water tank , all the right things. If we do not do well it won't be for lack of trying. Wild life has been quite good, we have seen a lot of dolphins , the odd whales from a distance and had a few birds as passengers some land birds migrating stop for a rest and some sea birds in particular the brown booby, quite rare, usually seen on boats or ships having a ride! And making a mess all over the deck! One day we had one on the mast, one on the sail at the front and one on the spinica pole. The best thing though has been the hammer head shark and the 5 turtles, we have seen one or two very close to the boat one nearly overtaking us as we
wallowed with no wind. But the most amazing sight was a turtle swimming along with a bird standing on its back.
Everyone, new leggers and all seem to be having a good time, the heat is getting to us a bit, but as we keep saying it's so much better than the last leg. I am on mother watch today with George so have been in a red hot galley. Bread making now takes place in the night as the oven heats the boat up too much.  Have made biscuits and lemon cake today for a change, don't be too impressed they are mixes just add egg and liquid! So better go and have a shave and beard trim as mother watch is the day for all these things!! I expect the race will be cut short in a few days as there is little wind and we have a certain time to get to the Panama canal for our slot. I hear the weather is cold and wet at home, it seems a long way from here but I sympathise as I do know a lot about cold and wet! Hope you are impressed with a new blog in the middle of a race. Thanks for all your support, this is David Webster reporting from the South Pacific!!!

Sailing off into the sunset - Panama here we come

Qingdao to San Francisco

Well the big day arrived for the trip across the Pacific. As I drew back the curtains the blizzard was in full flow. The red carpet they had laid out for the dignitaries to walk down had turned white. With all my layers on I looked huge and could hardly move. The goodbyes were very difficult and I have to say I really wasn't looking forward to the pacific crossing.
There was the big send off we expected with the dragons, drum bands and fireworks. Also a flotilla of small boats, wonderful and colourful but so very cold.
Once out to sea the fog came down and race start was abandoned as it was too dangerous. It suited us though as we could motor in a straight line for 24 hours getting us nicely on course for Japan . At 10am the next day we did a Le Mans start whereby we all had to line up with main sail and motor, head sails attached but down. At the given start time it was engines off and dash forward to hoist the stay sail and the Yankee 2 and we were off.
In previous races I have kept a diary in which I have made regular entries to help me remember what had happened, help me write my blog and just help remind me of wildlife sightings, other sights and how I was feeling at the time. On the Pacific crossing I only had 6 entries, I had written:
1) Hell, Hell, Hell
2) Tring's Birthday
3) Hell
4) Hell
5) Date line crossing, and finally you guessed it
6) Hell.
Well I think you get the picture.
Basically we beat our way up the side of Japan then turned East across the biggest patch of grey water in the whole world! There was just no let up from the heavy winds, no sunshine just pounding into the waves day after day after day...... I have to confess that I kissed Mandy goodbye in Quingdao and when I kissed her hello in Oakland I was wearing exactly the same clothes (apart from my underpants) the whole way across, that included sleeping in my thermals. I know I always say this but it was so cold and so wet there was never any time for the foulies to dry before the next shift, the next onslaught.

Alan being put in the dinghy

Three days into the race as you will know we had the incident with poor old Alan. He got up out of his bunk, put his foot on the floor between a sail and the bunk and decided to reach for an apple he had stowed in a side locker, the boat lurched sideways, his knee bent the way it shouldn't and that was it the race was over for him. As he put it, it was no glamorous accident! He was in so much pain that after 6 hours it was decided to call for a medivac. The Japanese coast guard were great and within just over two hours he was on board the inflatable, ready to be taken to the big coast guard ship and off to hospital in port. There was much negotiating with the coast guard as they were insisting on taking Stephen our medic along too. Only when Gordon explained that we needed him for the crossing would they agree to take Alan on his own. They were very thorough in needing to know what had happened and I had to play the part of Alan to reenact the whole bunk/apple/knee twist thing for them so that they could take photographs, goodness knows why and the language barrier was a bit of a problem. However it seemed that their biggest concern was that Alan had his credit card with him!

