Race 13 - Day 4
Crew Diary - Derry-Londonderry, Northern Ireland to Den Helder, Netherlands
22 July

Janine Rubie
Janine Rubie
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It's been a while since I wrote a blog - almost a month in real time - which got me thinking about the passage of time.

Six hours is an afternoon watch. Some days it flies by. Multiple sail changes, blown kites and all hell breaking loose keeps you busy with no time think. Today, drifting along under azure skies in calm seas having found yet another wind-hole and time drags. It drags so much that Port Watch cheered the achievement of breaking the 3 knot speed barrier. This was when I decided it was time to come below and write.

Six minutes isn't long. Not in most circumstances. When the boat is heeled over, the boom is dragging in the water and it's time to put a reef in, that means someone has to go up the mast to drag the sail down. Six minutes is an awfully long time when you're clinging to the mast, the boat is bouncing up and down and you're trying both to hang on and to pull the sail down at the same time. It's been pointed out by the critics' gallery over my shoulder that its shouldn't take six minutes to put in a reef. And maybe it doesn't. But that's very much my point. When you're up there it could be almost any time.

Six weeks is the length of my Clipper Race adventure. It's nearly over. Nearly but not quite. We're about a hundred miles from Den Helder but at the rate we're going it feels like it might be six days before we get there. There are just three of us (myself included) who have done only Leg 8 on the race. So, by definition, almost everyone else here has been going for far longer. But that's their adventure - and you can read about that in their blogs.

My adventure is six weeks. It's taken in New York (and of course New Jersey), the North Atlantic, landfall on the west coast of Ireland that was far more emotional than I would have expected, a side trip to Rockall (nicknamed something unmentionable on a public blog!), Derry-Londonderry, a trip round the top of Scotland and the North Sea. Still to come are the Netherlands, the final race and a homecoming into London. I wouldn't have thought you could fit a lifetime of memories into just six weeks but I've done my best. There's at least six months' worth of boring people with sailing stories still to come (sorry family!)

Six days is roughly how long it will have taken us to get from Derry-Londonderry to Den Helder. The real world is getting awfully close now. But I can hold it off for a while yet. We're racing hard with all still to play for in this race. We have a new port to explore and the offer of a family barbecue from our Dutch crew mate Michelle. There will be a visit to Amsterdam where, among its other attractions, some are planning to hone their costume for Boat Inappropriate Pants Day (best not to ask!).

Last but not least there is the final trip home. We expect to win it. We might or we might not but we expect to and we will try to. A podium finish would be a fitting finale to a great trip but whether that happens or not, by the time the real world is inescapably close, this is six weeks I will look back on fondly for the rest of my life.

And that will be time enough for me.