The Big Apple?

Team Jamaica

The Jamaica stop over was a really nice and welcome few days off, but the race start to NY wiped away any lingering thoughts of chilling with rum from our minds as we beat up windward to the east side of Cuba.

As we are not allowed within 12 nm of Cuba nor Haiti, that left us a very narrow passage between the two, from which the wind was blowing a decent 20 to 30 knots. Add a nice big 'ole swell and you have the perfect ingredients for some interesting sailing!

Unfortunately our actual start was rather poor. We were too far off the line when the gun went off, and as a result found ourselves at the back of the fleet. Some clever manouvering towards the first windward mark, and we managed to make up 4 places. However, a slight tactical faux pas saw us heading east and when the weather decided *not* to follow the forecast, we lost a lot of ground.

29 May 11 AM

Never ones to give up, we set about trimming and as we rounded Cuba we have been steadily ticking off places on the leader board. On the last sched we were 7th and making good grounds on the rest of the fleet, even though we've just hit a rather nasty wind hole. We have our code 1 kite up, and although it's slow progress, we *are* moving (and judging from the scheds faster than the others) through said hole, so hopefully we'll be flying at 12 knots again sooner than later.

The sun is still burning down on us, and although we are now no longer in the tropics, one could be forgiven to think we are eternally stuck in them. Perhaps that's the Bermuda Triangle at work!

Just a few days more and we'll get to NYC. And as we were stuck for a few hours in the lighter winds, we pondered just on why it's called the Big Apple. Without internet, this remains a mystery so we will now start making up stories. So far the best anyone can come up with is that "everyone can take a bite", which just isn't good enough... We have about 4 days to improve on that

PS. Thanks Ian for recommending (on Good Reads) the "Gone Away War"; very funny reading on off watches!

Bringing it home...

Saturday 17 May 10:30 - Jamaica Lime Green

Finally we have some speed! After putting in our losing tack early, we now find ourself on a straight run home to Jamaica. At 43 degrees apparent wind, the good ship Jamaica is much happier, and we are breezing along at a happy 9 knots. Better still, our VMG is the same 9 knots as we are heading straight for the eastern tip of the island.

The crew is happier now that all our telemetry is showing "green" graphs. With the opposition dropping every hour. Unfortunately the front runners are probably too far out to catch, but even just seeing us claw back the miles is a pleasant sight.

With a bit of luck we'll be just about crossing the finish line tomorrow at this time. And as things are looking now, we will at least not be last.

Frustrating Times

15 May 10:30

Well the good position didnt last long... For a (very) brief second after the start, we managed to get ourselves up to second place. But then we dropped and dropped and dropped some more.

It seems that since the forestay problems, our rig is not capable of pointing high on the wind. We've known we were a little slower going up wind, but on this race it's shown by how much; a LOT.

We find ourselves going slow and watching the boats around us not only be ble to point 5 degrees higher, but doing so AND going 2 knots faster!! They simply all sail around us, and no matter how much trimming we do, we can't get her to move. The sails are too fat, and she's not responding as
she should.

As you can imagine this is frustrating to say the least. Especially since we are running a new (and much tougher) watch system. All in all it's taking it's toll on the crew. Morale is a little low, but we're struggling on.

Since we clearly can't outsail the other guys close hauled, we are changing tactics to see if we can get a better wind angle. It's a bold move, but then quite frankly we don't have a lot to lose :-/

Living at 45

Well the Panama canal was pretty special and amazing, but is already a
distant memory as we're 24 hours in to the race to Jamaica. With this being
our home port, we REALLY want to win this. So we're pushing on every level.
Dedicated helmsmen, and a 4 hour on/off watch system (as opposed to our
usual 4 hours at night and two 6 hours during the day).

I'm one of the helmsman, and also find myself on the bow often for headsail
changes. The last 24 hours have been a bit of a reawakening and have shown
us how we've been spoilt in the run down to Panama. Running for 12 days
down wind with a spinnaker is a hellufalot more pleasant than beating close
hauled. The boat is heeling up to 45 degrees (30 at a minimum) and bouncing
off the waves as we plow through to Jamaica. Which is making living on
board (getting in your bunk, trying to go to the toilet, or even writing
this email) *very* tricky.

The steady trade winds should give us a nice beam reach, but they are not.
Beating in to the wind is tough going in and of itself, but add to that a
raft of technical problems and things get even harder. Our generator, which
we run about 15 hours a day packed up. This means that we have to use the
engine (in neutral obviously) to charge our batteries. But since it's water
intake is on port side, we can only run the engine (at this heel) on our
starboard tack.

