The final Blog...

Now over 3 months since returning to Liverpool I have been able to reflect on the experience and draw a line at the end of the Clipper chapter of life.

What an amazing experience!! Ultimately rather different than the full on Race boat I expected, but full of challenges and learning around sailing, team work and personal development

 

Since being back life really does move on, in some ways I miss the thrill of sailing into a new port or donning the team kit I have fond memories of the fun times travelling and the wonderful and colorful characters I have met. I also realise that anyone, if focused and driven can achieve this, and I continue to apply myself on new challenges and dreams to follow.....

 

From a racing point of view 2nd place was an outstanding achievement and again such great memories of racing with some excellent crews on well sailed boats such as New York and Glasgow, amongst others. We certainly had our fair share of setbacks along the way, only half the points for the first race to La Rochelle, our time penalty in South Africa dropping us from 1st to 4th for failure to return to the point the race started after dropping a crew member off. Broaching and destroying the midweight kite in the Pacific, costing us 4 penalty points. Breaking firstly the inner forestay then D2 fitting whilst leading in the final stages into Qingdao, dropping us to 4th in the final days. Every boat has tales like this but I cant help the sense of what if....however in a more reflective mood if you push the boat consistently to and beyond its limits these things happen. What really matters is we can say we achieved our goal of running a safe, fast and fun Hull and Humber.

 

I delayed the final blog pending some more information on whats next. The last few months have been full of contemplation and adjustment and now I am really looking forward to channeling my energies and new found skills into business. As I have often said for me I the experience was of a life affirming nature rather than a life changer! Although I cannot underestimate the ways in how I have been effected. I look forward to RORC sailing, two handed and Ocean crossings, whilst working that day job to my fullest ability and loving every minute!

 

Apologies for the delay on the wrap up blog, I was intending to give an update on whats next. I am planning a return to the debits, credits and adrenalin fuelled excitement of accounting and have landed a great role with a new start-up Telco in West London. Hard work, travel and challenge abound! I am also investigating the possibilities around Racing and boat ownership. These plans, to coin a phrase from H&H skipper Danny Watson, lets just say they are both "fluid and dynamic".....

 

Thank you for your support, I am thrilled to have raised over £2.5k for Naomi House and I hope this blog has provided you with an insight into my experience. Catch you all soon, Cashy.

Charity Update!

A huge thank you to everyone for contributing to my Race charity. Together we have raised in the region of £3,000. £2,175.01 on the Internet, £479.49 in gift aid, £350 directly from Vodafone and another couple of hundred from Maccers when he finally finds his cheque book! All of this money going to a really excellent charity, Naomi House Children's Hospice, just outside Winchester.

 

I have finally updated the blog with my final thoughts (thanks Jerry!) but would like to thank you all for your generous donations!

 

Back off to work for me from Monday, the next challenge surely being getting up early enough for the commute to the Office!

 

I hope to see you all soon,

 

Many thanks,

 

Cashy.

The last Race......

Cork, or rather Crosshaven turned out to be a little quiter than expected. I hadnt researched anything and found when we got there the boats were in Croshaven, I was staying up the road in Carrigaline and many of the crew were further away in Cork. Not ideal for the last few days together but somehow a couple of parties sponsored by Mount Gay rum and Heineken managed to bring us all back together.

We also ended up staying for a bit longer than anticpated, I think so much effort has been put into ensuring we are in Liverpool on time that there has been enough fat built into the program to take a few extra days of delay if there were any!

The race actually turned out to be pretty exciting, we had a full range of wind conditions and directions over about 36 hours of sailing. The course had numerous waypoints and gates that actually destroyed all of the tactical possibilities in the race but even so we had very close racing with QIngdao, Durban and New York at various stages. A little too close at times but exciting certainly covers it.

It was a fairly big ask to beat NY and then rely on two more boats to finnish ahead of them and behind us and once we had reached Holyhead and NY pulled ahead around the mark it was evident this was not going to happen. We pushed on though and had some great sailing and interesting navigation around unlit buoys and rigs until the race finnish in the early hours of Saturday morning.

New York sailed brilliantly and fully deserved the race and overall victory. I can recount numerous occasions of racing closely against them, being overtaken by them coming out of China in light airs and the fonder memories of sticking the boat right between them and Durban on the way up to Liverpool and beating them for line honours into South Africa after racing from the back of the fleet. I have some great mates on that boat and they fully deserve their win!

So after a bit of ponsing around and flare antics on the bow we motored up and down, round and about and into the mouth of the Mersey for the arrival race on Saturday morning. We decided not to contest the race and sailed around the back of the fleet casually soaking up the sunshine, even Danny seemed chilled about that one!

Thousands of people gathered in Albert Docks and it was a great atmosphere to be received into and catch up with family and friends.

A few days to gather my thoughts now and reflect on the most amazing race, once I've had a chance to do that and summarise the fund raising I'll complete the blog and slip back into everyday life...............or perhaps not............

Race with everything!

