It is quite a long way to finally become a qualified race member and it is good this way. Clipper pays a lot of attention to a very good training and naturally they have to. Yes I had several 10.000nm miles of sailing on my back, both in racing and also in leisure sailing in different regions. And I sailed a lot of different types of boat from a small dinghy up to a three mast square rigger. But most of the applicants are novices. A good portion never put a feet on a boat before or a sailing vessel. And in order to make them safe what is required in the Atlantic, Southern Ocean or North Pacific is training. Sailing is to a certain extent a matter of training, experience and knowledge. Yes the facts are complex because many factors like weather, geography, technical equipment and crew play a role on how you can sail and where you can go to. So this is all about knowledge. And actually the first step is to learn a new language. Every piece of equipment and each part of the boat has it own name that is not familiar to a non sailor. The ones that were or are sailors and not from an English speaking country had to learn also a new language. We know what the stuff is but that Palsteg is Bowline and Backbord is Port and a Gennacker is a kite and ein Backstag is runner that is what you have to learn. The ones that never were on a boat had to learn function and name. I was glad that I only had to learn the vocabulary.
Clipper operates two sailing hubs in order to get everybody on the same page and at the same time safe and sound about sailing. The main hub is in Gosport on the other side of Portsmouth. Here is a fleet of Clipper 68 yachts available and if not racing around the world the 11 Clipper 70. I second hub is in Sydney for the guys in Downunder. The training consists of 4 independent training sessions L1 (for level 1), L2, L3 and L4. Each session is about one week long and consist of theory, safety training and sailing. But it is also about finding out if you can cope with the environment of the boat, the diesel smell, the humid odor of wet Foulies, the very special smell of the heads. It is about finding out if you can socialize with 8-12 unknowns with different backgrounds, skills and learning curves. And especially it is about finding out how you can fight the nasty green monster if it bites you.
So here I was scheduling my L1-L4 sessions. I tried to schedule all of them in the cold in order to make sure I will be ready for leg 6, the freezing ride. L1 I took in October 2018 and L2 in November, booked L3 earliest in 2019 and L4 was later with the team. I recall L1 as if it was today. Excited to sail such a big machine. We all arrived and I met really interesting people and our Skip was Mark. On the first night we had supper on board, some first let us know each other round and safety briefings, knots and a short visit to the pub. Second day breakfast safety briefings, mobility test, knots, deck walk and no sailing. The weather was not what I wanted to see. It was summer in October, 20 degrees, unbelievable. Shorts and T-shirt. At night supper on board, safety brief and….zip to the pub. Third day sailing, yes. Throughout the day sunshine, light air but OK. We put up the main, stay sail and Yankee 3. In 10 knots of wind……..But we had a good exercise and berthed in West Cowes. No supper on board, we zipped to the pub. Fourth day 16 knots. We tacked and tacked and tacked, “Ready to tack – runner back”. 20 hands grabbed whatever, some eyes stared at the skipper disconnected and with the question “What in the h… am I supposed to do?” The Wind died down and we did what you do than, reef 1, reef 2, reef 3 with staysail only. All of a sudden Bob went. “Man over Board” equivalent to chaos. It took us 25 minutes to get Bob back – a death sentence for the Southern Ocean. But everybody was learning. And some of the crew were not happy with me. Impatient as I am I tried to pull two lines at a time or grind the coffee grinder so fast that only our Kiwi dared to grind with me. RocknRoll. Just I forgot that we were in L1 and not on leg 6. Mark put me aside and asked me to take it easy. Don’t do the stuff, show others how it gets done. Man what a difficult task. But a boat only goes 2 knots if most of the crew is at two knots and not 10 if you were on 10. Team required. This is not a dinghy.
The weather was awesome for the beach but light air for sailing. The few of us crew and skipper Mark came along quite well. On the last day though I was in the pit. My favorite place on the 68. 4 Winches, all the lines. We did a Man overboard drill and came done to a 12 minute recovery. We were ready to hoist Yankee three after the stay went up almost only by sweating (means two guys at the mast rip the sail up the inner stay, almost no grinding). The Yankee 3 got a good sweating 2/3rds up the stay and than grinding – me. I put my left knee into the left corner of the pit and my right leg to the back of the pit. After 20 turns my left leg slipped out of the corner and my upper body twisted by the momentum round my right knee. Jewhizz. A stitching pain. I grinded Y3 up but had trouble walking afterwards
Skip noticed it when, after we came back I to the Harbour, I limped to the pub. He protected me because I was given easy jobs next day and during deep clean. I passed L1 but was reported to Clipper office as an incident. My L2 training in November was gone. I was told that I needed a medical clearance and a skipper clearance before I could report back on board. It took me till Feb to get my knee back working. Next step L2. To be continued.
Joe Sails 