So back to it, the wind, grey skies, grey sea and wet. It shows how bad it was when Paul made me laugh by every single day coming up the companion way and saying "well Webbo, similar view to yesterday", and never were truer words said. No ships, no birds, no wildlife at all just grey sea for weeks.

Grey, cold and wet 1

Tring's (Richard Abraham's) birthday was a highlight as you will gather from my diary and luckily happened to fall on a slightly calmer day. We blew up some pink rubber gloves and made him a cape (photo explains everything) a large cake was rustled up out of nowhere by Baz and Goldilocks and fun was had by all.

The next memorable event was crossing the date line when we went back a day, funnily enough Tuesday was still grey, wet and windy the second time. Fortunately we didn't have to have a repeat of the mother watch and have the same food twice.

Grey, cold and wet 2

A lighter shade of grey, still cold and wet

The upside of the strong winds was that we were travelling really fast, we seemed to move up the fleet and back down again daily, but the crossing was a fast one. I think one of the fastest the Clipper race has had. As we approached the finish line the mood improved quite a bit, we could see the light at the end of the grey tunnel, although the last week still dragged a bit like it always does. 2000, 1800, 1000 miles to go. Towards the end we had some fast downwind sailing with big surf and 27.5 notts recorded on the helm.

On the way in to San Francisco... note the improvement in weather

Us coming under the bridge

Eventually, on my mother watch day, land was sighted and a few hours later we could see the Golden Gate bridge our much longed for finish line. Mandy, Penny, James and his girlfriend, Victoria had managed to get to a position under the bridge to wave the saltire for our arrival. It seemed to take an age to cross the line as the wind had dropped and the tide was against us, at some points we seemed to be going backwards but at last we had made it. We motored the 10 miles past Alcatraz to Oakland and amazingly the flag waving gang had managed to negotiate the 20 mile drive from San Francisco via the Bay Bridge and were in Oakland to wave us in. They had only arrived the evening before and Catriona, Paul's wife arrived just as we did, running down the jetty straight from the airport to welcome us off the boat. They aren't used to us arriving on schedule!
On arrival we all went to a local bar where we were given food and beer. Several of the other crews were there as they had arrived a couple of hours earlier and some were fairly inebriated. One crew member from DLL started a bit of a fight with the Gold Coast skipper which was quickly stopped but then he started on Gordon who rather aggressively head butted him! To be fair to Gordon the chap was an idiot and Gordon had just safely got his boat and crew across the Pacific so was a bit stressed out but it was pretty unprofessional and probably sealed his fate. We'd had our differences but were sad when he resigned, he was a nice chap mostly, he was a safe skipper just not a racing skipper.

Cycling on the Golden Gate Bridge

Lucy, Penny, James and Victoria at the Mexican Restaurant in Monterey

The stopover has been amazing, almost two weeks, unheard of!  I must mention that I have become a great uncle for the first time as baby Thea Fletcher was born whilst we were in Oakland, congratulations to Jono and Emily and thanks for adding to the Edinburgh supporters! (Grandparents) Sarah and Colin, (Great aunt) Jane and Lucy flew out to Oakland to see me and we had a great holiday together. But before they arrived we had three days of sail mending, there was lots to do but with Karen, me and team Webbo (Mandy, Penny, James and Victoria) on the job we got it all done. Poor Victoria must have wondered what she had let herself in for.....some sort of slave camp. However, work done we transferred to San Francisco and so began the shopping which everyone seemed to be very good at! How many pairs of Levi's did the 6 ladies need to try on? And why did I need a pair when I hadn't changed my clothes in 4 weeks? We also managed some sightseeing in San Francisco, most notably the whole group of us cycled along from Fishermans Wharf, across the Golden Gate bridge, down into Sausalito and back on the ferry. It was a really great thing to do and so memorable, everyone loved it.
Shopping completed we moved down the coast to Monterey where we saw pelicans and sea lions and sea otters and went to the aquarium which was amazing. We also did the 17 mile drive around Pebble Beach golf course although by then it was pouring with rain. From there we drove to Sonoma and spent a day at the wineries and sightseeing and then it was back for the final 2 days to Oakland, doing boat jobs and having meetings with Flavio. So all in all a very successful end to a horrible race and a new start for us with Flavio who I did level 3 training with. Quite a few new people on this leg and I am looking forward hopefully to a warmer and less grey race. Keep watching, keep supporting and let's see how we do.

