Race 6 - Day 5
Crew Diary - Race 6 Day 5
13 January

Time Travellers

It’s long been thought that Clipper Race yachts are like the Tardis - bigger on the inside than on the outside. This becomes clear when we’re in port, and the guts of the boats are spilled onto the dock for deep cleaning. More stuff than you thought possible is hauled up and piled in great lines for checking, filling, emptying, washing, drying and general accounting for. Then this stuff gets gradually manoeuvred back into place in the boat, in a jigsaw effort than goes on and on. Perhaps more Tetris than Tardis.

But did you know the Clipper 70s have yet more in common with Doctor Who? Yep – we are also Time Lords. Time Lords of the sea.

For example, in Race 5, at a certain point rounding Tasmania, Dare To Lead set its clocks forwards by two hours, and hey presto DTL Boat Time was two hours closer to Newcastle time and two hours further from Freo time. Apparently, the decision about when this happens is up to us. We could have moved our clocks forward as we left Freo. We could have jumped forward when we were just outside Newcastle. In fact, there are three hours between the two cities, and we decided to move forward only two hours while at sea, and added the extra hour as we rounded Nobby’s Point into Newcastle. Talk about Master of Boat Time!

I wondered… if we could have set our clocks as we liked, how else could we have managed DTL Boat Time?

Could we for example have joined South Australia time as we passed below Adelaide in the Great Australian Bight? South Australia is half an hour behind the East Coast, perhaps that would have been rather strange. Or could we have joined Queensland time? In QLD they don’t observe Daylight Savings, so they are an hour behind NSW. These States are already showing how time can be manipulated! After all time is just a human construct, right? A convention that suits us when we need to relate across lines of longitude, which are themselves merely conventional signs, according to Lewis Carroll*.

So, can we push this idea further?

Perhaps on Dare To Lead we could have set our clocks at Christmas Eve as we left Freo. Then we could have spent the whole voyage on just three days – Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and Boxing Day. Our wonderful three feasting days around Christmas. Sure, nights would have come and gone, but as we say “Good Morning” whenever we change watch, whether it’s morning, noon or clearly night time, this would have made no difference. We could have had more feasting, more gradually opening presents, more comfort and joy. More work for Santa, but as no-one on board admitted to delivering our stockings, no loss there either. Then we’d have arrived into Newcastle, on Dare To Lead Boat Time Boxing Day, moving our clocks forward the remaining five days as we crossed the finish line. Hooray!

Of course, on land we have to keep pace with convention, or reality as it is sometimes known. But at sea as we change Boat Time to suit ourselves, we can be Time Lords of DTL, masters of our own universe, changing times and dates as we please!

Next I’m looking forward to seeing what Dare To Lead decides as the team crosses the International Date Line somewhere in the North Pacific...

Love from all of us to all of you

Clare

*”What’s the use of Mercator’s North Poles and Equators, Tropics, Zones and Meridian Lines?”

So the Bellman would cry, and the crew would reply “They are merely conventional signs!”