Sitting in my hotel room in Cork, just catching up on mails is quite a bizzarre feeling, lots of Linkedin.com and facebook to keep me occupied the end of the Race seems as though it is nearly upon us. Quite strange to think I have been almost all the way now and by next Sunday the party will be over and some form of non-clipper life will need to resume, anyway enough of that I have most of the Summer to work things out and plan to be back at work sometime in September (well thats the plan!)

 

The last Race from Sydney in Nova Scotia to Cork was an epic. I started the race with a large amount of trepidation. We had taken part in a shorter race around Halifax and took a real pasting so I was expecting the Atlantic to be extremely unhospitable. In the event the Race start was fairly benign and for the first few days we battled to keep the boat moving as we went through patches of dense fog on the grand banks around Newfoundland. No sight of even the smallest Iceburg but enough wildlife to keep the dolphin watchers happy! The actual start was fantastic, all boats are now being sailed so well we tacked and cross tacked with New York, Nova Scotia and Liverpool for miles out of the harbour.

 

Jamaica and us then raced together for days, oftene within only a 1/4 of a mile of each other and then as the winds picked up they really picked up, a couple of "exciting" sail changes on the bow made life interestin again and we pulled away to chase down the leaders New York and Qingdao. Then again we diced with them for days with various Spinnaker changes, headsail changes, variable winds and some almost round the cans tactical racing it really was fantastic! Once again not a great deal of sleep to be had but with such a short amount of time till the end and Danny driving us (he really doesnt sleep at all and still keeps going, really an inspiration!) we managed to keep racing hard!

 

Alas it wasnt to be and despite being within a mile at times of both Qingdao and New York they pipped us to the finish and we ended up in 3rd place. I guess I should be satisfied but with only 1 race left and a 3 1/2 point deficit to New York I was hoping for more.

 

This week I am catching up, seriously chilling out and working through the plans I have for my return. The Race starts again on Thursday and this one is going to be an all out blast across the Irish Sea. We still have a chance but are relying on other boats getting in front of New York to win although we have a great chance of 2nd if we keep Glasgow behind us!

 

So fingers crossed and all that, nearly done and so looking forward to some time with Mum, Dad, James, Alex, Issi and Joseph as well as catching up with other family and friends, I am afraid the phone might start ringing soon!

Apparently its on TV.......

Sky Sports in the UK will be showing the first programme of the series today (Weds 18 June) and tomorrow (Thursday 19 June) in the following slots:

Wednesday 18 June
Sky Sports Xtra – 1800 / 2300

Thursday 19 June
Sky Sports Xtra – 0200
Sky Sports 3 – 0730 / 1200

Each of the ten programmes will be shown on a weekly basis in these regular slots.

From New York..............................

I think the last blog featured a wind hole on the way to NY, regrettably we ended up getting caught in light airs on that race and posting our worst result of 8th. Pretty dejected after that but surprisingly managed a few days off in NY to recharge the batteries. Amazing site the statue of Liberty and Manhatton skyline at night sailing down the Hudson, very special!

 

Or recharging the batteries was the plan until I recognised the haunting melody of "Once there was a lassie" being belted out from the river bank in a strange Dutch/English accent, signifying the arrival of Geoff, Banjo, Cloggy and Mrs Cloggy! So a few days and nights of pretty hard partying and a bit of culture mixed in followed. Great City, totally eclipsing all expectations, I shall be back!

 

Sad to see the boys off but back to the boats and a Race to NOva Scotia. To be honest I remember very little of that one, lots of trimming, helming and lightish airs followed and we pulled out our customary 4th position. AN improvment but still a way to go! We stayed in a great little city called Halifax, really friednly locals and some more new friends who we picked up along the journey. The deputy Lady Mayoress was hilarious and managed to pull a few strings for us in he local bars and clubs, my kinda government official!

 

Then regrettably the commercial pressures of Clipper prevailed and we had another non-points scoring Race upto another City North of Halifax, Sydney! Only supposed to be a 24hour motor sail really turned into a full on Race with gusts upto 40kts, lots of stress and some heavy sail changes (I dont wanna talk about that no 2 change ever again!). We managed to pull out a win though so have a nice shiny medal to add to the collection.

 

The focus is now on to the final push. The Race across the Atlantic starts in a couple of days so I have holed myself up in a hotel to get away from the partying and are spending my days prepping the boat, doing the washing, etc! Really very stange to think this will all be over in a month! Somethings I am looking forward to, others not quite yet! Plans will all be revealed shortly!

 

On another note, Chris and Gwen if you read this, gutted I will miss your big day but have a great one and my sincerest congratulations!

 

 

 

 

Light Airs to NY

Light and sh1te! Airs are very light at the moment, all of the boats are within a few miles of each other, just spent the last hour coaxing the boat along at a massive 1.2kts of boat speed. In desparate need of beard trim and hair cut will perhaps sort that out in NY, although the rumour is Banjo and Geoff are heading out so I guess no rest for the wicked. Jamaica stopover was way too short, had a great time and met some great people, ended up last night drinking rum in a roadside shack/bar with Martin my 71 year old taxi driving separated at birth brother, long story but great fun! Saw the doc about my back problem, a hint of gaffer tape, bubble wrap and some white and pink pills should see me through to Liverpool! Hope all is well at home, need to get ahead of NY to keep them behind in the standings!