And we’re off again, this time to Subic Bay in the Philippines. However, as there are no customs in Airlie Beach, the fleet has travelled down overnight to rendezvous in Mackay where they do have customs and we can exit Australia. A fairly simple operation that with a fair wind and a bit of flexibility could have easily been organised in Airlie Beach, but we’ve now officially left Australia.
I must admit though, it was a tricky passage, at night with the wind just 25 to 30 degrees of our bow, just the main up, with engine on, motor sailing and making sure we weren’t going to hit any reefs. It all got a bit squeaky-bum time when the depth dropped to 9m! It also became obvious, when a new helm would start (approximately every 30 minutes), that the boats would initially weave all over the place, and in some cases, we had to alter course to avoid them. Eventually I got off to bed with what seems to be a policy on the boat, that I do one of the 1st stints on Mother Duty, or maybe I’m just lucky! This time it was with Michelle, a new legger who is really a circumnavigator. She is restarting her circumnavigation from the cancelled COVID race way back in 2019/2020, so she’s now on to the completing end and should bring a wealth of experience to the team.
We started our normal watch system when we left Airlie Beach, but only after the crew completed a few hours of refresher training for the new leggers. The training normally happens during the stop overs but as we’re travelling down to get our passports stamped it’s a great opportunity to do the training en route and it’s also nice to complete the training with your own crew. As we are only motor sailing, Gavin has allowed us to split our 4-hour watch so two hours on and two hours off, giving the crew a 6-hour rest. However, as we’re the 1st ‘off Watch’, when I get down below, Michelle is already in my bunk as she has been given the 1st 2 hours off. It’s not her fault and I’ve got to find alternative accommodation which took a while to get sorted, but it also means I’m having to be woken in a couple of hours before moving back to my own bunk. A right mess and not the best start to life on board the yacht. We will need to reconsider these situations in the future.
The first few days doing Mother Watch is fraught with danger as a large proportion of new crew are seasick and therefore don’t want to eat. As we’re now travelling out to start the race we’re not set for fast sailing and with plenty of time to get to our rendezvous point, outside the barrier reef, the boat is relatively steady and Lucy has surpassed herself with some great produce for Breakfast. Starting with Weetbix (the Aussie equivalent of my favourite cereal) or granola, followed by some bacon and eggs, cobs (rolls, baps or any other connotation for a small circle of bread), fruit custard tarts or croissant and nearly any combination of hot drink. Needless to say, all those with an appetite had a treat, those who were feeling sick, not so much. Unfortunately, with Michelle feeling so sick, I was on my own. To be honest I’m not overly bothered about it as it happens so often at the beginning of a leg, but it’s just such a long exhausting day. We had a chicken Caesar salad with pan fried breaded chicken for lunch which went down surprisingly well, followed by a beef with black bean sauce combo and new potatoes with butter. I mean no self-respecting Irish man cannot cook potatoes to perfection and as I started cooking the dinner early the beef was really good. Again, a big thumbs up to Lucy for the ingredients. Then it’s the big tidy up, washing all the pots and dishes then cleaning down the galley. To be fair, Tracey did offer to help, but her watch was already short handed with sea sickness so no big deal to do the dishes. So, whilst tiring, a good day in the office and off to bed knackered.
Le Mans Madness and a Very Sudden Yellow Life Jacket
We’ve arrived at our rendezvous point and getting ready to start the race. On this occasion we’re starting the race in a Le Mans fashion. We have the lead boat in the middle and all the other boats are spread out evenly, with their positions dictated by a lucky dip taken back in Airlie beach. We line up with only our main raised and a predetermined sail plan that’s been set by the lead boat. In this case it’s the Yankee 1 and staysail. The sails are ready to fly but tied on the deck. With 4 minutes to our agreed start all crew members must be behind the front grinder. With 1 minute to go, and the lead boat is happy with the starting line, all engines are turned off and and as the race starts after the countdown, the crews of each boat can go forward and raise the foresails. All boats must stay on the same course with the same sail plan for 10 minutes, after which the skippers can do as they please within the international sailing rules.
As the countdown begins, you can feel both the excitement and tension. We’ve all been given specific jobs and you don’t want to mess it up. 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 and we’re off. Both the Yankee 1 and the staysail are raised at the same time. It’s not our cleanest hoist, but certainly not our worst and off we go the start of race 5. It’s difficult to get a handle on where we are in the fleet but after 10 minutes, nothing much has changed, and it looks like it will be a drag race all the way to the 1st virtual mark. It appears we are in the middle of the pack with Scotland leading the way but in Ocean terms, you’ll never win a race in the 1st 10minutes but you could easily loose the race, so a clean start is all your really looking for and now the hard work begins.
