Race 11 - Day 11
Crew Diary - Race 11 Day 11: Panama to New York
14 June
Soundscaping, Sprinting and Sailing
And we're off! Like Usain Bolt out of the blocks, we are sprinting, or rather flying, northwards in the Elliot Brown Ocean Sprint. It feels like we are the fastest boat on the planet, or at least this stretch of the Atlantic as we skim across the white flecked intensely blue sea pulled along by dolphins and our Code 1 spinnaker behind a constant 20kn westerly wind. Spray is flying, the sun is shining and our wake is streaming. The excitement from the crew is palpable and whilst we won't know the results until everyone has finished we are optimistic it may yield some valuable points. It's certainly helping eat up the miles to New York, or in Nasdaq boat parlance the number of bottles of beer remaining on the wall.
As we near New York and the end of my particular Clipper Race journey which began half a world away in Airlie Beach, it is perhaps appropriate to reflect on the challenges and changes it has brought or wrought. However, all that has already been said and extremely well summed up in yesterday's blog by James Cole. So instead of introspection I thought I'd make mention of the music or rather the 'curated soundscape' which has accompanied the voyage. Thanks to the ubiquity of smart phones, reasonably priced high quality waterproof speakers and Spotify we have been able to enjoy unlimited music as we race across oceans. Indeed, in addition to the routine daily tasks of Heads & Cleaning, Bilges, Deck &Trim and Nav & Log we have had to add DJ so that everyone gets a chance to show off their musical collection or obscure Terpsichorean tastes, with each leg accompanied by a unique mix of sailing music from the sixties to the whatever the current decade is called. Heavy metal, folk rock, techno, classics, every genre has been catered for, even Scottish folk ballads, welsh hymns, English choral music, Greek Bouzouki playing and the best of Australian rock. On strict orders from our skipper however, ABBA has been omitted from all playlists, and after Sergei left us in Qingdao Russian folk songs have also been absent.
It's surprising how much music involves the sea and sailing. Old stalwarts such as Rod Stewart's Sailing and Styx Come Sail Away to more recent classics such as Lonely Island's I’m on a Boat provide the soundtrack to our sail evolutions whilst Slade, Daft Punk and Red Hot Chilli Peppers all provided different takes on Around the World and Split Enz summed it up in Six Months in a Leaky Boat. Particular favourites on Leg 5 to accompany the lunar eclipse included Dark Side of the Moon, (Pink Floyd), Moondance (Van Morrison) and Sky Full of Stars (Coldplay), although On a Slow Boat to China didn't make it to the hit parade on that leg and fortunately for all there was no appearance of Bonnie Tyler's Total Eclipse of the Heart.
Leg 6 featured Billy Joel's Stormfront and the Doors Riders on the Storm as well as more stargazing music including Air's Kelly Watch the Stars, Katie Melua's Sailing Ships from Heaven and Grace Potter's Stars. For some, Girls Just Wanna Have Fun by Cyndi Lauper featured whilst for others Three Dog Night's Mama Told Me Not to Come might have been on their secret playlist. Leonard Cohen's Suzanne was temporarily popular as like our Victualler Pete she brought us tea and oranges that came all the way from China, before supplies ran out and our attention turned to Mark Knopfler's Seattle (you gotta love the rain).
On the current leg, the musical accompaniment has ranged from California Dreaming (Mamas and Papas) and Mexico by James Taylor (I've never really seen it so I don't really know) to Van Halen's Panama. Race 11 has given us the widest choice as we sail through the Caribbean to New York from the Beach Boys Kokomo to Zac Brown's Toes in the water to anything by Bob Marley and the Wailers as we passed Jamaica and squeezed between the unseen islands of Cuba (Buena Vista Social Club) and Haiti (Steely Dan's Haitian Divorce). Florida and the Caribbean wouldn't be the same without music by Jimmy Buffet and Jack Johnson whilst we will be spoilt for choice for our impending entry to New York and Jersey City. We will have to wait and see but I'm sure Frank Sinatra feature somewhere.
Although this is an introspection free zone, I couldn't leave the race without a mention of the phenomenal work done by all the Round the Worlders on Nasdaq. As a legger, joining mid-way through I had little prior appreciation of what being a RTWer entailed. Sure, the various jobs or roles were discussed in the crew manual, but just how intense and involved these are and the amount of commitment each entail was a revelation, especially as these duties come on top of all the normal crew commitments and tasks.
Our medics AW, JW and JC dealt with all range of minor ailments to life threatening traumas with enthusiasm and a great bedside manner, between being mother, cleaning heads or trimming sails. JW also proved to be a master baker with an endless supply of recipes for bread, cakes and puddings, and a seamster of the first order spending hours in the sail locker sewing life back into our mistreated codes. JC the Engineer is constantly on call to deal with recalcitrant water makers, generators and all things mechanical, spending hours at a time stripping down and repairing the thousands of mechanical, hydraulic and electric systems and equipment to ensure we have the essentials of life; toast, charged iPhone and heads which work.
Like most people I had no prior idea as to what a bosun did, apart from blow a whistle and pipe the skipper aboard, but AG our bosun not only knows all about making donuts (from rope) and stripping down winches but is able to shimmy up the mast to replace blocks or halyards at a moment's notice day or night. The Victualler PS, ably assisted by DH not only dedicates much of his time during stopover when others are out partying to scouring the supermarkets, bakeries and cash-and-carrys for the provisions necessary to keep a crew of 20 nourished for upwards of 50 days at a time, but also devises menus, calculates quantities and knows how everything can be cooked in our cramped bouncing kitchen. What's more he knows exactly where everything is stored and maintains secrets supplies of treats to keep us active and inspired on long night watches. Even he admitted to being a bit challenged by victualling in China but he more than made up for it by the variety and quality of food purchased in Seattle.
Special mention must be made of our dedicated team of watch leaders PW, IW, DE and AG. These are the extraordinary crew members who really run the boat, participate in strategy decisions and whip all the leggers into shape. With indefatigable energy they are first on deck, last to leave and when most normal mortals are exhausted and just waiting for the watch to end, they are constantly preparing for the next evolution or hauling sails or helming through storms. Below decks they are organising rosters, dealing with communications, helping new joiners settle in and get up to speed with how the boat operates and planning courses, reading weather charts and generally helping the skipper keeping the boat sailing fast and safely. Whilst Nasdaq is a very equal-opportunity boat, where everyone gets a chance to do activities or roles they are interested in from helming to foredeck, the watch leaders provide constant coaching, sharing enthusiastically the knowledge and experience they have built up over the last 30,000 nm. The responsibility they take on willingly and without complaint is amazing.
With New York fast approaching its time to dispatch this overdue crew diary, thank most sincerely all those I have had the pleasure to sail with over the past four and a half months and get back to sailing as fast as we can over the finishing line.