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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 seventh blog entry!

Entry 7 - Singapore to Qindaio, China

As we departed the Kepel Bay Marina in Singapore and I looked back on the city fading into the haze my mind remained focused on what we were laving behind rather than what was to come. We were now more that half way around the world, and the struggle to regain motivation for the next leg with the thought of what was to come proved very difficult, and for the first time I wished I was back at home far away from the boat.

This race had always been billed as the race of the biggest contrast.
leaving the sweltering heat of the tropics to arrive in the middle of a freezing Chinese winter. We were also fully aware of the perils of the South China Sea. This was bought sharply into focus by the knowledge of the fate of the Finnish entry in the previous race which was de-masted some 200 NM into the South China Sea, luckily with no loss of life.

The race began after an eight hour motor to take us clear of the busy shipping lanes of the Singapore Straight. Our start this time was in moderate winds and we started with our Yankee One on a fine reach. We made a reasonable start and found ourselves in a strong fourth position and more than able to hold our ground against the chasing pack. The wind was gradually increasing and the call was made to reduce our sail plan down to the Yankee Two. The change went well and we were only headless for about
45 seconds before we hoisted the two. Unfortunately, changing down cost us overall boat speed and we began to fall back in the pack. This was a sign of things to come. No longer could we rely on proficient sailing and reasonable trim to fire us up the leader board. Our competitors are now too good for that, they were willing to hold on to a more aggressive sail plan for longer, take bigger risks and their sailing ability was equal to ours. We needed to toughen up, but it was a lesson that would take us too long to learn and would cost us dearly in this race and the next.

By the end of that first day we had fallen to 8th position and the frustration amongst the crew began to show.

As the heat of the tropics continued, sleeping again became a problem. The crew were finding it difficult to maintain focus and were catching micro sleep at every possible opportunity. The promise of a freezing Qindaio was becoming ever more appealing. Our sailing strategy remained conservative for the first few days and we were scrapping with the back of the fleet for 8th and 9th positions, watching each six hourly sched arrive with dread as we could see the lead boats pulling away. Eventually I stopped looking at the sched's and tried to stay focused on our battle at the back as it was just too depressing to look at the leader board.

By now most of the round the world crew were pretty experienced sailors and were not easily phased by even the most challenging of conditions. The moderate seas and airs of the first half of the race should have been an opportunity to move back up the field, but no matter what we tried were frustrated by the competitiveness of the competition and we remained in a lowly 8th.

The temperature finally began to drop as we approached the coast of Tiwan, the sea temp dropped from 32 degreed C to 29 degrees C, not much but a real god send for the sleep starved crew. As we approached the north coast of Taiwan, everything changed again, the wind increased the air temperature dropped suddenly and dramatically, as did the water temperature. We were back in winter, the shorts and T-shirts were gone and our old, trusted foul weather gear was re-donned. But we were soon to find out that even the most expensive equipment is not designed to be effective for more that 20,000 miles. As soon as the cold water began to crash over the decks it found its way straight through our state of the art outer shell fabric and soaked our thermal mid layers. Not a pleasant experience on a four hour night watch. I was particularly glum as I had purchased some very expensive and very shiny new sea boots in Australia, which i was using for the first time. It was very disappointing to remove them after only the third watch using them to find sodden feet, thank goodness for waterproof socks!!

As the wind filled-in it suited our more conservative strategy. We could now rely on good helming and trimming rather than simply putting up more sail. Soon we began to edge back up the fleet, we had not become bad sailors over night after all.

As we approached the Yellow Sea were were back up to 6th position. The water to my surprise did really turn yellow, or at lest a greenish brown from the silty discharge from the Huang He River. The wind was moderate and never exceeded 20 kts. The rig destroying beat into monstrous freezing waves that we have been promised had not materialised and nor had the freezing temperatures experienced on previous races. The most we could report was 6 ft swells and being a little chilly.

Our constant trimming and solid helming was paying off and we managed to regain another place to 5th. As we headed up wind and finally pointed the boat toward Qindaio and this short 2000 mile leg drew to an end, we were finally treated to the kind of temperatures we were expecting. The sea temperature was now just 3 degrees C and ice began to appear on deck and the crew were put into a half hour rotation. Anything more and we risked hypothermia. I was on deck as we crossed the line, we had held on to our 5th place, as reasonable result.

The freezing temperatures were in sharp contract to the warm welcome that the Olympic sailing city of Qindaio offered. We were greeted by large crowds, bands, huge numbers of military and police and more press than I have ever seen before. As we finally made land we were whisked off to a press conference, with autograph hunters thrusting pens into our faces.
For the first time in my life I felt like a celebrity, a slightly unnerving experience after the loneliness of the ocean.

It was finally time to get warm and get some sleep.

Next stop San Francisco.