Gavin’s philosophy has been to get all the crew on the helm and we’re very fortunate on our watch that everybody, bar Ryan, has completed at least 1 leg in this year’s race. Ryan is a previous circumnavigator, so we’re well set for the race. Gradually we start moving through the fleet, not by much as these boats are so evenly matched. The route to Subic Bay is a bit like a left handed race track with various way points we need to keep to Port. So, it’s no surprise that the fleet, with a few exceptions, are all heading on the same heading. We can see each other, which, for the 1st time in a while, really feels like you’re in a race. All the boats are looking for that little advantage, the small wind shift, the change in wind speed. And sure enough, the wind increases as we’re yet again sailing upwind into a cyclonic storm. Gusts of 46 knots smash into the boat and the guys head to the foredeck, once again to drop our Yankee 1. We’ve already put 1 reef into the main and now we’re sailing under just the staysail and reefed main, but we’re still slowly moving through the fleet. We already know that the storm should be short lived and the wind will drop, but again we still have a lot of sea sickness on the boat which tends to put constraints on your sail plan.
So, we’ve still been sailing with 1 reef in the main and just the staysail. As we get closer to the Doldrums the wind has dropped a bit more and the fleet have started to catch up with us. Gavin gets us set to shake out reef 1 but holds as we can see a couple of boats getting closer and closer. Gavin is still watching and waiting to see what sail plan will pick the boat speed up the best. So, we wait and still the fleet is closing in. It becomes a bit of a laugh on the boat as we’re watching the yachts get closer and watching Gavin as he comically shouts out “what are you looking at”. The wind isn’t really dropping that much and you can see that although some boats are catching us, they’ve got too much sail up and continually round up in the gusts and then turn back down. Gavin makes the call, “ok guys forget the reef and get the storm jib up”. The Yankee 1 is already on the deck so we can hank it on above the Yankee 1, so it shouldn’t take too long. We’ve flown this sail plan on a few occasions in our level 4 training and in the Bay of Biscay on race 1. It just gives us enough foresail to point the boat and helps balance the helm. So, the guys get up on deck and it’s a bit of a washout. Water is going everywhere, I’m fortunate to be in the cockpit coordinating all the halyards and sheets. After a fair bit of time, we get the storm jib up and flying and the boat picks up and starts to pull away again. During the process, Big Tony’s life jacket inflates and his AIS beacon goes off. The alarms in the navigation station are going off and Gavin is shouting down the boat for Tony to turn his AIS off. I mean, one moment he’s standing on the foredeck, a massive wave comes over, engulfs him, and he appears out of the water in a bloody big yellow life jacket. He carries on and gets the job done, but it did make me laugh.
As the sea state reduces and the wind starts to ease slightly, I’m sent up with a few of the watch to drop the storm jib, drag it back and re-fly the Yankee 1. We’ve moved up to 4th and as night draws in I can see the navigation lights of the whole fleet. Which is a rare thing after three days of racing. The crew are up for the race, after the issues we had last time out, and it’s keeping steady and straight that works.
We’ve learned over the last few races that the helm handover is key to our success. With the outgoing helm staying beside the new helm to “check helm” whilst the new helm beds in. It can take 5 to 10 minutes to get your eye in, so it’s imperative that the new helm is on it before being left on their own. Every boat will be similar, in that you change helm either on the hour or half hour and you can see the boats around you start to deviate on the hour and every half hour. If we’re better at the changeover, we’ll make gains on them. We’ve also got better at trimming the sails on the hour or on a wind shift. You might think that would be the norm, but it’s taken a while for the Skipper and 1st mate to have the confidence to let us do it ourselves. And to be honest, a while for the crew to have the confidence to make that call without the need for either Gavin or Craig to ask us to make the change. To make the point even stronger we’ve now moved up into 2nd spot. But, we can still see the navigation lights of the fleet behind us, some green and some red. We know we’re being chased down, just as we’re chasing down team Scotland. There’s a wind shift as I go down below to put the hourly entry into the boats log. As I climb back on deck the navigation lights from a few of the clippers are on our stern. We’ve not trimmed our sails after the wind shift and we’re over sheeted. A quick run onto the foredeck, trim the sails and instantly we start to pull away and the lights start to dim. It’s also an interesting watch if you go up on the foredeck at night to trim your sails. To help see we often switch to a white light. Of course, the other boats can see the Yankee and Main illuminated in white light and it starts a chain reaction down the fleet.
Into the Doldrums: Skill, Nerve, and a Little Luck
Moving towards the Doldrums the wind is getting a little fluky. We’ve had a massive change in the wind direction, the team instantly feel the change, the helm reacts to keep the boat moving and the rest of us jump to trim. It’s caught out team Scotland and the fleet behind us, as they’ve gone broadside to us and we quickly close up on team Scotland. Lucy is on the helm and our mission is to get past them before our watch has finished. 20 minutes to run and gradually we pull level, and as judge and jury, and it’s my blog, I make the call. Lucy got the job done with a few minutes to spare and off to bed a happy watch.
