General :
Why I am doing it
The legs
The team
The watch system
Mother watch
Safety
Man Over-board
Contact me
Below deck: Layout
down below
Kitchen
Saloon
Navigation & Email
Toilets
Hygiene
Storage
Bunks / sleeping
Water
Heating
Electricity
Seasickness
Above deck:
Clothing
How the boat works
Sails
Changing the
sails
Spare time
on-watch
Why am I doing it?
Experience, adventure, love of
huge waves!!
Nothing more special than wanting to push myself to the extreme - modern life
can get too lazy and occasionally one needs to remember what's out there! They
say that this experience will change one's outlook life, but I think I'll go
back to my rather cushy one and resort to hiring out something nice to float on
in the Med's summer months :)
The legs
The legs are Southampton - Buenos Aries – Wellington – Sydney - Cape Town –
Boston – La Rochelle – Southampton. (The route taken map to the right is very
wrong - it assumes the world is flat!)
Each of them vary in length (1 to 6 weeks ) and difficulty
By far the most difficult are the Southern Ocean legs and of those the Sydney –
Cape Town is the worst :)
To do the whole race takes about a year (plus the training beforehand).
The event is run by
Challenge Business who ran it as the BT Global
Challenge in the previous years. The race happens every 4 years and this is the
4th time. Although some other companies run round the world races, no other
company runs it the wrong way. Basically it's a stupid thing to do... WHY would
anyone want to go the hard way round? Well you could also ask why would anyone
do it in a boat - surely a plane makes the most sense?! :)
(Incidentally, Challenge are doing a round the world race next year, but the right
way. It's much gentler as it not only goes the right way round, it avoids
anything around the Southern Ocean!! Details
here)
The team
The team I’m with is Stelmar.
In the last leg from Buenos Aries to Wellington they suffered two medical
emergencies and had to turn to rush back to land twice!
-
The first emergency was
6 days in and fortunately they weren’t far from land. Despite being out of the
race for 19 hours they still managed to blast back up to 5th.
- The second was
10 days later when one of their crew (Tim) was severely injured after being smashed
on the foredeck by a freak wave. The nearest land was 3,500 miles in
front, 2,000 north and nothing below.. so they had to turn back – over 1,200 miles
and 6 days of Southern Ocean hell. Once they dropped Tim off, they returned to
the point they left the race (ANOTHER 6 days and 1,200 miles West) and resumed the leg.
All in all they did the leg in 53 days - Ouch!
The picture to the right is an
x-ray of Tim's repaired arm... that's quite a few pins for just a bit of water
damage!
The team have their own website at
7eam.com
Sailing – who does it & when?
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The sailing is done by dividing the crew up into two “watches” of about 8 or 9
people each.
On Stelmar there is the “Grunters” watch and the “Groaners” watch (other boats
have similar wacky names for the watches).
Roles change within the watch, but some certain people will helm, some navigate
and all will do everything else.
It’s a real team effort with little happening unless all know exactly what is
happening (regarding other’s roles) and when each of the others in the team are
doing it.
These watches will change (generally) every four hours. That’s every four hours
on, four hours off every day, for about 35 days.
During 'on watch' one is on deck sailing the boat and nothing but. During 'off watch' one sleeps,
eats, uses the toilet, wonders why the iPod no longer works caked in salt
water, etc..
Some Southern Ocean legs can get so cold
(see pic to the right!) it is impossible to remain
deck for longer than 30 minutes, so the watch system has to change!
(More on what is actually done when above deck
and sailing on the continuing page)
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Who takes care of the day to day things?
One person from each watch is on "mother". Rather than going on deck this
person cooks, washes up, cleans the
toilets, disinfects the walls, etc.. This isn't so bad as one's not
on deck pretending to be in a washing machine!
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Safety is clearly put first by the organisers and their
record is excellent with no one dying (apart from the bloke in '92 who 'got off'
mid race).
There is an awful lot that can cause damage to crew but by being aware of one's
surroundings and what one's doing, most of the risk is reduced.
The boats themselves are virtually indestructible, being of an extremely solid,
steel construction designed for these waters and this kind of sailing. Should
they be knocked down (big gust of wind smashing them down flat on the water),
it'll merely pop back up again. They also carry all the latest rescue
identification equipment should the worst happen (which apparently doesn't
include a £5,000 Rolex :) )
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Man
Over Board
The MOB procedure is drilled into each crew member over and over again until all
understand what they would need to do automatically.
The first point is that anyone who's in the water has absolutely no sympathy, it
being completely their fault. The only excuse for going over is a broken harness
(which doesn't happen).
Should someone be in the water, they can expect to last a few minutes before
going hypothermic and then another few before expiring. Should the team be
on the ball and the conditions not too bad, it should be possible to get
back to someone within 2 minutes.
The basic procedure is someone shouts and points at the MOB, a flag (as a
marker) is chucked in, boat heaves to, engine on, GPS marked, front two
headsails dropped, boat drives to MOB and starts the fun & games of pulling
him/her on board. Although nice & easy in a quiet Solent, it's apparently a
much bigger deal in the Ocean where a 42 ton steel hull is bouncing off some
poor blokes head. A 'swimmer' is nominated (beforehand) who would don dry
suit as soon as the MOB is called, with a view to getting in to assist with
pulling the causality back out.
There's a doctor, dentist... or vet on every boat. With a bag of pharmaceutical
goodies most needs can be catered for until land appears.
