The Slow Crawl Out of Korea
Well, there goes an absolutely great stop over in Tongyeong, the best stop over so far and so short. Probably a bit biased as my eldest son Robert, my youngest son Nick and partner Hannah were there to meet me. A bit emotional as it’s the 1st family I have met on my journey around the world and the last of our crew to have that privilege. I’ll talk about South Korea in a different blog, as it’s a fabulous place to visit.
So, we’re now off on our longest race, the North Pacific, crossing to Seattle. The roughest and coldest leg we keep on being told. We will see how it unfolds over the next few weeks.
As normal, our departure is roughly the same in every port with a few deviations depending on what the home port is looking to do. On this occasion at 07.00 we meet on the pontoon for immigration. When we arrived in Tongyeong we were bussed to the immigration office so we all assumed the same. But no. In true Clipper communication style, we were all on our boats for 07.00, only for immigration to turn up. Didn’t even get on the boat, stamped the passports and were on our way. We then wait for a few hours for a ceremonial dance troop with drums in hand making their way down the pontoon. And, of course, yours truly couldn’t help himself and got involved with the event, dancing and beating a drum in perfect harmony I’d hasten to add. Once that was all completed, we all got off our boats with the 1st mates all dressed up in period costumes. I think they wanted the skippers to dress up, but I think a vote was taken, and the 1st mates got the short straw. We then walked down to the Clipper village stage and were presented on the stage before marching our way back to the boats to get ready for the parade of sail. The process is all pretty normal to us circumnavigators now, but we had a twist this time as the parade of sail was to be led by a “Turtle” ship, a reproduction of an old battleship used in the wars between Japan and Korea around 1560. It’s a massive sailing vessel with oars and from a distance is turtle shaped above the water line with the roof covered in spikes to stop the enemy climbing on board. They also supplied a spectator boat, which was great for my boys to be out on and my last chance to wave goodbye. Once we completed the parade, we headed off for our line start away from all the fishing vessels and ferries, completing all our MOB drills along the way.
When we get to our starting positions, there’s hardly any wind, and we eventually drifted over the starting line and the race to Seattle is on. The sun is out, it’s relatively warm, just no wind. There is the odd ripple on the ocean as the breeze moves about, and we keep tacking to try and chase it. When UNICEF, eventually, manage to get over the starting line, you can hear Dale, the race director, confirming the race had officially started, wished us well, see you in Seattle and buggered off in his rib, back to the pub no doubt.
Straight away we’re into sail changes, code 1 up on deck, plugged in and up, makes no difference and to be fair, I’m not that sure why we put it up in the 1st place. So that comes back down. Then we put up the wind seeker, but that brings no joy, so that’s pulled back down again. Lots of work and nothing to show for it, and the extra work of re-wooling and packing away the sails is frustratingly hard work for the crew. The frustration of ocean racing continues as we drift back and forwards during the night and into the next morning with not a lot to show for all the work we’d put in.
A Warning From The Ocean
We’re now running with our Code 1 spinnaker and making great headway moving through the fleet and now in the top three. GOSH, who are on our rear Port quarter, have suddenly dropped their Code 1 and then strangely turned up into the wind! We’re not sure what’s happening, and shortly after they have relaunched their code 1 (or so we thought). As the night closes in, we’re getting close to the next virtual mark and will be turning up a bit higher on the wind. So, we’ve dropped the code 1 as we don’t think the wind angle will work and just on white sails. However, the boats around us are still flying a spinnaker and getting away from us and adding insult to injury GOSH, who looked like they had put their code 1 back up had in fact put up their code 2, but as it’s in reverse, we couldn’t make out the writing which all the code 2’s have, and they have caught up with us and overtaken us. Gavin has decided to put up our code two and go after them. It’s really hard work with the tight wind angle. Real concentration is needed, or the sail will collapse and flog. With our watch finished, we head off to bed for a sleep, whilst Ollie’s watch takes over the helm. All night you can hear the spinnaker flogging. The primary winch is directly above my bunk, and it makes a hell of a racket down below as the sheets get ground on, and the forces involved are massive.
Just before our wake-up call is due, I’ve heard the spinnaker collapse and being flogged, but it was happening for a long time. I then hear Joel shout out “it’s broken” and then “all hands on deck”. We all get up and start getting dressed. Young Zoe is running around shouting for everyone to get up! I think it’s her 1st all hands and getting a bit excited. Before I get on deck, Joel is being helped down after being hit on the head with the Spinnaker lazy sheet. He’s got a cut on his head, but not sure how bad. As I get on deck, the kite is just being pulled down, and it’s clear to see it’s not looking good. It’s shredded! It’s coming down in bits, but the priority is just to get it down and get the white sails back up again. Eventually, we’ve got it off the deck. Young Zoe and I sort out the tangled halyards, and we get sailing again but at what cost? To lose your code 2 so early in such a long race could be costly. We later discovered that the working sheet had snapped with all the forces from the kite flogging. Joel has had a bad cut to his head, but it doesn’t look like he’ll need stitches and is bandaged up and gone to bed until the morning when we can get a better look. Meanwhile, Petra, Claire and I set about the task of sorting the heap of wet sail cloth, that was once a spinnaker, into some sort of order and as we try and untangle the kite, it’s very clear that this code 2’s race is done. There is no way in which Petra can repair this on the boat. We struggled to repair it in Punta in a sail loft, but this is a lot worse. So, we drag it all back into the sail locker and pack it back into its sail bag and wait for the next crew change to help lift the code 2 and its bag back into its bunk. We will have to get it out again when it’s not so windy to ascertain the full extent of the damage and discuss the repair with Hyde.
