The Pacific Ocean scares me, but I like it!

Posted on 21 March 2012

What an extraordinary couple of days we’ve had!  Despite almost five thousand miles raced, we’re jockeying for position with two other boats in the Clipper Round the World Yacht Race fleet, with under ten nautical miles separating our ‘distance to finish’ rankings. The three-boat battle, with Welcome to Yorkshire and the Qingdao-sponsored boat, sees us switching between seventh, sixth and fifth place repeatedly – it’s proving difficult to make gains on the others, as they’re experiencing similar weather, with a similar course, and a similar urge to push hard to the finish line under San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge.

They say a change is as good as a rest. After a prolonged period of grey, dreary upwind conditions, maintaining the same sail plan (meaning tweaking the tightness and angle of sails for good performance, but little else), the weather has delivered a glorious refresher. We’ve broken into an area where a high pressure weather system is converging with a low pressure system – this means the wind, blowing around a Force 9, is now driving from behind, the sky has an eerie brightness, and the sea is BIG. It’s sending us flying towards San Francisco, and the miles are ticking off very quickly indeed.

It’s required that we change the boat’s sails repeatedly as the new weather system has established itself, and as the wind continues to move around to the north west. From long, cold watches trying hard to stay awake, we’ve had deck shifts of back-to-back effort dragging sails on to the deck, lashing them down, hoisting, re-setting and grinding them into place. The front of the boat, the foredeck, moves like a fairground waltzer as the boat surfs up and over the giant swell and waves.  Working up there feels extraordinarily exposed – one minute the sea is rushing up to meet you, the next, you’re teetering at the height of a great trough, waiting for the rush of power as the 40 tonne boat lifts, pauses as if to take breath, then careers on.

The wind is too ferocious for a spinnaker sail, instead we’ve ‘poled-out’ the headsail, using a special piece of rigging to hold the front sail on the opposite side of the boat to the main sail. It increases the speeds we can achieve, and demands an added degree of accuracy from the helmsman.

They say you should do something scary every day in your life – that’s no problem on this boat! On the helm, you feel the responsbility to keep your teammates safe and the boat intact – steering safely through the waves requires concentration, timing, strength, and, for me, at least, a fair dose of girding my loins and staying brave!  The sense of power under your feet and through your hands is truly awesome.

Fatigue is certainly starting to bite, as is the discomfort of wearing full oilskins and mulitple thermal layers every time you step on deck.

Below-decks, condensing water on the cold steel bulkheads has ensured new levels of wetness of bunks, kit and clothes. It’s unlikely that we’ll catch the race leaders now, even though there are still more than a thousand miles to go.

But somehow this doesn’t matter at the moment – this sailing, in these conditions, with a team of focused people is ticking all the boxes.  The mighty Pacific Ocean is revealing her power and beauty, and we are proving a match for her challenge.

Visit my website, www.maryannochota.com, for more info on the adventure. And, while you’re at it, check out www.clipperroundtheworld.com – they are currently recruiting crew for the 2013-14 race.






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