The waving off gang

Qingdao Stopover

What a welcome we got in Qingdao, firstly we could see Mandy and Catriona on the breakwater waving the saltire and jumping up and down, I think to keep warm more than anything, then as we entered the harbour there were fireworks just for us and we could see and hear huge numbers of drummers all wearing red on the quayside. We moored up and were paraded up off the boat one at a time and given a bunch of flowers and a small Chinese girl took our hand an led us to the stage whilst all around everyone was taking photographs. Then we stood through a few speeches and were presented with a fur hat, I'm sure you've seen the pictures and a red scarf. The skipper got a golden cloak! All very useful sailing kit! Then more drumming and we were paraded along the quayside past giant posters of ourselves all the while people with big cameras taking photographs. After that we were given food and lots of Tsingtao beer which is made in Qingdao and is China's biggest export allegedly. A wonderful welcome and so lovely to see Mandy again.

The whole boat, apart from the skipper stayed at the Intercontinental hotel which was right on the quayside of the Olympic sailing centre. There was no way in that temperature that anyone wanted to stay on the boat. The rooms were beautiful and I'm sure I've said it before but I cant tell you how good it is to have a shower and sleep in a proper, dry, and flat bed! Heaven. It was great to all be together though as we met in the top floor bar most evenings and seemed to be the only boat that did that.

Amazingly when I got there I'd had a text from nephew Jono to say he was coming to Qingdao to see me at the weekend, how brilliant was that? Apparently everyone but me knew but didn't tell me in case we were late in and I would be stressed. Anyway you'll be glad to know that in true family tradition he was put to work mending sails with us and managed some very tricky sewing of the main sail involving him laying under the sail, under a bench on the floor. If you are planning a trip to see me beware!!!!! We were given the basement of the Olympic sailing museum to do our mending which was brilliant but I don't think they had any heating down there, it was nearly as cold as outside.

Having had a bit of a strange birthday on board I said I would take the guys our for a meal on Saturday night. With the help of our boat interpreter, Vane, we found an authentic restaurant to take everyone to, it was great fun, and whilst not the best food ever it was certainly interesting. Guess who was the one who ate the chicken foot and had the chicken head in his mouth!!!! Anyway it was a great celebration, a full team turn out, and it made it finally a birthday to remember, so good to have Jono there too.

Mandy and I had a day off sail mending and were taken out by a local business man called Carson Xia, I met him at the awards evening and he was keen to show someone around Qingdao and in return be shown around the boat.  He took us for a delicious lunch of dumplings and then took us on a tour of the town, he explained all about Qingdao to us and then took us (at my request) to look around his factory.  They made induction hobs for industrial chinese kitchens, so basically huge bowl shaped induction units to put a wok in!  Some of them were a metre in diameter, it was fascinating to see and the product seemed really good, but the health and safety in the factory....................well!

Carson's Daughter Chen Chen and her Friend Chi Chi

One evening we got a taxi with Shaggy and Panda (Nick and Anne) to the night market where Shaggy and I had great fun bartering for things we really didn't need!  Anne said we were like magpies going after all the shiny things, but I'm sure you will understand that you can't have too many head torches/torches/lighters/nail clippers/headphones/leatherman multi tools......... wish my mate Pete Baldwin had been there, he would've loved it!

Photo Shoot with crabs!

The weather in Qingdao had been really quite good whilst we were there, not the polluted foggy weather you imagine, it was clear and often sunny but absolutely freezing.  Unfortunately on the day we were leaving all that changed.  I opened the curtains to see it was snowing!!  As the morning wore on that turned to rain and fog and the devoted race followers will be aware that race start was delayed because of it.  However we had a rousing send off from the drummers and cheering crowds.  Gordon got to wear his golden cloak again and we were each given a gift of Chinese sweets to take with us.  Interestingly these sweets were in large straw handbags (with a flower on) of various colours, just what we needed for a trip across the pacific!  All our team gave their bags to Mandy and Catriona so goodness knows what they've done with them.

Page 3 photo shoot!

