The morning of the start of the Clipper Round the World Yacht Race was one of excitement, nervousness, sadness and wonderment. I signed up for the race in August 2011 which was the start of the previous race, so it had been a long time coming.
With limited time to see all my friends and family before boarding the yacht, it was hard to spend quality time with everyone. I managed to see most people though and it was really nice to hear all the words of good luck and encouragement. Sorry to all those who came down that I just couldn't get round to see.
We left London with a parade of sail up the Thames and went through Tower Bridge for the all important PR shots. There was around 50,000 people lined up along the banks which was madness to look back at. Just more of the Clipper Race experience that you don't realise until you are actually in there.
Many people in the crew had been in tears or went for moments alone after saying goodbye to their family and friends. I managed to hold back until I saw my family on the spectator boat. I suddenly realised I would not see them again for a whole year, so made a quick dive to the sail locker for a moment alone to shed a few tears.
We finished up the parade of sail and moored up in the evening ready for the race start the following morning.
During training I had been one of the watch leaders which meant I was in charge when the skipper was off deck sleeping etc. The skipper selected me as the watch leader for Starboard Watch for the first race which I was very happy about. It's a key role on the boat and I saw it as a reward for all the hard work I've put into the training. It holds a lot of responsibility for the speed of the yacht and also the safety of the crew, so it's also a hard position to be in. It's nice to think the skipper sees me as one of the best on board to put me in this and will only help my future sailing career.
The time had come to slip the lines and head to the start line. Being the British boat, we have a lot of pressure to be competitive. Luckily the crew all want to perform well, so we, as leaders, could push them hard to race.
We had the tactic to fly the spinnaker off the line, but didn't want to fly it coming up to the line as we would loose manoeuvrability. Any boat on the wrong side of the line before the start line has penalties enforced on them which could cost the race, so we had to be careful of that. We positioned well and crossed the line 3rd. We immediately got the kite up and moved up on the leader.
After a hour or so we were in 1st and led the fleet for 120 miles until out of no where we drove straight into a wind hole. The fleet saw this, moved away and went flying past us. All the hard work maintaining the lead went straight out the window, but hey, this is yacht racing.
My watch came up on deck and this is where my training from being a team leader at Land Rover came into play. I motivated the team, explained the situation and set targets each watch. First up the boat in front, then the boat after that and so on until we are back in the lead. We really had to go above and beyond our usual race pace to get this back.
My watch were awesome and revelled at the challenge. We trimmed the sails like mad men. I positioned people on the boat for best weight distribution and we changed sails when needed even at the expense of meals for the race.
Sure enough 24 hours later we were back at the front. Game on. We had to be in Brest for Wednesday and with the light winds, the race office called to shorten the race. We were lying third and with an hour to go we had to be 0.5 knot faster than Qingdao to get 2nd.
I was on the kite trim and the team fed me sweets and coffee to keep me going. I extracted every ounce of speed out the sail and we passed Qingdao taking 2nd by 0.7mile. Happy days!
I thanked the watch for all their efforts and received some good feedback for how well I led the team. This made it all worth while.
My favourite moment in the race was fighting with PSP in the light airs. I was on the helm calling trim to the team, we hit some breeze and like Nigel Mansell, pulled a dummy driving left then right overtaking them, stealing their wind and pulling away.
There were a few times my deafness got in the way when racing. Trying to hear the trimmers up on the bow was a nightmare in the big winds. I had to totally rely on lip reading and hand signals to get by. Also when on the port helm, the nav guys would shout up positions and I had to turn my head to hear. Turning my head, then made me steer right which messed up the course and the sails, so a bad net affect for the boat, but we worked around it in the end.
Most of the crew now know about my deafness and we are working as a team not make it an issue.
It's been a hard race, I've had to focus so hard and call some important shots for the team. We are now lying in Brest prepping for the next race to Rio. We need to do well to Rio to maintain the momentum of being a boat up at the front of the leader board. That should then set the tone for the rest of the race around the world.
So its time for me to wash some clothes buy some multi-vitamins as we will run out of fresh food in the 22days to Rio and rest up ready for it.
Please continue to help my charity atwww.justgiving.com/ben-pate-RTW.
Thanks for the support, next up date from Brazil!
Ben
