A New Arrival
Leg 1 and Race 2 finished, with a 5th spot into Puerto Sherry in race 1 and 1st over the line, 2nd position (long story, mentioned more than once in previous blogs) and 2 points in the sprint race on race 2 giving Team LBS 3rd position overall. Not a bad start if I don’t say so myself, really proud of the team and what we’ve achieved together in such a short period of time. But it’s now time to relax, repair and reflect after some 6,500 nautical miles and enjoy the hospitality offered from Punta del Este.
When we arrived, our hosts, Yacht Club, Punta Del Este had welcomed us with open arms, gave us a great arrival welcome with beer, food and other goodies supplied by local shops on the dock.
Lots of family and friends now waiting to say hello after all the dignitaries had disappeared. I get a tap on the shoulder from one of those family members, who I had never met, (turned out to be, Sara, Zoe’s mum) asking who was Bob, a bit surprised, I acknowledged it was me, and she then handed me an envelope!
The day of our departure from Puerto Sherry, my 1st Grandchild Darcy was born to Kris & Mollie. When we dropped Dave off, for his medi-vac, in Las Palmas a week or so later, I had a little bit of signal on my phone. The guys had sent me a photo of Darcy, but I ran out of signal and frustratingly, only an outline image of Darcy had downloaded. Inside the envelope was a card, with two teddies on the front, very apt, and inside the card were two pictures of Darcy. Well! I melted on the spot, an emotional moment I will always treasure, and an LBS culture of both family & crew to help each other as evident as ever. All the crew wanted a look as they had also seen the outline photo on my phone, and we were all intrigued to see what was printed on her baby grow
“RACE CREW SUPPORTER LBS
CLIPPER ROUND THE WORLD”
They all melted as well.
With all our families and friends, we headed off the boat and up to Punta Del Este Yacht Club for a couple of hours of free food and drink. The club had arranged a number of ambassadors, English-speaking club members, to each boat to help with anything the crew required whilst staying in Punta. We were introduced to ours and offered accommodation for any crew members. So a few of us who were going to stay on the boat that night took them up on the offer. So many thanks to our ambassadors, Fatima, Monica, Vicky and of course Alejandra and her lovely dog Nina who put up with Marcus, Arno, Kerry and me in her home. You guys will never be forgotten. You made our stop-over in Punta Del Este even more memorable.
Preparations Underway
We had agreed to give the deep clean a miss until the following day. We all deserved a day off to relax. So after “just a few pints” and a good night’s sleep. We returned to the boat at 10.00am to get started with the normal deep clean, and to be fair, CV25 was in a bit of a state. All the sails were taken out of the sail locker and put on deck. Time to get our code 2 ready for repair on Monday morning. Everything done, and the boat is all clean again and ready for sail repair work to start on Monday.
The major priority is our code 2, ripped to shreds in the Canaries. We had repaired as much as we could on the boat on our way down to Punta, mostly in the Doldrums, but the middle was shredded as if mauled by a tiger. Being 1st into Punta gave us a massive advantage in finding space for the repair, and we hoped to get first access to the yacht club’s sail loft. We got on to it early, cleaned out their sail loft and got to work. Hyde, our sail suppliers, had already arrived as promised, with some very large sail repair patches. As we pulled our code 2 out of its sail bag and laid it out on the sail loft floor, and looking at it in its entirety for the 1st time, the damage was impressive. Much more than I thought would be possible to repair. But the guys from Hyde were fairly confident, and our sale repair team got on to it. The middle of the kite was shredded for about 2 metres and there was a massive rip along one of the vertical seams around 5 metres long. The patches were lined up over the rips, taped and then the shredded parts, cut out of the sail. Just as well we had the use of the sail loft as we needed plenty of time with Hyde Sails, with a great crew and family to help. Everybody who could, got to work on it.