Life at an angle

Snow on the deck

Keith with his handbag!

Me, Lesley and Hector, ready to go

Watch This Space

So we're off again, longest leg, longest time at sea, can't really say I'm looking forward to it but as Gordon says we must keep the faith.  Keep watching the race viewer, keep cheering us on and to those of you coming to San Francisco, I really can't wait to get there... but don't hold your breath.

Singapore to Qingdao.... a race!

Well after the formal complaint to clipper about the skipper, before we set sail we had crew/skipper meeting, all views were aired and all problems discussed.  Hopefully a new start.

At race start we were 3rd over the starting line, a major improvement. A change to watches due to Keith resigning as watch leader meant that everything changed on board. Rich and Baz were watch leaders and Shaggy and me assistant watch leaders ( I was asked to be watch leader but said no, I really don't want the responsibility, too much of a bus man's holiday). As a crew we rose to the challenge and worked really hard, sitting on the rail in our time off and moving the sails to the high side to have better weight distribution. All was good as we moved into 4th place. Every half hour we reviewed the sail trim and stayed with the pack. By day 9 we were still up there with the rest, down to 7th but occasionally seeing others on the horizon really spurred us on to try harder. Even at day 15 New York and Finland were either side of us, we had a real race on our hands.

Redistributing Weight to the High Side

On Valentines day the girls bunks were decorated with hearts and balloons , a card with poems in and food served with plastic hearts to decorate. Well done Baz who went to so much trouble (you didn't think it was me did you)?


In terms of wildlife ( I know you like a wildlife section in the blog) there was very little to see although there were quite a few dolphins. On pod was huge with about 150 covering a large area around us, some of them jumping clean out of the sea. There were also a few flying fish, in rough weather we find them on the decks or sometimes if you're unlucky you get smacked around the head by one as a wave washes over the boat. One day we had a flock of immature gannets flying around and trying to catch fish which were being disturbed by the boat, quite entertaining and it helped to pass a watch.

Dolphin

Fishing boats.
There were hundreds of fishing boats, you have never seen so many dots on the radar, upto 60 at a time. Many were pair trawling (two boats with a net between) but not in the same direction so would zig zag across making navigation impossible. They had different coloured flags depending on weather they were pairs or singles, it made for interesting watches and at times we got very close to some of them. They would not alter course for us at all, we heard that Gold Coast and Geraldton just set the spinnaker and went gung ho straight through the middle.....maybe why we started to loose places at that point but not sure we could've done that!

Although we were expecting this leg to be cold it seemed to take ages to get cold but it finally arrived for my birthday and oh boy did it arrive, it got colder and colder every day that week until the day we finally arrived we were dancing on the deck in full red foulies to keep warm. My birthday on board was areal wash out, we had already been sailing at 45 degrees for a while but a real storm added to the excitement and we were just crashing into the waves. We were in survival mode with the mother watch only just managing to serve food and unfortunately not baking cake as planned. Also the magnum of champagne which David Beck's wife had won in Singapore and which we planned to open didn't seem such a good idea. Just another day at sea really apart from everyone singing happy birthday to me every half hour when I was on watch ( a tradition started of course by me.....no pulling hair though, don't have enough).

Wasn't allowed to mention it really in case the Chinese authorities wouldn't let us in but from Singapore or Batan we gained a few stow always in the shape of a rat and a family of mice! They ate the food and were seen running through the galley. We were unable to catch them as we had no traps but just outside of Qingdao we found the nest and Baz picked a couple up and I bludgeoned one to death with the bilge handle whilst shouting "Die! Die!", not surprisingly it earned me the nickname of killer. The rat we eventually managed to catch in qingdao with a trap which Catriona had brought over from B&Q for us, it's amazing what the wives do for us!

So we finished 8th but finished with 3 other boats and just the same night that Mandy and Catriona had arrived which was amazing. Unfortunately because it was such and organised welcome ceremony we weren't allowed to get in at night and so bobbed around outside overnight to be welcomed in properly in the freezing cold in the morning. It was wonderful to arrive with others and a whole day before Yorkshire and two days before Qingdao although we did have a lot of sympathy for them.

Qingdao stopover blog follows shortly!

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.