It’s nearly time to leave Seattle for Leg 7 race 10. We have seven new crew which will be cool and I’m so looking forward to the Panama Canal. However it’s sad to see some of our crew depart. There are some big characters leaving us this leg, so in no particular order best wishes to Claire, Ryan, Joel, Ben, Brad, Nuno and young Zoe, thank you for all your support, fair travels and hopefully we’ll meet again. With the new crew comes the new watches and we the crew are obviously very interested in who we will be on watch with for the next leg, who we will be sharing a bunk with, or maybe we’ll have a bunk on our own! Gavin & Zoe will normally select the watches before the crew briefing, which normally occurs the day before we leave and this is then communicated by the watch leaders along with rosters and bunk allocation. I’ve been in Tony’s watch for the majority of the race but I can feel the wind of change as I know Lucy wants to be in Tony’s watch and sure enough it feels like I’ve been thrown under the bus and swapped out to Ollie’s watch for Lucy. It’s obvious that Lucy will take up the assistant watch leaders role and judging by the rota, David has been promoted to assistant watch leader for Ollie’s watch! To say I’m gutted is an understatement and I’ll be interested to see what’s said. I’m just annoyed that nobody had the decency to discuss with me first. I’ve already driven the boat for over 30,000 miles and think I’ve earned the right to be involved or informed of changes that impact on my journey.
I get ready to head down to the crew briefing, taking Lynn with me, as I hope she finds it interesting. When I get there the team is all sitting around a large table and it felt strange. Nobody really spoke to me. I know a few of my crew members will know I’d be pissed off being moved. Nobody moved from the table to let me sit down! I walked around to the other side and squeezed in between some of the new leggers. Was this going to be the way of the race? Have I done something wrong? Nothing was mentioned! We went through the crew briefing as normal, marketing mentioned me for raising money removing my beard which was nice of them, it’s brought in about £2,300 which is amazing and I received a round of applause from all the crews. After the briefing, Lynn went off into town to do some site seeing and I started to walk back to the boat. All my crew had gone back to the boat without me! I walked back alone to the boat, trying to contemplate if I’d done something wrong, had I annoyed Tony, it just felt alien to me, the crew have always been supportive and now nothing!
I got onto the boat and everyone is already sitting around waiting for Gavin’s team brief and again not a word from any one. We go through our normal intros and to do lists to ensure everything is finished off then we split into our respective watch teams. I meet with Ollie, David, Matt, Lon, Alistair and Kieke and we go through what Ollie wants from us and what we want from Ollie. It’s a difficult one for me and I’ve decided to take a back seat for a few days and just try and fill into my new team, help where I can or when I’m asked. Later, when I’m connecting the gas bottles, Ollie came to me specifically and we chatted through how we could work with each other. It all seemed positive and I like the guys on the watch. I go back to the hotel to pick up my washed kit and returned to pre pack my bunk. Nobody was on the boat and again no chance to speak with anyone, not a message or a call from anyone! It just feels weird. Maybe everyone is busy and I’m just reading too much into the situation and being a tad over sensitive.
Lynn and I head out for some last minute shopping and something to eat, called out to the rest of the team for a last drink before departure, but nobody seems to be about. So Lynn and I headed back to “The Whisky Bar” who have been our nominated bar in Seattle and they’ve been great. So we called in to say goodbye to them and give them an LBS hat as a thank you for their great support. We bumped into Lon and Kerry so we managed to get a bit of a group photograph and then headed back to the hotel, but I struggled to sleep.
It’s departure day and down to the boat for around 9.30 with Lynn, taking my last stuff in prep for departure, I’ve decided not to mention the changes, I’m just going to get on with it and work as I normally do. Then Petra asks me how I am with the changes, she knows what the answer will be, but at least she’s asked. Then both Claire and Ryan, who’re not on the new leg chat group, asked me about the changes, so it’s obviously been a talking point within my previous watch! I’m really fed up, I’ll just be glad to get going and back racing and try and stay out of the politics.