Over the next few days, we serviced and repaired much of the deck fittings including all the winches with the help of Mark Zoe’s dad, who was great. We had water coming through the traveller in both race 1 and 2. I had repaired part of it in Punta, but we had to lift the traveller off the deck to fix it properly and true to form, the Clipper engineers were on it straight away and helped remove it. We then set about cleaning and degreasing before rebuilding it again. So far, no leaks and a happy skipper & 1st mate.
With access to phone signal and Wi-Fi it’s time to catch up with family and friends and having my 1st catch-up with baby Darcy was great, although she was sleeping, which probably wasn’t a bad thing. Mollie and Kris, whilst a little tired were doing well. I got myself in trouble a few times calling Lynn whilst forgetting the time difference, so got to make sure I remember for future ports, but speaking to family, My two lads Rob & Nick, Mum & Dad (Liz & Jim) and my Brother Charlie and of course Lynn my partner makes this journey so much easier. I’ve found the stopovers can be a very lonely existence, when you’re off the boat and in a hotel, the rest of your crew have things to do with family and friends and so you can spend lots of time on your own.
Apart from the general maintenance and sail repair, one of the biggest jobs by far is the victualling, the process of provisioning the boat for the next leg to Cape Town. It’s a huge job, supported by Clipper but managed by the crew, namely, Clare and Malinda, supported by other crew members and family. Again, sorted into day bags so that each mother watch has the correct ingredients to keep the crew fed each day. We have also learnt a lot from leg 1, what works and what doesn’t. So, the guys go about their business doing the jobs, ticking the boxes and keeping our standards high to get ourselves ready for the next leg.
Punta Yacht Club have organised various events during the week, including city tours, wine tasting, school talks and public tours around the boats. Some of the new crew will also be going out on the boats for a refresher day, it’s been a few months since they will have been on a Clipper and this is done on every leg change over.
Goodbyes and Celebrations
And this brings me to one of the hardest parts of finishing a leg, saying goodbye to some of the crew that you’ve been sailing with. We’ve lost some big characters after this leg. We’re saying goodbye to Lisa, Charlie, Malinda, Sarah, Arno and Ian L. We’ve unfortunately also lost Kerry, who’s managed to crack 4 ribs in a fall. We hope to see him back on the boat on Leg 4 and wish him a speedy recovery. Our new ‘leggers’ have also arrived, most of whom have managed to get here early to help with the boat prep. So, we say hello to Joel, Thomas, Ron and Hjalmar. On the plus side Dave, who was medi-vac’d off in Las Palmas, has returned looking a lot better and ready to do battle with the Roaring 40’s.
The big night of the Clipper awards ceremony is always a great evening, especially when you’re on the podium. We wait our turn as the dignitaries do their bit, and we get around to announcing our 2nd position, rather disappointingly, the fact that we crossed the line 1st wasn’t mentioned. I know this is ocean racing and the rules are the rules, but we’re not professionals and what we’d achieved was really important to us. I also felt a bit sorry for Phil and Qingdao who had fought right to the end to pip Seattle by a few metres on the line, only to be protested by Seattle for going 0.1 of a mile inside an exclusion zone and got docked 6 hours. More should be made of the crew’s efforts on these occasions, as these infringements are down to the skipper and not the crew. A point I did bend Dales ear over a pint in the local pub, the Moby Dick.
1 more big bash to attend and it’s a whopper. The welcome crew Asado, laid on by the Mayor’s office in a spectacular location, the Fundation Pablo Atchugarry/MACCA museum. Free buses picked all the crews up from the Punta Yacht Club to the biggest barbecue I’ve ever seen. Racks of lamb and joints of beef being cooked on open wood fires, a real stand out event with traditional Uruguayan cuisine in a stunning location. A great finish to a great stop over. Full of great food and wine and a bit of a dance, and then all bussed back to Punta for a few more drinks in the yacht club.
It’s now time for final prep, back on the boat and get Leg 2 and race 3 to Cape Town under way. You know when it’s ready, and we were ready.