On my boat there is a Doctor, which is rather fortunate as I've heard what vets
do when their patients break a leg... :)
Downstairs layout
Downstairs they're quite comfortable and well equipped, and surprisingly not that cramped. Mind you, this could depend on your opinion - it would probably be quite easy to find someone who disagrees!
Kitchen
Although a lot of the food is freeze-dried where hot
water is added to produce a porridge-like substance, the boats do have a
kitchen that, although small is equipped well enough to provide a ‘proper
meal’. This is unlikely to happen much on the leg I'm on!
When cooking in bad weather it’s normal for the cook to wear their external
foul-weather trousers and to erect a plastic screen between the kitchen and the
saloon!
Also the hob is on a gimbal, an incredibly simple device that always fascinates
me at how it keeps the hob so calm when I’m having trouble even standing up!
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Saloon
The saloon is next to / part of the kitchen (to the right of the picture
above) and has enough space for 9 people to sit and eat together (although
it’s rather cosy).
Should a sail get damaged, the saloon also doubles up as a sail-repair area
(although, its worth noting this is the only area to do anything other than
sleep!)
Navigation & email area
The boat has both a sophisticated navigation station (with full redundancy) just off the saloon (in front of the picture above) plus an additional area for crew email. A Sat phone also exists running off the same Iridium system.
The
email system is run through Telarus and does 2 bursts a day.
Traffic is charged by the byte transferred,
and with operator's examples of text against cost, HTML and corporate
signatures cost a lot!
Oh for the luxuries of broadband... :)
On a boat, the toilets are called Heads. (It’s an old nautical term where the
toilets used to be at the beakhead (very front of a boat) so the sea water would
assist to clean them and the waste would easily fall to the sea.)
The boat has two of them,
and apart from the generalised redundancy, not both can be used at all
times. 90% of the time the boat will be
heeled over at about 30-45 degrees and as the boat sails the redundant crew often sit on the high side
(to try and level the boat to make it go faster). Should someone use the
toilet on the high side and flush it after use… well the exit of the waste pipe
is on that high side and so the crew sitting would certainly know about it!
They flush by means of a hand pump, where it has to be pumped at least 40 times
to fully clear. This isn’t the most effective system and sometimes requires a
repeat of the process - nasty.
The heads also have a wash basin and a shower inside, although it’s not exactly
much of a shower! (In this picture the shower is that white handle you can see
above the sink. It pulls out.)
Also, the doors are removed on the trip and replaced with curtains – people can
get bashed about and need assistance. Being in the middle of a something whilst
the boat drops off a 30 foot wave isn't pretty (apparently)!!
Hygiene
Any illnesses or infections on the boat could quickly sweep through the
whole crew so the boat is thoroughly cleaned and disinfected once a day by
'Mother watch'. As well as the obvious heads, this includes all the walls,
grab-rails, etc.
It is possible to have to go without a shower for 3 weeks or even the whole
trip! Apart from the fact that the boat is very cold and there is only cold
water in the showers, showering in a ‘heads’ cubicle is very tricky with the
boat pitching and rolling… and dropping off 30 ft waves!
How one is supposed to clean
oneself is via special wipes (3 per day!) which allow one to wipe whilst
clothed.
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The amount of storage space one has is extremely limited.
Basically
your foul weather gear goes in the foulie locker and everything else goes in
this little blue curver box.
However, as you pretty much stay in the same clothes for 6 weeks, what more do you need?
Each crew member has his or her own bunk, although
will sleep in others as one always sleeps on the high side of the boat for
better weight distribution.
The bunks are extremely basic and only really have enough room to ‘roll’ into. Mind you, being horrifically tired means you actually think its the most comfortable bed ever!!
Getting into them requires skill, dexterity and judgement as you have to put one foot on a bar below, then launch yourself upwards (avoiding landing on a fellow crew member below) to flick into your bunk. All this whilst the boat is pitching and rolling!
The bunks all have straps – as it’s quite possible to be thrown out of the bunk in middle of sleep (and it can be quite a way down to the floor!).
To give you an idea of how
'cosy' (that's what an estate agent would say!), there are 7 bunks in this
picture!
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Water
The boats carry enough water for a couple of days normal use. This is refilled
by a ‘water maker’, a device that creates fresh water by forcing sea water
through a filter at extremely high pressure.
Should the water maker break the boat would normally head to land with the crew
on emergency rations of the remainder of 2.5 pints per person per day. Two 80
litre tanks are always reserved for these emergency purposes.
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The boats do have a heater system, a diesel burner, which works rather well. It does make the air very dry though.
Electricity
A fairly advanced electrical system exists which powers the navigation
equipment, computers, lights, heaters and some electrical outlets.
The batteries are charged by a generator that runs for about 4 hours a day to
give the boat 24 hours electricity.
The generator is very noisy and vibrates sufficiently to slow the boat down in
calm waters!
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Seasickness
Seasickness affects people in different ways; some very sick "feel worse than
they’ve ever felt before” and are completely debilitated whilst some feel merely a
little queasy. In both cases seasickness goes after 2 days at sea.
At the end of the day seasickness is really quite simple and is merely sensory perception being out of
synch! Its no more than confusion where the brain is being told by the vision system (eyes)
that the world is stable but the balance system (inner ears) screams it's not!
This confusion results in stress and causes queasiness, although some get it
more than others and can find it completely debilitating.
After a few days the brain learns to compensate for the swaying and the pitching
and the feeling goes away.
Mind you, I've been warned when one returns to land, the brain needs to readjust again!
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