We’ve been told to meet at the X stairs for a clipper group photograph and Seattle have laid on something special for us. So after the photos have been taken, it is like herding cats! We get what seems like a native Indian chant, probably for good luck then a couple of drummers from the Seattle sea hawks NFL team lead us in a procession back to the marina. I say my good byes to Lynn for the last time until we reach Portsmouth, which again is really emotional, especially as I’m a bit unsettled with the watch changes and back down to the boats to leave Seattle. Again we are leaving like clockwork but after our parade of sail we start a false race, basically sailing in a figure of 8 with all 10 boats to look like we are racing! I mean who would know! But it is obviously for the locals and I’m sure looked fairly impressive from the piers. Lynn has managed to get a spot on a local tall ship which has come out to watch us leave so there were a few LBS supporters on there. Once completed we headed out into the bay and started our motor sail away from Seattle up Puget sound and into the North Pacific to start the race in about 24 hours. It’s a stunning backdrop as we head up the sound with snow topped mountains in the background. As night fell we had shortened watches with 3 on deck at any one time. It wasn’t really cold but without a beard my face was getting a bit of a battering. The night sky was magnificent, no moon and no clouds made for a stunning backdrop. We caught a glimpse of the borealis, shimmering over the Canadian boarder and then incredible shooting stars, they shot across the night sky with yellow, orange and green streaks behind them, then fading with a loud pop, rather like a spent firework. It was an incredible evening and took my mind off the previous 48 hours and back to reason I’m doing this. With that, I headed to bed and slept soundly for the 2st time in a while.
When I woke up for my morning shift we had slowed down and started to make our way into a sheltered bay to rendezvous with Tongyeong! As we are deemed a commercial vessel, both the 1st mate and skippers must complete a “pilots” course to be able to navigate Puget sound and the surrounding water ways. They waved the requirement for entering, but the fleet could not leave without the course being set. However, because Tongyeong was so late on arrival, neither their skipper or 1st mate were able to take the course so Zoe had to pilot their boat out of the sound and Brian jumped on our boat. When we got to the end of the sound, we came up behind them with our Port midships on their Starboard stern, then Zoe jumped back onto us and Brian jumped back onto his boat. It was all a bit of fun and I think Brian was very impressed with the Pizza that we had on board. Once Zoe was settled we set off, out of the bay and into the North Pacific again!
Now we had a few hours to rendezvous at the Le Mans starting point and whilst on our way, we put some refresher and familiarisation training with both the new and not so new crew, led, in part by the circumnavigators. A great thing to do, we also completed some tacking and gybing along the way, again to get the crew up to speed.
Time for the start. This time, GOSH were the lead boat, so Ollie, their skipper was in charge of the start. Unfortunately for them, they’re in the middle of the line, which isn’t the best, we are the most windward boat, which normally give us an advantage, but in this instance we’ll be sailing west for the 1st 10 minutes, whilst we will want to be sailing south, so we’ve got to sail around the rest of the fleet, not the best. We’ve done so many of theses starts and we’re getting better with every one. We’ve done get of the line fairly quickly and get out to around 5th spot. The rules don’t allow you to change sail plan or direction for the first 10 minutes, but the fore deck of every boat is busy with everyone getting ready to launch a spinnaker. As we approach the 10 minute mark the boats are frantic with sail bags, sheets and halyards being thrown about the decks and as we hit the 10 minutes, kites are flying up on every boat. I can’t wait to see the video footage, it should look fantastic. The only boat not to launch is Warrant. Not sure why? We fly our code 2 but have our stay sail flying but some have gone with their code 1. We’ve started well and quickly move into 3rd spot and Warrant have finally launched a spinnaker. So the whole fleet are flying their spinnakers, all in the same direction, down wind sailing, amazing! Alistair points out Qingdao, who appear to be having an issue as their kite is not flying properly, we watch as the head of the sail rips off and the remains of the spinnaker flies off the back of the boat leaving a rather pathetic piece of sail flapping on the end of their spinnaker halyard. Very unfortunate losing your code 1 in the 1st few hours hours of the race, they will really miss the code 1 in the expected lighter winds at the end of the race. They start dropping down through the fleet as they try and recover their broken sail. We on the other hand have all our sails to hand due the great work of Petra and Kerry.
