The Hatch

The build up begins!

18 July 2007

It is at this stage that the crew realise that they are at the bottom of a huge learning curve. They have done their Part A and B Clipper Training, which is designed to make them safe aboard and teach the basics of yacht racing, but they have only scratched the surface of knowledge. They are now heading off on the final phase of their training with their own skipper and race crew. But it is the race itself where they will learn most. Though much can be learned from books, seamanship ultimately is a hands-on profession, best learned on a boat.

There is so much to learn about the sea. It’s not just how to sail a boat safely and fast, and learning some knots. It’s about meteorology, navigation, communications, feeding for energy and enjoyment, engineering, how to behave with, and avoid, other shipping, safety equipment, compliance with international regulations, carrying out the maintenance that a boat always requires and learning to live cheek-by-jowl in a small and often damp space with other people and share the duties of running and operating a yacht with humour and selflessness. The list is endless, but it is a good knowledge and understanding of these matters that makes the difference between the dangerous and the competent amateur. It is what makes a seaman. 

For the Clipper crews, many of whom had never sailed before they signed up for the race, it is not going to be easy. We cannot stop their muscles aching or that cold douche of water going down the back of their necks at 2am when they have just left a nice warm bunk to go on watch. But in any case if it were easy - why do it? Where would be the satisfaction from completing the challenge?

To go around the world the easy way, there is the option to spend a lot more and go on the QM2, but you’d learn little and probably put on a lot of fat and have little to talk about at the end. Our crews have chosen to do something a bit special with their lives and that makes them far more interesting. They will come back with some wonderful lifelong memories, which they have created themselves.

When the crews return to Liverpool’s Albert Dock at the end of the adventure, I know that each one of them will have changed. Their horizons will have widened. They will be much more self confident, not just about sailing, but in life generally.

We have one life on Earth as far as we know. I hope their experience in Clipper 07-08 will help them to start painting that life in bright colours.