Race 3 - Day 23
Crew Diary - Race 3 Day 23: Cape Town to Fremantle
23 November

Elizabeth Adams
Elizabeth Adams
Team Unicef
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Part 1: The A-Team

It would be helpful if the reader imagines all text in speech marks to be spoken by a Swiss watch leader with a strong Cockney accent.

“Oi!”

“Wot?”

“Wot you lookin' at?”

“Dunno. Ain't got a label on it.”

On CV21 this week, we've been teaching Mirjam (former cow herder, carrot weeder and watch leader extraordinaire) Cockney rhyming slang. She is doing very well and has been practising in her bunk. But the vowels are still somewhat Germanic and stretched and occasionally she struggles with the definition of specific English words. In anticipation of arrival in Fremantle, our resident Cockney has taught her, “Get your coat love, you've pulled”. There was some consternation amongst the crew about the appropriateness of the 'coat' bit. “Too 'ot, it's gonna have to be budgy smugglers” says one, “Parrot if it was me,” quips another, while Mirjam looks on quizzically.

“Waahts a budgy?”

Cue rest of the crew rolling around with giggles. “That's eenuff,” she says, wagging her finger at the oncoming watch. “'urry up and get up the Epples and Pears”.

There is no end to the delights of the A-Team I've sailed oceans with for the past three and a half months. As I enter the last couple of days of my share of our shared sailing odyssey I thought it worth reflecting on these. Patience, kindness, care, good humour and wit has rarely seen limits. I've been zipped into and out of my yellow dry suit every day twice a day by a kindly bystander prepared to grapple dangerously close to my dark areas. Hot drinks and snacks have been passed up to the deck to freezing on watch teams for every single one of six daily watches. On leg three, by the time we reach “Freo” (Ozzie accent required) as we're all calling it, that's at least 150 lots of 5 drinks each one lovingly tailor made – weak white tea for Jan, builders, bag in for me, black tea bag in for Paul Comyn, honey and ginger with honey for Mirjam. We also know who eats what and when, and what dinner portion sizes they like. Small for Jan and Alison, seconds and thirds our resident Gannets Seumas and Scott and, of course, no hot tuna for Bob– these are the details we now know. This A-Team is the real deal. A family. You don't get to choose them but you kind of have to lump them and we've done that gracefully for the most part. Amongst other things, we've shared between six the last orange on board. Hot bunked, vacating on time and leaving them clean(ish), taken over the helm when someone's arm is aching (or they've accidentally gybed and fallen over in the process), hoisted crew up the mast and over (and back over) the bow and hugged each other endlessly to get through cold, long, dark, wet watches and difficult news.

Our three person half watch team has had the pleasure of cooking supper every night for 23 days on the trot now. We've sought to entertain with decent food (Leg 4-ers, ignore the tin of cat food in the middle starboard cavelocker in the galley), a quiz night, club night, jazz night and coordinated team dancing (variable reactions). Last night during the serving of a Tuna Bake and perfectly fluffy rice, followed up with chocolate brownies and custard, Alison enquired of the DJ in cut crystal English tones: “Is this techno?”. “No, I don't think so,” I said of someone else's slightly dubious 90s house music. “Ah”, she said knowingly. “So it must be garaaaaage”. Cue rest of the crew rolling around with giggles snorting that “the garaaaage is where one parks the Bentley”. She's also taken to doing an Ali G impression on account of being told her prescription deck glasses resemble his. Her thumb, little finger hand action thing isn't bad, but the accent's all wrong. She opines that with another 25,000 miles to go, she and Mirjam'll be “well up for a night aaaht in Lahhdan, innit”.

“We're goin' dahn the puh-ub,” shouts Mirjam from the heads. “I'll 'ave the usual luv...get the billy on. Betty Lee, give us a Betty Lee; gimme a glass of war-er, wahr-er, warrter,” she mutters on her way to her bunk still confused about the missing 't' in water.

Within a week of setting sail from Liverpool we'd finally come to terms with the fact our phones simply didn't work any more and started talking to each other. Lacking external stimuli in the google and email vacuum, we slowly discovered common ground and drivers. There's nowhere to hide – you can't just pop out for a pint of milk or beer, or switch the TV on. As time went on phones have been relegated to the bottom of sticky cave lockers vaguely near the charging ports.

It's a disparate group of people so some of these conversations don't come easily. I'm not sure any of us would have met or bonded on dry land. And therein lies the gloriousness of our team. We each have barely a thing in common – not even language and accents. This said, Frenchman Jean-Michel is trying very hard to fulfil the demands of Scott's American pancake breakfasts while Seumas is still recovering from Sylvie's dulcet French tones. What we DO have in common is our willingess to unite against adversity.

When the proverbial hits the fan – our skipper and the A-Team sees it as an opportunity to succeed. And that's what sets it apart from the attitude of so many others for whom a challenge appears to present an excuse to fail. Not so this group of troopers. Wind and tide waits for no-one, Marine Travel tells us. Well fortunately this team's all on board.

Ed has just helpfully raised the, er, (top) bar with his contribution to the Cockney master-classes of a “[Editor- too rude!]”, I'll leave that one to you to look up. Fortunately Mirjam is in bed or we'd be having trouble translating that one for her organised Swiss sensibilities. I've found some masking tape to gag Ed and Alison is busily finding the scissors for me, while ginger Ozzie James whom Alison has named simply 'the Giant Peach' takes some home made herb rolls out of the oven and, a man of few words (thank God there is one), rolls his eyes skyward again.