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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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
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