The crew on board Gold Coast Australia said there farewells
for the last time as they departed from the cannel lined city of Den Helder, setting
out for home port of Southampton, UK in the 15th race of the Clipper
2011-12 Round the World Yacht Race. The
race start was delayed so we sailed around a bit organising a few last minute
items on the boat like getting me dangling of another rope again as I went up
the back of the main sail to re-run the reefing pennant. The winds were building to around 30 knots
and it was likely that we would need to reef (shorten the sail area of the main
sail).
Thankfully as we rushed down for the line we had some fantastic
speed and shot across in second place seconds behind Singapore but with all of
our momentum we were back where we belonged in 1st place again only
minutes later. A couple of minutes into the race we sailed past the team
Welcome to Yorkshire who were heading in the wrong direction, unfortunately for
them they missed the 10 minute call on the VHF radio and were madly trying to
get to the start line. We held the lead
through as the night the as the winds eased down to 5 knots allowing for those
of our crew who had once again been struck down by the dreaded sea sickness to
recover slightly. With the dramatic
change in wind strength we were all kept busy doing all of the sail changes to
keep up with it. Trust me this was a
lot.
The following morning with our light weight spinnaker flying
in a calm 5 knots of wind, we were faced with a new navigational hazard as the
sun peaked over the horizon at 4am. Large wind farms lined the water ahead just
off the coast and there was also another TSS (Traffic Separation Scheme) a high
way for the super tankers and something that we were restricted to enter. Whilst trying to keep clear of the wind farms
we fell into a wind hole which gave the golden opportunity to four other boats
to overtake us. Due to our race success
so far (11 wins) the other boats would relish in the opportunity to be ahead of
us. At one stage team Edinburgh
Inspiring Capital overtook us and just as there stern cleared our bow they all
cheered enjoying seeing us behind them for a change however 5 minutes later we
quietly overtook them back. I didn’t
hear anymore cheering from them after that…
It was now the afternoon of day 2 at sea and we could now
see the white cliffs of Dover ahead and were about to sail down the Dover
Strait. With three boats ahead of us we
made a tactical call to sail as close to those white cliffs as possible and
with some tidal calculations done Skipper Richard Hewson decided that it was
safe to sail over a sand bank with a depth of 1 meter on the chart. This would mean that we would need to tack
less than the other boats allowing us to hopefully make up some ground. Trusting in our tactical decision and the
fact that we did not run aground Edinburgh Inspiring Capital decided to follow
us. This tactic payed off for both of us as we exited the straits we were once
again in 1st place.
Throughout the rest of the afternoon we steadily increased
our lead on the rest of the fleet expect Geraldton Western Australia who stuck
to us like glue. At around 8pm we sailed
once again into another bad wind hole offering up gusts of 0.3knots of wind. Geraldton held the winds slightly longer and
gained the lead whilst behind us the rest of the fleet came steadily charging
up closing our 4 nautical mile lead down to a mere 500 meters. Trying to do everything in our power to get
the boat moving we got Veronica up on deck to perform one of her wind
dances. It must have worked because with
her arms failing and weird noises emanating from her vocal cords I felt a
slight hint of a breeze on my cheek.
Soon enough it was enough to get moving but we were once again back to
the middle of the fleet. This was agony
because we had been working so hard to get the lead and then something small
like this would happen and you were straight back to the middle again and in these
light and fickle winds it was just so hard to catch the bad guys ahead.
We were now near Southampton and entering into the elastic
band section of the course. This was a series of marks that could be lengthened
or shortened to ensure that we arrived in Southampton in time for the race
finishing celebrations. Our course went
from being a straight line to a triangle course that we ended up travelling
around twice having finished the first one with time to spare because the winds
were sitting nicely at 10 knots. We were
not so lucky on the second time around as the winds once again dropped down to
near 0 causing our boat speed to do the same.
So the rest of the fleet caught up and we drifted towards the last mark
that we needed to round before we were able to go for the finish line.
We were reaching on our way to the mark with Singapore half
a mile ahead of us, once we went around the mark we would be able to hoist our
spinnaker and if we hoisted this before Singapore than we would have a chance
of overtaking them, the only chance before the finish. Lucky for us it went off like clockwork and
was a beautiful piece of racing to watch. Rounding just inside Singapore we had
our kite up and set before they had started hoisting theirs, costing them
valuable time and allowing us to take 1st place again.
Once we were around the last mark the slight breeze that we
had once again dropped away causing us to drop our spinnaker and hoist our wind
seeker sail. With a boat speed of 1.4
knots we were now drifting 0.2 knots faster than the rest of the fleet and very
slowly closed in towards the finish line.
Just after the sunrise on the dawn of the 22 July we sailed across the
finish in 1st place 200 meters ahead of the rest of the fleet. What an intense and close race this final one
was but the adventures did not stop here because 3 miles further along is the invisible
line that we sailed when we left Southampton 12 months earlier. Sailing over this line would officially make
5 of us on board circumnavigators. 20 minutes
after the race ended we became circumnavigators with tear filled eyes we all
embraced each other and remembered the journey that we shared across the world’s
oceans. And what an adventure it has
been.
Once all of the sails had been packed away we lined up for a
parade of sail into the Southampton Waters, looking around the boat I could see
hundreds and hundreds of boats all shapes and sizes out to welcome the fleet
home. What a fantastic sight this
was. As we entered into the Ocean
Village Marina Richard lit a flare and we celebrated with the 30-40 thousand
people who were crammed along the waterfront.
I was simply too excited to cry but almost everyone else had tears in
there eyes and with the greatest adventure of my life now complete you might be
asking me what is to be next? Well do it
all again of course!