As Bosun I have various responsibilities but luckily when David joined us, who was the Bosun on Qingdao, took on the job as engineer. One of the bits of kit we rely on is our little Panda generator which is used every day to top up our batteries via the inverter but also to run our water maker which needs 240v. It is temperamental and is continually breaking down. David gave it a major service whilst in Airlie beech and the oil was black! So, God only knows when the last oil change was done? But I trust David will get the kit sorted over time. Anyway, our little Panda generator starts to play up again and won’t start. Gavin has got fed up with it, as we all are. It’s a long way to go without a generator. (We can still use the main engine if necessary). Gavin believes it’s the diesel pump and we don’t have a spare! He’s contemplating having a rendezvous with another boat to get a spare pump, as like I’ve said, it’s a long way to go without a generator. After stripping it down and cleaning it there’s nothing doing. In true Irish tradition, if in doubt and your fix doesn’t work, hit it with a hammer and low and behold our naughty panda jumps back into life! A life lesson to us all.
We’ve arrived in the Doldrums and we’re in 1st spot. A great effort from the team and the wind, as predicted, has started to fall away. So just keep the boat sailing. This is where sorcery is applied by generating apparent wind! There are many ways in which we navigate the boat, compass, course over ground (COG), an object in the distance (stars, clouds, land marks, etc) and apparent wind angle (AWA). There are probably a load more but that’s the lot that we use.
In this instance we’re using an AWA of 45 degrees with wind speed of 6 knots as we move forward the boat generates its own wind, a bit like the wing on an aeroplane. It’s like magic and we end up travelling at 6 knots with an apparent wind speed of 9 knots. It’s very small movements on the helm, and very small movements on the sheets or halyards. If we lose concentration and come too high we lose the apparent wind and our speed and we have to bear away and start the process all over again. The wind is moving about as much as 45 degrees so concentration is key in keeping the boat moving forward and if you’re following us on the tracker it would explain why it appears we’re all over the place. We know the wind will drop at some stage at which point we will put on our engines. As per leg 1 race 2, we’re allowed to use our engines in the doldrums corridor and the rules are very clear. We must declare 3 hours before we turn our engines on. Once on, we have a given minimum time of 40 hours to cross 4 degrees of latitude (which is 240 nautical miles) to travel on our engines or sails or both and we must not travel over the 4 degrees of latitude before our given time, otherwise we will get a penalty. The Doldrums corridor is a total of 8 degrees of latitude, 480 nautical miles. The challenge for all the skippers is when to turn their engines on? Our view is to take the wind we’ve got for as long as possible and get as far as we can into the doldrums corridor before we declare. We have various weather models which are telling us that the wind will be very slight in the top end of the doldrums so that’s why we’re trying to use the wind we’ve got. Some boats have already called it in. Warrant called it as soon as they hit the Doldrums! Our speed is around 5 knots, which is better than most of the fleet, but when to make the call is down to Gavin. The hope is that if we call it as late as possible, and in 240 miles time, we can drive right past the guys who’ve called it early and get back into 1st spot. However, those boats who’ve declared early may have guessed right. It’s a bit of a lottery, but it is what it is and we won’t really know where it shakes out until all the fleet have finished using their engines.
We’ve now called it and our engine is on. 240 miles or 4 degrees of latitude for 40 hours which will hopefully put us in a good place. We’ve flaked our Yankee 1, bagged it and left it on deck. We’ve dropped our staysail, but left it hanked on, it’s been flaked and rolled to keep it tidy and we’ve left our full main up and travelling at approx 7.5 knots.
It’s now time for a bit of a tidy up and get some “flat weather” jobs done. Gavin has repaired our starboard Hydro generator, which had lost a bolt. We’ve filled our main diesel tanks with our Jerry cans, deep cleaned the galley, taken some of the seating up and gave the cushions a good clean, lifted the boards in the galley and around the fresh food and given that a good clean all in readiness to come out of the Doldrums.
LBS in the Spotlight
As many followers of ‘Clipper’ will have seen on various different social media channels, LBS is getting a bit more airtime than usual. About time I hear you cry. The reason being we have James on board. He’s one of the clippers reporters or OBR and with us all the way to Qingdao. He’s a fun sort of guy with a permanent grin and eats like a horse and has a quirky sense of humour. It’s been really interesting seeing him work. Having a camera pointing at you is weird but the outputs have been fairly impressive so far. He also helps sail the boat when he’s not busy on his camera or creating content. The drone flights have been interesting to watch, both the take off and landing. And we’ve probably had the 1st GoPro overboard recovery in Clipper history, just lucky we had our engine on when James’s GoPro pole snapped. I’m sure everyone is enjoying seeing life on board LBS.
We were having discussions about how poor the visibility has been at night for the majority of the race thus far with very few clear nights that help helming. Ironically, on our 1st night in the Doldrums, there’s not a cloud in sight and as I walked on deck. A very familiar sight, the Plough, which is not visible in the Southern Ocean has popped up and reminds me of home. We’ve also had some stunning sun sets and sun rises with the strangest of cloud formations, causing discussions on the various shapes in the sky. Rather like ink blots, we all see different things and amazing lightening storms all around us, luckily not too close.
Sunday Sundown, Ryan & Oli on ‘mother’ have rustled up a cracking chicken curry with some boiled rice with boiled potatoes and some pop corn. Which went down a storm. We’ve also got our can of pop, although this time I’ve managed to smuggle some contraband onto the boat – very controversial, but the Guinness zero has gone down a treat.
A great way to end a great week. Let’s see where we get to next week.