It’s all very tight at the front. Punta and Seattle are out in front with GOSH UNICEF then us. We are flying our code 2 with the stay sail. It looks like the other guys are flying their code 1. So we’re doing well keeping up with them and as the wind increases they will need to switch down to at least a code 2, so keep our cool, sail hard and wait for our opportunity. Sure enough, GOSH blink first. It’s now dark as they pull down they’re code 1 it’s like they’ve applied a brake and we fly past them as they hoist, we assume, their code 2 and as it fills, its like they’ve hit a booster as they’re boat accelerates with the new kite up. We’ve not seen UNICEF change down as they’ve moved east, but they have now dropped back and we are now in 3rd spot, with Punta directly in front as the next target. We can still see Seattle out to starboard sailing a lot higher than the rest of the fleet. Time will tell what their strategy is.
As we come up for our morning watch, we’re greeted with a pair of whales who briefly surfaced let loose with their blow holes then disappear beneath the ocean and don’t re-appear. We think they were Minky whales but nobody got a photo. We also hear the news that Punta had broached during the night and had dumped their code 1 into the water which has dropped them back down the fleet. Which puts LBS into 2nd spot behind Seattle, although it’s difficult to tell who is 1st or 2nd it’s that close. The fleet is still fairly tight with all the front runners within eyesight and one false move and your advantage will be swallowed up and spat out the back. We’ve decided to cut and run, searching for an edge to get away from the fleet so in the darkness, we gybe to the east with a view that the winds will build closer to land. As we go through the gybe, UNICEF are in the way. It’s so dark, you can’t make the boat out, or see their wake, they’re like a ghost ship and a little close to call, so we’ve had to abort the gybe and had to gybe back, wait for them to pass, then gybe back underneath them and we start to disappear from the fleet. A rather ballsey move and the 1st boat to show their hand. Nobody has followed us yet. We’ll see the outcome no doubt in a few watches time.
We’re out on our own, not a sail in sight. The wind isn’t strong but the code 2 is flying well. We’ve got a few holes in the sail from a couple of mini wraps so will need to be repaired and when we inspect the code closer we’ve got 10 holes, the biggest being a couple of centimetres, we’ll need to watch closely.
We can see GOSH on the horizon on an opposite Gybe and we pass in front of them, the crew are happy, we are now in 1st spot, with GOSH, about 50metres behind in 2nd and Seattle in 3rd heading further west. The Gybe battle continues, we have a small tear on the foot of our main and whilst repairing we’ve slowed down a bit, sure enough GOSH cross in front of us, back to 2nd! The wind has started to die on us as we get closer to GOSH. Its down to who can drift faster. GOSH drop their code and go to white sails. We hold on for a bit, but decide to drop our code 2, a good time for a repair. Petra and Kerry are on it as we play cat and mouse with GOSH. We’re back in 1st and just holding on to our lead but with little wind anything can happen. We’ve got a few miles on GOSH, but they’re closing. They’re very strong in light winds and we can’t get away. They continue to close and for hours we’re fighting them off. Eventually, whilst I’m on the helm, I loose the wind and as the code 1 collapses it feels like we’ve stopped dead as GOSH sail past us, a very frustrating day at the office.
I’m annoyed at myself but we’ve got to the end of our 1st week in a tight battle for 1st with GOSH, all our sails are intact and available. Our objective was to get a fast start so we’ve achieved what we needed to do and there’s plenty of racing to go. Sunday Sundown to finish the week off and a cold can of Guinness zero to finish the week off. I’m on mother tomorrow with Kerry and will have time to reflect on my early troubles and hopefully have time to catch up with the other watch to close the troubles off. Let’s go a GOSH hunting next week.