After a nights rest following Level 3 it was back to Gosport for my Level 4 the next morning. Level 4 training is on your race boat with your crew, so it was Welcome to Yorkshire! We had an almost full crew – 14 of us and Rupert. There is no skipper’s mate at Level 4, which is as it will be in the race. We were divided into two watches, Rupert was in charge of green watch and a crew member (Callum) was appointed Watch Leader for red watch. We also had a cameraman on board (Sam) who will be going round the world doing each leg on a different boat. He was with us to test out his equipment (it got damp and the batteries didn’t last too long!) and get a feel for the boat.
We had been asked to arrive at the boat any time before 12.00 and when I arrived at 10.30 there was a list of jobs waiting to be done. This included maintenance tasks, removing all the old wet weather gear from the boat, storing all the food for the week and the hardest job – getting all the sails up on deck so that we could check what was on board and then put them back in a sensible order so that we would be able to find them.
By 12.00 all the crew were on board and getting on with jobs. At 3.00 the 10 boats were cast off one at a time from the pontoon by Clipper staff so we would get a feel for a race departure. Soon we were out in the Solent and practising some boat drills with the Derry/Londonderry boat. We did towing – first they towed us, then we towed them, followed by boat to boat transfer – sending things across to the other boat on a line, which proved a little trickier than we had thought.
Preparing to tow Derry/Londonderry
After a tiring day we tied up to a mooring buoy off Cowes for the night which meant that we could all have a good nights sleep.
A lovely calm morning
Friday morning brought some lovely sailing conditions – sunshine and a fair amount of wind. Today was the helicopter photo shoot day! We spent the morning doing reefing practice as Rupert was trying to work out the best system for the cringles on the new main sail (technical stuff!). At 12.00 we had a rendezvous with the other Clipper boats off the east of the Isle of Wight, got into formation and started sailing out into the Channel waiting for the helicopter to arrive on schedule. After a while there was concern that we were heading way out to sea and no sign of the helicopter so the fleet tacked round and headed back towards land before trying again. Then we got a message that the helicopter couldn’t see us! 10 Clipper boats in formation off the Isle of Wight – hmmm! Eventually it arrived and we took up positions on the high side in proper racing fashion while we were filmed. It felt very exciting sailing along with the other boats, and difficult to hold our place in the formation as W2Y just seems to want to shift quickly.
Our beautiful Welcome to Yorkshire!
The rest of the day passed with some spinnaker practice. We spent the night at anchor in Osborne Bay which meant pairs of the crew doing anchor watch for an hour each overnight and taking bearing to make sure we were not drifting.
Saturday was race start day and it was grey and raining – miserable. We had to take Sam the cameraman and Della (another media person who was transferred from CV2 to our boat) back to Gosport. We felt this was very unfair as we had a long motor in bad conditions to get to the marina, then had to make a run for the start line. The other boats were already in position as the countdown went off, and we were nowhere near. We hoisted the mainsail as quickly as we could and then the headsails as we rounded the starter mark. As we went it became apparent that we were over-powered as we still had the sails up from earlier in the morning and the wind had got stronger while we had been in Gosport. So we had to do a headsail change almost as soon as we started. It wasn’t long before all the other boats were way ahead and many of them out of sight. 
The weather forecast was for winds up to Force 7, so we were in for a couple of rough days. The race took us across the Channel to Cherbourg overnight, then back across the Channel towards Dartmouth and Start Point before heading to the Eddystone Lighthouse the next evening. Once we had passed this mark we were sailing downwind back towards Gosport and the conditions became much easier to manage. We had the spinnaker up for several hours before a gust of wind snapped one of the ropes soon after midnight and the sail wrapped itself around the rigging. Our watch was off duty and we were roused out of bed to help sort out the muddle as quickly as possible so we could get back to racing. When we came back on deck at 2.00 there were a couple of other Clipper boats in sight so we had targets to catch. We overtook Derry as she had a spinnaker wrap and then had our sights on Singapore. As we were approaching the Needles lighthouse and the finish line early on Monday morning we knew we almost had her, then we were sure we had passed her in time! It took a while for confirmation to come from Clipper, but we had pulled ourselves up from last place at the start to 3rd at the finish. Rupert was very pleased, it shows the value in not giving up but being very consistent and not breaking things. Most of the boats had breakages of rigging and a couple of people were dropped off for medical help.
Throughout all of this we had been managing on W2Y with no hot food since Saturday as we ran out of gas due to a technical glitch. We were able to run the generator so could boil a kettle and use the toaster. We ate a lot of cereal, cake and biscuits!
After a few hours rest on a mooring buoy off Cowes we set off again to do more exercises including a practice Le Mans racing start with the other boats. This is quite exciting – the mainsail is up but no headsails. The boats line up, switch off their engines, the crew have to stand towards the back of the boat, then at a signal we rush forward to get the headsails up and get sailing. We had practised this a couple of times and were very good at it, getting away before the other boats (yippee!).
That evening we were not supposed to be back at the Marina before midnight but Rupert had insisted that we would be back early so that we would be able to get a hot meal. We had the most looked forward to fish and chip supper ever! This was followed by an evening in the
pub – a perfect way to round off a good sailing result!
Tuesday was spent on yet another boat deep-clean. This one was made less stressful by the thought that the next time I would be doing it I would be in New Zealand! Rupert had a list of pre-race jobs that needed doing so he was keen to get us to do as much as possible before we left.
Steve pumping the bilges during deep-clean
Level 4 was interesting. It was good to experience some more serious weather. I found it quite difficult to cope with physically as when it is rough it takes a lot of energy to get from your bunk, get dressed in all the foul weather clothing, get a life jacket on and climb up on deck. Then you just hope that you can sit still for a little while before having to do anything. It has made me determined to get physically fitter as I am sure it will help if I feel less tired. Despite having a moment or two when I felt that as soon as we reached land I would make a run for it I have finished my training feeling that I am at least a bit prepared for what lies ahead.
