Crew Blog

Ocean racing…way more exciting than Formula One.

09 April 2008

I have always hated Formula One racing.  It always bogs down the weekend’s TV when there must be something else more interesting. Football, rugby, or cricket would be great.  Hockey, tennis, badminton, heck even snooker, darts, lawn bowling, synchronised swimming, or that weird one where they throw stones down the ice and do lots of sweeping with brooms would be better.  But there’s this so called ‘sport’ where cars just race around and around a track over and over and over again.  I mean it just goes on and on and on, and nothing happens. Could it be more boring?  I know the commentators seem to get excited, but they’re getting paid to sound interested.  I even have friends, who seem intelligent, who follow it ardently, but I have always assumed this was a flaw in their character. At least that was true until I tried this ocean racing lark

I imagine that following this kind of race at home must be like watching motor racing, except possibly even worse.  Although it seems as though you could go away for the weekend and the Grand Prix would still be going on, I am assured they only last a few hours.  On the other hand you really could go on a three week holiday and we could still be racing. And yet, believe it or not, every second counts.  Sort of. 

I understand that motor racing is very technical, and I assumed that sailing was the opposite – sort of lick your finger, stick it up in the air, and that’s your wind instrument.  Yet it turns out there are all sorts of metrics we’re following, some of which I can’t even mention here for fear of giving away our secrets.  Suffice it to say that on New York we’re in two watches, each working on average 12 hours a day.  For those 12 hours it’s all about paying attention to huge numbers of details. The obvious ones are the course we’re sailing, wind strengths, sail trim, speed, other clipper boats, fishing boats, squalls, barometer changes, chaff on ropes.  Many of the ones I can’t mention involve serious trigonometry, absolutely the first time I’ve ever found a use for all those years of maths classes. The skipper constantly asks himself and us “how can we make the boat go faster”, and “are we going the right way”.  If the wind angle changes it means decisions have to be made. If the sea temperature changes, does that mean anything?  The commentators get very excited about tire changes or filling the fuel tank.  For us it’s about reefing, tacking, gybing, spinnaker hoists, or sail changes – today’s was a horrendous six and a half minutes, but better than yesterday’s even worse eight minutes.  Yet every six hours we get results that mostly don’t change much.  Sure we get very excited about a couple of miles here and there, but in the grand scheme of things even less happens, and less changes in the course of weeks even than in a car race. 

In the last twenty four hours we had it about as exciting as it gets.  We found ourselves in sight of two boats, a couple of miles behind Hull & Humber, and a few more behind Glasgow: Scotland with style Clipper.  With total focus all day and night we finally caught and overtook Hull & Humber.  Eventually we even caught Glasgow: Scotland with style.  But after working so hard for so long to gain a few miles we then lost 6 miles in one hour to the Scottish boat just by getting stuck in a squall.  We were gutted, but there’s still 1600 miles left to get it back.  I can see the commentators getting worked up by it all.

I doubt that I’ll suddenly start following Lewis Hamilton or Ferrari, or whoever when I get back home.  But I do now see how it could be an engrossing sport.  On the boat, where every second counts, or at least every six hours between the result updates, we find ourselves totally absorbed twenty four hours a day, seven days a week, in every weather condition imaginable, trying to get a tiny tenth of a knot advantage.  I know nothing seems to happen much – let’s face it, we’ve been in the Pacific for a month and a half, and still have the same again before we see another ocean – but if you’re reading this you must have caught a bit of the bug and perhaps understand better than I why it keeps you logging on and checking on us. 

Only three months, or approximately seven and a half million seconds to go to Liverpool, and we’re only a few points out of first place. Please keep following and supporting us. We may not be clogging up your TV all weekend, but it really is exciting. I promise. 

Justyn