On the 18th of February disaster had struck on board Gold Coast Australia
with a medical emergency of a broken leg. Racing in the 8th race from
Singapore to Qingdao, China in the Clipper 2011-12 Round the World Yacht
Race the crew on board Gold Coast Australia were still reeling from the
days events where they needed to divert to Taiwan to transfer crew member
Tim Burgess to the emergency department at the hospital. Tim, as the rest
of the Round the worlder’s had by now sailed over 26 000 nautical miles
and had become experienced yachtsman but accidents so happen.
Re-entering the race in 5th position with the sun setting off the bow and
Taiwan over the stern we debriefed about the days events and as a
collective group made the decision to fight really hard to get a podium
position in honour of Tim’s accident. Our numbers were now reduced down to
12 crew on a boat designed to be sailed with 15 or more and of those 12
crew only around 8 could work as we had experienced a few other injuries
through the rough weather with badly bruised knees etc. Out of those 8
even less were able to work on the bow so all the sail changes and
evolutions became very hard work indeed.
Even with our shortened crew the same at-sea challenges were still there
with lots of fishing boats dotting the horizon, the exhaustion from
needing to be on deck for every sail change often making us late off the
deck or early wake up resulting in a possible 3 hours sleep a day if you
were lucky. Not only this we were still experiencing 3 meter swell making
living generally difficult and uncomfortable. Through the night we had
elevated our position to 4th place as we over took Team Finland and the
decision was made to enter into stealth mode. A 24 hour period of time
were our position is not broadcast to the rest of the racing fleet
allowing for any tactical maneuvers to be made. 24 hours later after a
very grueling night with lots of sail changes and very little sleep we
were ahead of Singapore and in 3rd position in line for a podium position.
Just ahead was De Lang Langdon and Geraldton by only by 40 nautical
miles. We still had the last 24 hours to race and with fingers and toes
crossed we gave it everything to try and catch them. At 10 30am on the
22 we crossed the line in 3rd place 20 nautical miles behind the leaders
and were welcomed with open arms in to the city of Qingdao to the sounds
of drums where we were treated like celebrities, a refreshing change after
18 gruelling days at sea.
On the morning of the 4th after spending 10 fun filled days in this
friendly and hospital city was our day to depart for the 9th race in the
series racing over 5000 nautical miles across the notorious North Pacific
ocean from Qingdao, China to San Francisco, USA. With snow falling we make
the last preparations in freezing conditons before slipping the line at
1100am to over 200 drummers banging out there farewells until the noise
was deafening. Tears of joy and sadness were shed by many as we faced the
prospect of being apart at sea for over 30 days. Butterfly’s were
fluttering in my stomach as I wonder what new challenges will be ahead. I
am to be a watch leader this race so I am sure that the challenges will be
many.
Fantastic send off from China featuring amazing drummers.
All the clipper fleet were milling round the start line when the radio
crackled to life and the voice of the race director came across announcing
that the start line was to be delayed due to the surrounding conditions
being unfit to safely start a race. We could barely see more than 4 boat
lengths in any direction as the fog was so dense, boats would loom out of
the white haze only to disappear moments later as if they had never been.
Our race instruction were to start motoring towards the next way-point as
a group in the hopes that we would reach the end of the fog before
nightfall. We did manage to reach the end of the fog but by then there
was no wind and with only an hour left of daylight the call was made to
delay the race until first light the next day. Continuing towards the
next way-point throughout the night we entered into a modified 2 hour
rotations on deck so that everyone could get a little extra sleep.
As the darkness lightened to a dull Grey we were greeted with the dawn and
the prospect of a race start. Singapore was the lead boat and as such was
co-ordinating the start at sea. The instructions were to gather the fleet
and line up for a Lamons Start. This is a French title for a race start
where all the boats are in a line just behind the lead boat who is in the
centre. Each boat has there main sail up but all there other sails are
only hanked on and ready to go. All the crew are to be standing behind
the grinder, a feature about half way along the deck in preparations for
the start gun. Once the start is given it is up to the crews to quickly
walk forward to hoist and trim the two remaining sails as fast as they
can. The boat with its sails set first will be in the lead. The count
down began around mid morning, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, GO. At 1035 am we all
rushed to our prearranged positions and set about hoisting those sails as
hard as we could finishing with them set and trimmed a short time after
the lead boats. Sitting around mid fleet we were all focus as we tried to
gain the advantage. Throughout that night we had taken the lead as the
weather increased to 20 knots of wind right on the bow.
The next few days were a blurr of complete exhaustion as we worked to hold
onto and increase our merger lead of 5 nautical miles, completing sail
change after sail change trying to gain the tactical advantage over our
opponents. The only draw back was that all of the crew were completely
shattered with very little rest off watch from the bashing swell and no
rest during watch with evolution after evolutions taking place. One
example of this was on day 2 in a 4 hour period we were sailing with the
Yankee 1 and full main when the winds started to increase above 15 knots
and back around making it almost possible for a spinnaker hoist. The call
was made to set up the Heavy Weight Spinnaker so we got the pole and all
the lines ready, no the winds have changes so we were told to pack away
the Spinnaker and set up for a Yankee 2 hoist, when we were almost done
with packing away the Spinnaker the call was made that we would go for the
hoist on the Spinnaker after all. Once again we set it up only to be told
that we will set up for a gybe now because there was a ship coming
directly for us and they were not listing to the radio so we could not ask
there to increase there distance.
Taking the pole down and setting up all the sheets and lines only to have
the skipper Richard Hewson come on deck and say that we needed to Gybe NOW
because the ship was almost on us. Looking up we should see the bulky
hull of a rusty container ship coming out of the fog a scant few hundred
meters away coming right at us… We gybed the boat and thought that we
were safe only to see the ship dramatically alter course and were once
again coming directly at us. Bugger. They were close now less than 200
meters and coming down fast. Looking on in horror we tried to sail away
once again only to be passed less than 1 hundred meters on our starboard.
It then became evident that there was a small fishing vessel on the other
side that they were trying to avoid as well as us. Once the panic was
over we were to hoist the Heavy Weight Spinnaker, un-hank (un-attach) the
Yankee 1 ( the largest head-sail) and Stay Sail and to hank on the Yankee
2 in-case we needed to drop the Spinnaker in a hurry. 5 and a half hours
later we finally fell into an exhaustive sleep only to be woken a short 2
hours later to do it all again.
On the 3rd day at sea we made a great error and broached the boat at watch
change resulting in yet another broken spinnaker pole. This was
devastating because we still had another 30 days to race and the lack of
spinnaker pole could really alter our race but lucky for us we do carry
two of them on-board and are looking at ways to repair the broken pole.
Still there is no rest to be had as a we sail into a low pressure system
offering up 30-40 knots of wind on the bow making any thought of rest
impossible. The days became a blur of continuous spray in your face,
reefing the main sail, pounding waves and the gut retching sound from the
boat as she fly’s off the back of a monster wave landing with an almighty
bang. Finally after being at sea for 7 days we were able to get more than
an hours sleep as the winds abated to a relatively comfortable 15-20
knots. With the rest we also found that we were still in fist place with
a 30 nautical mile lead on the fleet. So all that hard work was worth it.
