For those of you following the Clipper Round the World race, this may be old news...but we won! First over the line by LITERALLY 26 seconds. Congrats to Great Britain for a close second. It was probably one of the most intense two hours of my life (have I said that enough already during this race?)...we have travelled thousands of miles from Brisbane, AU to just off the coast of Mandinau, a large island in the Phillipines where the race finish mark was and in the very last hours, three boats converged, spinnakers up, pushing each other to work as hard and fast as we could. Our finish was met with whoops of joy and hugs all around, followed by a quick deck cleanup and sail douse, and finally after having missed several off watches due to excitement, blissful sleep. But perhaps I should rewind because the two days leading up to our victory were equally, if not more filled with drama and excitement...
For the last several days, we have been partners in an elaborate dance of boats. Every six hours, the new numbers are released. Every six hours, we move from fourth to second to third to first to second again. The boats are all miles away from each other in latitude, and thus out of eyesight, but our longitudes make it anyone's gain. Finally, after weeks of beating upwind, we are able to throw up a spinnaker and make some real progress. I have no experience with spinnaker work, but it is a quick learning process and I have been told that I am a natural trimmer. Without going into too much boring detail, spinnakers are eased in and out as a helmsman comes up and down with the boat attempting to build speed. Helming is particularly grueling for a beginner because "wrapping the kite" is just about the worst thing you can do. Kite collapse not only delays the boat from moving forward at full potential, but a bad collapse can result in a damaged sail, costing money and points. I have done bits of helming, slowly getting used to it, but several attempts have resulted in tears. Two days ago, I had a terrible time on the helm as the wind was quite light and fluky. At this point in my current life, nothing is worse than Eric coming up on deck to find out why things aren't going the way they should. He has a way of saying just enough or not saying anything at all...a bit like my father. As soon as I got off watch, I ran downstairs and cried myself to sleep. It was an inevitable buildup of stress, exhaustion, and being out of my element with nothing and no one familiar around me. It doesn't help that I am a perfectionist.
Several hours later, it was time for watch again. We were in first place, "despite my best efforts" I joked...feeling much better after the release of tears. The spinnaker had been changed to a wind seeker and we were ghosting along at five knots. As the sun set on the horizon, we spotted a vessel, maybe six or seven miles away. Nothing out of the norm. Watch continued and the vessel got bigger. Eric came on deck. "Should we put on our blue shirts?" We asked regarding the matching shirts that we all had and were to wear during any threat of potential piracy. He declined and we watched as the vessel inched closer. They were three miles out, a fishing vessel no doubt. And then in what was probably less than ten minutes, they were half a mile away and barreling towards us. An all hands on deck was called. I quietly took my knife off my life jacket and tucked it into my underwear. The engine was turned on and after several VHF calls for the vessel to abort his current course, Eric made the decision to motor us out of our current position. The next hour was controlled chaos as it seemed like we were playing a game of cat and mouse. We alerted authorities, the international piracy organization (whatever that may be), dropped our sails, and waited. They never approached us any closer than their initial attempt, and after a few hours it was clear they were just curious. But we couldn't take the risk. And it was certainly a bit horrifying to think that it wasn't a drill. The air of uncertainty was stifling. When Eric finally made the call to motor back to our last position an start sailing again, I was grateful. Normalcy returned, but we were all a bit shaken up. Who wouldn't be? We were out in the middle of the ocean with none of the other CVs in any close proximity. We were on our own.
No comments:
Post a Comment