Illegal Fishing Slowing Down Jamaica

Here's the latest update from Jelte onboard Jamaica:

Well we've just had a pretty shitty 12 hours. Last night there was a small "thunk" and the boat started to play up. Not responding as well as she should and getting no where near the boat speed we should given the apparent wind we were getting.

We got the GoPro out and filmed the keel, rudders and prop and found there was something stuck on the keel. We couldn't do much overnight, so we lost massively to the other boats. At first light this morning, we dropped the kite and sent Adash (watchleader) over the side for a swim. Result: one massive fishing net with a dead giant sea turtle!

Having now removed the offending bit of netting, our boat speed is back up and we're back on course due East. We managed to hold on to our second place (according to our calculations rather than Yellow Brick; as they are measuring to the wrong finish line), but we have some serious catching up to do!

Ladies and gentleman: please fasten your seat belts, and prepare for WARP
SPEED!

PS. fishing for turtles is highly illegal... we're not sure if this net was intentional or if the turtle was simply unlucky... sad

One week in...

Here's another update from Jelte:

Jamaica Lime Green - 28 April 10AM

One Week In

Actually, it's a little over one week since we set sail from San Francisco. But after a few days, you start to lose track of actual days of the week. Everything on board evolves around the watches. You live from one to another and don't think about days as such.

After an exciting start tacking underneath the Golden Gate bridge, we headed for the first scoring gate along our route down to Panama. Unfortunately we missed out on points as we ended up without wind and saw the other boats cross the gate in front of us.

But since then we decided to go more inshore than any of the other boats, as we wanted to avoid a massive windhole along the route. This tactic has paid off, as we are now at the top of the leader board. The trick now is to stay there, which is not going to be easy.

Wind is Dying Going South

As we get further south, the wind is dying (as expected). All the boats are desperately trying to eek out every last knot of boat speed, and focus on their VMG. All of which requires a *lot* of focus and concentration for the person on the helm. And that is tricky when temperatures are rising to a scorching 40 degrees below deck, and even more in direct sunlight (which is usually what the helmsman finds him/herself in). Since we are now in different water to the rest of the fleet, we could find ourselves becalmed when they are not, and there by lose positions.

Fingers crossed it is them and not us that will run out of wind!

Positions 28 April 10AM

Notes From Clipper

Pete Stirling, skipper of Jamaica Get All Right, racing to its home port, knows the race is still far from decided.

“Going east seems to have paid off for the moment as YellowBrick had us in first place at the last position update we received at 00:00 UTC. This is great news but there is still a long way to go in this race and as conditions get lighter it will require a lot of focus from the crew and good tactics to maintain a position at the front end of the fleet,” he said.

Stealth Mode

Derry~Londonderry~Doire and Team Garmin have both selected to activate Stealth Mode. Derry~Londonderry~Doire’s position will be hidden from the rest of the fleet and the Race Viewer until 0600 UTC tomorrow. Team Garmin’s position will be hidden until 1200 UTC tomorrow.

Windholes and Mexico

Just received another quick update from Jelte onboard Jamaica:

Jamaica - Lime Coloured

Windhole

Looks like our tactics to go north of a windhole (which we predicted would stop everyone else) hasn't paid off so far. But we shall see in the next 24 hours if going inshore in Mexico pays off. It's a bit of a gamble, but then you got to try something.

It's boiling hot here now, and having spent the last 6 hours in almost no wind it's impossible to keep cool. There's also almost no shade as the sun beams down from high in the sky. 

Note from the Skipper Report

"The wind is getting lighter and the temperatures are getting hotter. The racing is still very close and each schedule we make some gains and we make some losses on the rest of the fleet.

Gains and losses are largely down to which tack boats are sailing on as there is most definitely a losing one and a making one but in order to make our way south east we all have to gybe our way downwind. Snippet from Skipper Report - Pete Stirling"

Fingers crossed the in-shore tactics will pay off!

Scoring Gates and First Shower

Jamaica lime green - 25 April 13:30

Here's an update from Jelte, sneakily copied from Clipper's crew diaries which you can read here.

Mother Duties

Well all I can say is thank god for Magdalena (Legs 6 and 7) my bunk buddy and thus also partner in mother watch duty. If it wasn't for her, the crew morale would be down the drain right about now, as I'm not sure they would have appreciated my limited cooking skills. But Mags did a brilliant job on all three meals over the last 24 hours, and thus the crew are well fed and morale couldn't be better. My new nick name is Mr Chop Chop, which should give you a good idea about my contributions to the meals.

Showers

The benefit of mother watch is that I've been able to have my first shower since leaving San Francisco; which was highly needed as it's getting HOT and it's only going to get hotter as we make our way down to Panama. Round the world crew member Jean opened her hair saloon, allowing both round the world crew member Krzysztof and myself to trim our hair in prep for the higher temperatures. Looking at Krzysztof's new hair style, I suspect it's a good thing there is not a single mirror on board; no offence Jean.

Scoring Gate

Speaking of the temperature, that is not the only thing heating up as we get ever closer to the scoring gate. As you can tell from the leader board, the top 6 boats are within just 10 miles of each other! We've laid a course that should have us on a good wind angle towards the gate, and we are anxiously awaiting the latest sched to see how we are doing relative to the other boats, which we get every 6 hours. About 20 minutes left until the next one... The number of times I wished we got the scheds as often as you guys at home do on the Race Viewer!