So although we'd like to tack when it's good for our strategy, we are
finding ourselves tacking when all computers start turning off (a sure sign
the batteries are too low). All fun and games.

Even typing this email is hard, so there might not be a lot over the next
couple of days. But the good news is that some early smart tactics have put
us in a favourable position. Now lets just hope the wind veers a bit to
give us a smoother ride!

Podium for Jamaica!

Jamaica crosses the finish line in third!

The final 24 hours were nail biting. We managed to outsail Team Garmin, and gave chase to Henri Lloyd, but in the end they managed to cross the finish line just a mere 2 miles in front of us.

Still delighted with third, and the crew have just had a celebration swim. Not sure how many people can say they've swum in 5,000 meter deep water :-)

My first race done, and one podium in the bag...

Tempting a Squall & Shortened Course for Race 11

Jamaica Lime Green - Sun 4th May 11:50

White Squall

For anyone who's seen the movie "White Squall", the reality of squalls in the tropics (or anywhere for that matter) is far more manageable these days. Ocean going yachts (and racing yachts like our good ship Jamaica) have a pretty good radar system, which is used more for spotting bad weather than other boats (for that you use AIS).

But although we know when a squall is about to hit us, dealing with it is another matter. Ideally you want to have your sails reefed before it hits you (but not too soon or else you lose valuable speed); or be able to do so *quickly* when you have your 10 second warning when the temperature drops drastically.

So when two squalls were in our path yesterday, I found myself 10 feet up the mast, ready to put the first reef in whilst my crew mates each had their own roles in the pit.

Careful What You Wish For

As we stood on standby, the skipper was eyeing up the first squall. It appeared to be passing us by, giving us just a few drops of rain as it went along. Jokingly I threw my head back and roared at the sky "IS THAT ALL YOU GOT?!"; drawing laughter from crew and skipper alike.... careful what you wish for...

Within seconds the sky roared its own thunder back at me and we had our answer... nope, that wasn't all she got... The winds shot up to 40+ knots and horizontal rain drenched us so hard it felt like hail.

The crew changed gears in to overdrive and in no time the first reef was in; but it became clear we needed more. The halyard was dropped further, but by now we were over powered and heading for a broach. If I'd been wearing a tux, I could have done a mast walk a la Alex Thomson.

The main sheet was quickly eased, and once the boat righted itself we got the second reef in. Followed quickly by four of us attacking our Yankee sail and brining that down to de-power the boat further.

And like Keiser Sosee in the Usual Suspects: like *that*... the squall was gone... Leaving us drenched to the bone.

In short: that's how you have a shower on an ocean race... it was all very refreshing :-)

Note from the Clipper Race Committee

The Clipper Race Committee, chaired by Sir Robin, has shortened the course for Race 11 - the PSP Logistics Panama 100 Cup by introducing a new finish line within the Course Instructions. This line is perpendicular to the route and is long enough so that it does not adversely affect any team tactics.

It is currently (at 1900GMT) 100nm ahead of Henri Lloyd. The Race Committee has taken this decision after it was advised of maintenance work that is being undertaken on the Panama Canal locks over the coming weeks, the lighter than expected wind strengths on this section of the race and then need to maintain the overall race schedule.

Steaming to first place

Friday 2 May 11:40

Too hot to think

It's 38 degrees in the nav station as I type this, which is causing everyone's brain to fry... It's making it hard to focus, which is exactly what we have to do; and what we have been doing, in order to charge to the front of the pack.

If you check the mileage we have made over the last 12 to 24 hours, you can see that focus paying off. Whilst other boats have ground to a complete standstill in various light wind conditions, we've been milking every last ounce of speed out of the good ship Jamaica. In some cases that saw us gain 50 miles on some boats within 6 hours!

Racing Ahead

But we have to continue this focus and drive if we want to grab that top podium step in Panama... Great Britain are just a few miles ahead of us (we can see them tantalisingly close on the horizon). And no doubt, as they see us coming, they too are doing everything they can to keep going.

But rest assured we are not going to stop trimming and tweaking every sail in our wardrobe until we cross the finish line!

Stealth Mode and Ocean Sprint Bonus Points

Sneaky Stealth Mode

Jamaica is doing really well at the moment. Yesterday saw Jamaica Get All Right win the two Ocean Sprint bonus points by a clear 39 minutes ahead of its nearest competitor PSP Logistics, leaving them just 25 miles behind leader GREAT Britain in Race 11.

But Why Is Jamaica Standing Still?

Now the race is becoming really tactical and the Jamaica team have entered stealth mode, meaning they will be invisible to the other boats (and us!) for a 24 hour period as of 06:00 UCT today (I think!) allowing them to disguise any tactical route changes.

How exciting!

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