Yesterday morning at 10:30 on the birthday of Sir Robin the race committee has taken the very difficult decision to postpone the Clipper Race 19/20 and evacuate all crew from the Philippines. I cannot imagine what this meant for Sir Robin who’s biggest desire is to see us at sea sailing. This means that CV23 „Black Betty“ as all other boats ran through an evacuation plan.
But one step after the other because there is still a lot to talk about. The last two days Stephen and I were very, very busy to write the meal plan for 16 people on board for 35 days and 5 days emergency food. The emergency food is very simple. We stock for only very basic food. I decided for three meals that we would rotate through for lunch and dinner should we have been forced to be out there more than 35 days. The three dishes were noodle with green and red pesto. That would give a bit of variety in terms of color, soy sauce fried rice with tomato sauce was the second and the third was mash with onion gravy (which will obviously come from Mr. Kraft and elf have been purely artificial) This emergency food would go only in three day bags, noodles, rice and mash. Simple to grab, easiest to make and basic nutrition granted.
This left us to plan for 35 days or 7 weeks. Based on our crew of 14 we would have 7 mother pairs. This meant that with 7 meals mothers would always cook the same. Sound a bit boring. Therefore Stephen and I decided to go to a cycle of 8 meals. What was to consider? Total calories per day required about 5000 once North of Taiwan. And as Dean jumped ship we did not have to worry about Gluten free and we also had not vegetarians or vegans on board. So it looked simple. But besides calories we had to had very easy to cook meal combinations (lunch and dinner) for very heavy weather. We also needed to take into consideration the very limited space in the fridge. So our supplies of frozen stuff had to be minimal. The challenge clearly is that meal number 3 with fresh ingredients has to be cooked also in week number 6 or 7 when you just do not have any fresh stuff left. Pretty difficult. But we found 8 combinations. Super simple, simple and medium challenge. I also planned for a mid course food festival. That would be out of the ordinary meal plan. The 8 meal combination would get allocated day bag signs. In our case it was bag A-H. In this case we had 5 bags of A,B and C and 4 bags of D to H. These bags have exactly the same content. I wrote 16 recipes for the 8 combinations. They would be provided by WhatsApp to all crew and we also would have had a folder with them in printed form. The next hurdle was skip. He had to approve. And although his menu throughout the day is „Pringles“ mainly he had to approve the meal plan. Guess what. He did not. I had three cold lunches. And he said that this is not on. „This boat will go to places that will be much colder than the boat has seen so far. Crew can only sustain on hot meals“. OK fine. I created three new not lunches and wrote the recipes. In the second attempt I was lucky and got the OK. I also showed the plan to Kaz who became very surprised on stuff like Labskaus and Lentil Stew. I also had Sauerkraut on the menu. Sure, we are German.
Out of that meal plan and the recipes we created the list of supplies needed to do all lunches and dinners. We added breakfast to it, all the treats necessary for the moral, some fruit (in case somebody wants to stay healthy), bred baking and the birthdays. I also added our mod course food festival. It should have been Californian Shrimp cocktail with avocado dip, kimchi and Mango. And for the main course we planned rump steck with fired mushroom, melted onions and fried mash.
Just for completion we also were responsible for all cleaning product like toilet paper, wet wipes, disinfection liquids for the kitchen, the heads and the floors (all different), paper towels, puke bags, compostable bags for our compostable toilet paper (which goes over the side), wash brushed, brooms, trash canisters, lubrication old for the heads and so on. Any way after finishing the demand list with 168 positions Stephen and I mapped it against our inventory. We spent a lot of time making sure we know everything that was on board down to the marches and gas for the lighters in order to ensure that we will be able to run a seamless routine in the galley. Nothing is more annoying when a guys pukes onto the galley floor and you have no kitchen roll or do not have matches to ignite the oven. So we taped existing stock and held it against the needs. This ended in the shopping list.
But as you know from my last blog we were confined. It was the 16th and Sir Robin wanted to get us out at sea. Only thing missing were the supplies. We were basically out of everything except toilet paper (which might have lasted till London, man we had tons of them), bread mix, coconut milk mix and milk powder. But we ran out of bread, rice, noodles, mash and stuff. yes I could have fed the crew for another 4 days sailing on very basic food. We could not get out of the gates. There was no public taxi available to drive us to the store. Buses and taxis were not allowed to operate. We were told that supermarkets got stormed by locals looking for toilet paper, noodles, rices and basics to prepare for the nation wide shutdown. In an attempt to still get us out Sir Robin asked to provide the shopping lists and Sarah from the Clipper head office took an attempt to send these shopping list from 11 boats out to stores. Next morning it became obvious that the replenishment would become a mountainous undertaking. On March 17th 10:30 we were informed. Philippines gave tourist a 72 hour window to leave the county. Someone who will not be out will be locked down till April 19th. Replenishment us impossible. Therefore Clipper had to admit that the race at the time was over.
