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

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

Entry 4 - Race 4 Cape Town to Geraldton, Western Australia

When I first signed up for the race there were a few races that stood out from all the others. The foremost of these was race 4, the Southern Ocean.
The Southern Ocean is not officially an ocean in its own right, rather is is made up of the southern most parts of the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans and covers the waters surrounding Antarctica. It is regarded as the most respected, most remote and perhaps the feared ocean amongst mariners.

This point was hammered home by Sir Robin Knox Johnson (the first man to successfully solo circumnavigate without stopping), when he said at the crew briefing that what we are about to undertake is the biggest test in sailing, 'don't be fooled by what you hear about Cape Horn, that is not the test, it's just the finish line, the Southern ocean is the test'.

with those words still fresh in our ears and perhaps a little apprehensive we slipped lines from cape town on a balmy and still afternoon. the race began as usual with the boats battling for position before the line. As we made our final tack for the race start we managed to find the only patch of water with no wind and stopped dead as the rest of the fleet streamed past. as we bobbed around for three or four minutes our hearts sank as yet another poor start cost us dearly.

Finally the wind filled in and we edged across the start line and began to peruse the other boats. We choose a course hugging the coat line and managed to get a sea breeze which edged us up the fleet and we began to make up places as other boats floundered further offshore. Before long we were just behind Gold Coast and looking to take the lead. We moved closer to Robin Island (where Nelson Mandela was imprisoned)and were no more than 50 meters behind the lead. Then once again the wind dropped and the boat stopped. We watched as the lead boat kept her sails filled and continued on her way. That day we sat in pretty much the same position for 12 hours hardly moving. The boat that was just 50 meters in front earlier that afternoon was by the late evening some 70 miles ahead.

We eventually found our way out of the wind hole and began finally to make up the miles to Western Australia.

The first week of the voyage was spent with variable winds of between 5 and 30 knots and much of the time was spent negotiating the strong currents that flow southwards off the African coat. These always seemed to be against us and we were again struggling for pace in the middle of the pack.

As we edged south the wind increased its intensity and we were finally making good ground with some excellent down wind racing and we were surfing rollers the size of a house. the temperature was also noticeably colder and even wearing eight layers on my top half could not keep out the icy cold of the wind blowing off the Antarctic continent.
Sleeping became an issue as the cold penetrated your sleeping bag and the underside of the deck constantly dripped freezing condensation. It was one of these icy cold nights when i awoke to a huge bang from the deck. When I finally came round and managed to get enough clothing on and scramble to the deck, there was a scene of devastation.

In a 60 knot gust the helm had not been able to prevent the boat from crash gybeing. This is where the stern of the yacht moves through the wind violently, which means that main sail depowers and then suddenly repowers from the other side, sending the boom swinging across the deck. This happened with such force that the boom had ripped off the preventers (rope that is used to prevent the boom gybeing) off the deck and ripped through the steel rail on the bow. We were also using our spinnaker sail at the time which we attach with 20ft aluminium pole to help push the foot of the sail out beyond the bow. The pole had been ripped off the mast and thrown back through the main sail ripping a 6 ft hole.

There were lots of white faces around as we struggled to make safe the boat and check for further damage. Luckily the entire crew avoided injury, but the forces involved could easily have killed someone.
But we had no time to dwell on this for too long and our thoughts soon turned back to the race and our position. i could not help but think that this race was now all but over.

It took nearly the whole of the next day to repair the hole in the main sail, but when we did it meant we could once again begin racing. by now we were in 9th position and very downhearted.

We limped on for the next week or so, unable to use our spinnaker sails properly. we managed to claw back a position to eighth and we though that was the best we would do as the next boat was over 150 miles ahead.

The southern ocean proper was an incredible place. It feels truly different from anywhere else i have been before. It has a sinister feel, and you feel totally alone as even the wild life disappears and other than a few Albatross there is absolutely nothing to see.

The ocean becomes even more sinister when we hear of boats further up the fleet running close to large icebergs some 200m in diameter. the skipper immediately put us on iceberg watch, but i am pleased to say we saw none.

One surprising feature of this stage of the race was the relative lack of wind. with all the build up as we headed close to 49 degrees south (the roaring 40's)it was somewhat of a disappointment to be met by 10 knots of wind and flat seas.
However, this calmness did lead to one of the strangest events of my race so far. looking at the mill pond calm of the sea one day the skipper joked 'if i would fancy a swim in that', to which of course i responded ok. needless to say i didn't hang around long in the freezing water at only 5 degrees, but its crystal clarity astonished me, as did the though of what might also be swimming in here with me, i soon jumped out again and tried to get warm, which took quite some time.

we were by now heading on the final third of the voyage and had just began to swing north toward Australia. one of the advantages of being at the back of the fleet is that you can see how the other boats ahead are fairing. As we looked at the weather files we receive electronically each day we could see that there was a huge high pressure system building ahead, and it was building right over the majority of the fleet. Given that the centre of a high pressure system usually means light winds we though we might have an opportunity to skirt round the outside of it while the competition struggled in its centre. This is precisely what happened. Within three days we had gone from eighth to 4th in what has to be the comeback of the race so far.

As headed for the finish line we were in a battle for third with New York who just edged us after a two day mini race, but by only by 20 minutes.

We arrived in Geraldton, Western Australia a respectable fourth, the boat was still severely damaged and we would be very busy repairing it. With only a four day turn around before the next leg there would be little time for rest, but we were quietly satisfied with our reputation as the com-back kids!

next stop New Zealand.