Scoring Gate, here we come!

Update received via email last night:

Part of the tactics was getting to the scoring gate; which was really close, but in the end our tactics to go deep for longer back fired when we found ourselves running out of wind. 

We had been gaining on the rest of the fleet steadily and were set to over take them and win the race to the gate, but in the last 6 hours we lost like 12 miles on the rest, which was crap, but then you gamble and lose sometimes...

Not the leader board Jelte is commenting on (April 25 -13:30)

Dolphins, Whales and Mother Watch Duties

Here's an update from Jelte:

Dolphins and Whales

The crew is good fun, the sun is out and it's getting warmer as we go

south. In the first 12 hours we saw a bunch of whales, but we're too far

out now to spot any more. We'll likely see more on this leg though. Also

lots of dolphins, which are very playful and reminded me of Alfie :-)

Position 22 April - 11:38 (Jamaica is lime green)

Things on the boat are settling in nicely and we're making good progress down to Panama! Its already hard to keep track of days. Instead you think of just one watch after the next. I'm loving it, although I'm slightly worried I'm going to get bored of watch after watch after watch for three long weeks. Especially the night watches are tough. 

Just vast ocean around you and nothing to do but keeping the boat going. I'm one of four on our watch that can helm the boat which is good, because otherwise a 4 hour night watch is really tough...

Mother Watch

I'm about to start my 24 hour mother watch (editor's notes: that means its Jelte's turn to cook and clean for 24hrs), so god help the rest of the crew ;-) Although Mags has already laid out what she wants to cook. So I'll just do what I'm told :-)

The crew is getting on very well, and our tactics are sound. We might be low on the leader board on Yellow Brick, but that is just counting the distance to finish (not taking bearings and wind angles in to

consideration). And even on Yellow Brick you will see there's only about 24 miles to the leaders, so effectively it's all still to play for.

Messing about in a Boat to Panama, Jamaica and New York

Yesterday was the big day we've been counting down to for months now, and I'm not talking about Easter.

As you might know, Jelte's been planning to do the Clipper Round the World Race for quite some time. Lucky for me, he is only doing leg 7 (and not the whole race!) which takes the 12 yachts from San Francisco, via the Panama Canal to Jamaica and then on to New York City. And Saturday was the start of Race 11, leg 7 - from our new home town San Francisco.

Fire Boats and Prisons

The sail boats set off one by one in a very organised fashion from South Beach Marina to the beat of their respective boat songs. Jamaica's song is 'Let's Go' which I know it took them ages to agree on! I hope the video above works - it'll give you a good idea of what was going on during the day.

We made sure to stay upwind from this guy

Then they all sailed in a very impressive procession lead by the water spurting fire boat via Alcatraz, Sausalito and along the Golden Gate Bridge before being allowed to go their own way and get organised before the race start. 

Going towards Alcatraz

A group of friends and family to the crews on Jamaica and two other boats had chartered a Catamaran to take us out to the race start in the bay. Although the sun was shining, the wind was bitter and cold and us spectators were freezing our butts off by the time we reached the race start point. 

Jamaica - with the hills of SF in the background

Layers - still freezing

I wore three layers but the wind was relentless. It didn't help that the parade of sail boats was lead by a fire boat spraying out water in all directions creating a fine, ice cold mist. The sailors themselves seemed better prepared in their professional gear! 

Our Catamaran was bouncing up and down on the waves and I could barely make out the boats in the viewfinder of my camera, so I just clicked away hoping for the best. I have uploaded the photos that weren't too blurry or splattered with salt water to my race start album to Flickr in case you'd like to have a look.

The Race Start

I know there is lots of strategic thinking and clever tactics from the teams leading up to race start, but it was quite difficult to follow the action from the spectator boat as we weren't 100% sure where the actual start line was. We assumed it wouldn't be far from the gigantic passenger boat covered with Clipper flags so we stayed close to them until the sailboats started flocking around us again. 

In all honesty I couldn't make out who was first across the line - but according to Clipper it was Derry~Londonderry~Doire, Henry Lloyd and Old Pulteney. 

Either way, it was an amazing scurry of sails, red coloured sailors and and spectator boats before the sailboats finally shot off on their way towards the Golden Gate Bridge where we waved good bye. 

It feels kind of strange knowing that I won't see Jelte for another six or so weeks - but Alfie and I have lots of fun plans for the time he'l be away so hopefully the time will go quickly.

Follow the race

If you want to follow Jelte's progress in the race, you can follow all the news, updates and daily reports at http://www.clipperroundtheworld.com/

You can follow each of the three races that make up his adventure on the race tracker, which is updated every hour. 

For more details:

Race 11 - San Francisco to Panama - 19th April - 10th May: http://yb.tl/clipper2013-race11

Race 12 - Panama to Jamaica - 14th May - 16th May: http://yb.tl/clipper2013-race12

Race 13 - Jamaica to New York - 24th May - 30th May: http://yb.tl/clipper2013-race13

There is NOTHING--absolutely nothing--half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats- Kenneth Grahame