Your News

Paul Knighton Blog (MSc Insurance & Risk Management, 2007)

Paul is taking a career break to compete in The Clipper Round the World yacht race and here is his second blog entry!

Entry 2 - Race 2

The 72 hour stop over in Madeira was a welcome break for the teams and gave us a much needed opportunity to refuel our bodies, catch up on much needed sleep and carry out maintenance on the boats.

Race two began with confidence aboard Visit Finland high, following our second place in race one. Unfortunately this confidence was somewhat premature as the starting gun was fired from a Portuguese warship, the team made a few critical errors in our first few tacks which lead to the rest of the fleet gaining an early advantage on us. This advantage was exaggerated was we found ourselves too close to the island and stuck in a wind hole watching the other nine boats pull away, a depressing sight.

This is a long race of some 3,800 nautical miles and as we moved away from Madeira our fortunes improved and we were once again back in the race hunting down the pack with plenty of time to regain positions.

In the first week of racing, our strategy was focused on staying with the pack as best we could whilst the trade winds in the North Atlantic provided us with great down wind sailing. The temperature was increasing all the time and work on the fore deck became much more tolerable. Our attention was at this stage focused 1000 miles to the south and the Inter-tropical convergence zone, or as it is better know the doldrums. This is an area just north of the equator which has notoriously little wind and has been the curse of many a sailing vessel as they are left floundering for days and sometimes weeks with no wind at all. We had by now moved up through the fleet and were mid pack. This suited our strategy well as we hoped to watch the weather patterns develop as the leading boats arrived at the ITCZ and judge our strategy based on their fate. The accepted thinking on navigation the through the doldrums is to stay west of Cape Verde but the weather files we had received were suggesting an easterly track could be beneficial, and as New York had already began to head east we followed in hot pursuit. This track meant that we would miss the scoring gate that was placed just north of the archipelago, but we felt this was the best strategy to avoid the doldrums and get a jump on the rest of the fleet.

The strategy proved sound for the first few days as we headed east and saw solid boat speeds in excess of 10 kts. The weather forecast too looked promising as the winds were increasing as we headed south, could it be that we had found a way through the dreaded doldrums? Unfortunately for us, although we had managed to keep our boat moving through the ITCZ so had most of the rest of the fleet and it seemed that the doldrums had vanished. Vanished we thought, until the next day we awoke to the sound of the main flapping on light airs and the face of the off coming watch said it all. We struggled on for the next 24 hours or so in those conditions before the wind picked up again, by then the boats that had headed for the scoring gate found themselves able to negotiate a more easterly course and maintain good speeds throughout.

Although there was still nearly 3000 miles to go we knew our chance of a win had slipped as we watched the led boats pull out a lead of 300-400 miles on us. However, there was no time to feel sorry for ourselves as we were still racing and desperate to hold on to our fifth position.

South of Cape Verde was hot, very hot. this is where ocean racing really becomes a test of endurance as much as sailing skill. As we headed for the equator and the sun was directly above our heads the scorching heat above deck was only surpassed by the draining humidity below. This was even worse for those on mother watch. As a crew we take it in turns to cook meals for the crew meaning that once a week or so you will be confined to the galley cooking three meals a day for up to 20 people.

The weather had certainly changed and so had the wildlife. As we began to be bombarded by flying fish, with a couple crew members taking direct hits.

The scorching heat and the perils of flying fish were more than compensated for by the stunning equatorial sunsets and the sight of the Milky Way above our heads illuminating the night sky.

By now we were making good speeds once again and the struggle around Cape Verde was becoming a distant memory. The crew were working well as we approached the equator and we began to plan our celebrations and offerings to Neptune. We crossed 0 degrees latitude rather fittingly at mid day and we did our best to please Neptune with offerings of cheese biscuits and, chocolate bars and a small cup of sparkling wine. It must have worked as the winds increased and we saw some of the highest speeds of the trip so far.

As we were now within 1000 miles of the finish we began to think of Rio, fresh food and beer. Unfortunately, one of my fellow round the world crew mates suffered an accident whilst operating a winch and suffered an arm injury which would see her confined below deck for the remainder of the race. Sadly it later transpired that her arm was broken in three places and she would need at least three months rest before returning to the race, meaning she will not be rejoining the boat until we reach western Australia.

The winds remained good the next several days and we were achieving distances of 240 miles per day, but unfortunately so were the leaders.

As we watched the first few boats move closer to Rio the weather gods decided to turn against us, after allowing the first three boats swift passage to the finish line, the winds turned to our nose and remained that way until the finish line. Turning a three day romp to Rio into a five day beat, which demoralised an already exhausted crew as we tacked every few hours.

Eventually we caught sight of our destination as sugar loaf mountain appeared over the horizon. We passed the finish line in a solid fifth position, tired, somewhat smelly and well in need of some TLC but with 6000 miles under our keel. Time for a rare steak and a large glass of something.

Next stop Cape Town.