I need to be more precise. The race was not over. It was suspended and postponed. The yachts due to the weather patterns cannot sail East after April. This meant that they will stay in Subic for 11 month. The Clipper 19/20 race will become a Clipper 19/20/21 race and the next new race will be Clipper 22/23. This means whoever is up for it will come to Subic in 11 month, sail to China first followed by the crossing of the Pacific and this is supposed to happen in Feb 2021. All crews for leg 7 and 8 will be postponed. No Clipper parties this year any more, no price givings.
You might imagine what happened afterwards. Everybody pulled smarts phones out to find a flight back home. 220 people to go out in only 2 days. Welcome business for Emirates and Quartar. Air France, KLM and Ehitad cancelled already all flights. Another option that was open was to go to Singapore and fly back from there.
No flight to Hamburg available. Swoodoo showed flight but whenever you wanted to book it came back with route not available, no availability or partial legs of this offer had been cancelled. Not sure why they even show the options. It took me half an hour to plow through it before I switched to booking direct with airlines. Lufthansa no availability on coach and as expected horribly expensive in business. I changed destinations, London, Frankfurt, Vienna, Munich. Food a nice flight to London with Emirates. Booked it, tried to pay it. But a verification was needed and I cannot do TAN verification when being on the phone and need to verify on the phone. God gracious. New attempt on the laptop. Flight was still there. Verification went through but a gently advice that my CC company would not clear the payment. My heart rate went up. 220 people hunting for a bloody ticket and I was in the midst of it not being successful. OK got to my online account, loaded my card, went back to the laptop, same routine and guess what the London flight was booked out and gone. Frankfurt was booked out and Vienna not available. OK Munich than. Finally I was bale to get a flight. Not convenient because j23:30 out of Manila, arrival 4:45 in Dubai, Departure 15:35 from Dubai and touching at 19:35 in Munich. But I would make it out of the country. Booked paid and sorted. But I needed to go to the Waterkant. I pulled up Lufthansa and booked the last flight 21:20. I should be able to make that even with the change of the terminal building form T1 to T2 – hopefully. The flight was in sane expensive. But it will bring me home. All sorted. The winner is…..
Late at night my phone binged. Here is you friend ad partner Deutsche Lufthanse. It dawned on my and guess what. The 21:20 got cancelled. We are happy to offer you and we already rebooked you on the 20:15 flight. No no happiness. It is impossible to make that flight. Honestly, I did not do anything that night. I had a couple of beers and went to bed. No way to get to Hamburg on the 19th. Next morning my plan came together. I cancelled Lufthansa, thank you very much. I booked a train ticket at 04:13 on the 20th from Munich main station. Only question was how to bridge the time from 19:35 till 04:13. I looked at the weather report. Plus 6 degrees in Munich. The Bayrischer Hof has a nice lawn in fron of their entrance and I have this magical Volvo Ocean sleeping bag that I still have not slept in. That was a clear option. But somebody might have gotten upset see a bright shining orange sleeping bag in front of one of the finest hotels in Munich. Maybe not. So I called Horst, my friend in Munich. He offered availability, a Bavarian Weißbeer !!!!!!!! (which believe me will go down like gold after drinking this Phllippinian San Migual Pilsener for days, and see dinner. All is sorted as long as the flight will operate on time and we will arrive where planned.
And this all was followed by packing and the good byes, hope to see you again, keep in touch and so on. Honestly somewhat this was a sad sad moment. The job was not done, dreams not fulfilled, expectations missed. 762 nm round Robin was all that was in it for me. Nothing special.
We arrived at the airport at 12:30. Everything except one McDonals and one 7Eleven is closed. Social distancing is paramount. This airport will shut down the day after tomorrow and will be locked up until April 19th minimum.
You might expect that this will be my last post. But I am thinking to continue. I am eager to accept the postponement and step in in 11 month. A few things need to work for that to be possible including a crew topic on board. But I think it can be sorted. I thought to continue because there is so much more to talk about. I like to explain the boat in much more detail and so far I had not tome. I like to explain the route of Leg 6 and its challenges including wether patters. So if you like stay and follow this blog until it goes back to daily postings when I will be back to cross the Pacific.
Joe Sails 