We continue to sail out of South Korean waters around the corner and heading northeast up towards the eastern coast of Japan as the wind rolls in with a vengeance.
We are now in a strong Northern current with an unfortunately strong southerly wind, which leads to even more unfortunately very large and confused seas, which of course leads to many of the crew becoming seasick. Normally, the new leggers struggle, but a few of the more experienced crew are struggling, and I must say, it reminds me of the 1st leg out of Portsmouth into the Bay of Biscay. Highly confused and short seas making for a very uncomfortable beat up the east coast of Japan. The only saving grace is that the strong current is coming from the south and warm, so when we get washed out it’s not that cold. When it’s rough, it can be challenging to look after yourself or the boat, especially when you’re feeling tired and seasick. You just want to get your kit off and get into bed. So, the boat is a mess with kit flying out of cubbies and from under bunks. Most of us circumnavigators have got ourselves sorted. It is all about process, how you get undressed at night and then dressed when you’re woken for your watch. Where you store all those things that you know you’re going to need, and getting stuff out of your dry bags before you go to sleep.
As the wind builds, so does the sea state. We’ve now got 3 reefs in (only the 3rd time that’s happened in the total race) our Yankee 3 has been dropped, and we’re just flying our stay sail. Now this is where I get confused, we changed our process for tying the yankees down. Originally, we tied our sails to the jackstays, now maybe that was just bad practise by the crew and unknown by Gavin & Zoe as it’s not really allowed in Clippers SOP’s as there is a possibility that if the waves are big enough, it could rip out the jackstays! However, since we’ve stopped tying the forestays to the jackstays, when the sea state is big, the Yankees are lifting off the deck and flail and the sail ties work themselves loose, working their way to the clue. The yankee then floggs itself to death and causing damage to the boat and itself with bent stanchions, small rips or tears in the canvas. But more importantly, the crew are endangering themselves having to work on the foredeck in these rough conditions and revisiting the same problem 4 or 5 times. It’s happened again! We’ve visited our Yankee 3, four times already and on the 5th occasion, two of our crew were flung in the air, landing on their backs and hurting themselves. I then went up to help getting one team member off the foredeck and then continued on to finish, tying the Yankee back down and got washed out of the foredeck in the process. It’s such a dangerous place to be when it’s rough, and we need to have better processes and procedures in place. We’ve had to switch part of the watch around to accommodate those injuries whilst our crew mates recover from their falls. We’ve also heard that UNICEF have had to carry out a medivac for a crew member whose been air lifted off the vessel. I hope they are ok, but a real reminder of staying safe whilst out in the ocean.
Sunday Sundown at Sea
On a happier note, as I make my way back along the high side of the deck after tying the Yankee back down, I spot a small pod of dolphins swimming happily along through these massive waves, the 1st real sea wildlife we’ve seen since entering & leaving Asian waters.
As is always the case, the wind abates and life on board becomes a little bit easier but invariably slower. The fleet has started to string out a bit, and we have three packs emerging. Unfortunately, we’re in the 2nd group with Punta, Tongyeong and Warrant. Gosh, Qingdao and Power of Seattle being out in front and seem to have missed the lower winds.
We have a few more days of light winds before it starts to build again, and we’ve taken the opportunity to sort out a few of the things we have broken already. We’ve repaired one of the stanchions, the base of which was cracked. We found a new base bracket on the boat, but unfortunately, it didn’t fit the broken one, so we’ve had to remove another bracket from another stanchion and do a swap. I got soaked in the process. We’ve tidied up the boat, got rid of all the damaged and rotten fruit and veg, cleaned various bits around the boat, which is Michelle’s speciality. If you stood still long enough, I’m sure she’d be out washing you down, moving you or if nobody claimed you, you’d be in the bin. We also took the opportunity to pull out the broken code 2 and made drawings of the damage. As thought, not good. We also sustained a bit of damage on our Yankee 3 whilst being flogged on the deck and as usual, Petra has stepped up, spending countless hours repairing it, with help from the crew, namely Claire and Tony. Tony only volunteered when he was told he could lie down on the floor to help.
Final day of the week and it’s Sunday Sundown, and I’m on Mother with Nuno, a really lovely bloke, a gentle giant, but as professed, can’t cook! So, he’s going to be my helper for the day. A simple start to the day with cereals, fruit and hot drinks. Lunch has changed from the prescribed menu as the fridge fan is water damaged so isn’t working so we need to consume our body weight in protein before it goes off. So, we have a bacon with cheese sauce pasta for lunch. For tea, we have a surf and turf offering with beef in oyster sauce & cooked salmon with boiled rice. As it’s Sunday Sundown, we’ve made a few canopies with crackers, cream cheese and olives and of course a can of pop. I’ve been able to smuggle some Guinness zero onto the boat for my Sunday Sundown, I mean why not. Not sure if Gavin really approves. All done, then a big tidy up and wash down of the galley and back to my bunk for some much-needed sleep.
1st week of the North Pacific crossing and we’ve had it all. We’re mid-table with all to play for, a broken code 2 and a few injuries, but ready for next week, and it’s my 61’st birthday on Monday. Let’s see what happens.