I passed my level 3 Clipper training. The only person from a previous training that was on my same boat for Level 3 was Bartosz who was in both my Level 1 and my Level 2. It is nice to have some sense of familiarity in all the chaos of life right now. This would be our last training together though because he is assigned to the Unicef boat while I am assigned to Ha Long Bay. Charles (Level 1) and Jason (Level 1 and Level 2) were both doing Level 3 at the same time but were assigned different Level 3 boats and race boats. There were 4 Level 3’s occurring this week. There were two people in my Level 3 that were new to me but would be on my Level 4 and my official race team, Jill and Hamdan. I really enjoyed sailing with both of these two!
We completed our safety briefs after our introduction to our training skipper Cliff and AQP Ri and were quick to get on the water. This week was intended to be primarily about spinnakers. Spinnakers are unique sails designed for downwind sailing.
We docked each night which left time for me to take evening and morning walks mostly up and down the marina docks but sometimes around the towns. I am holding onto every moment of embracing land before I start long periods of time not being able to see or touch it. We docked one night at Cowes on the Isle of Wight so the skippers could hit their favorite taverns together one last night before their training season finished up and the rest were spent in Gosport at Clipper headquarters.
Because the wind wasn’t always cooperating, Cliff and Ri did set up the spinnaker net while in port one morning and moved it through what a gybe would look like. This was a great visual representation. We practiced more tacking and gybing and reefing before we started our spinnaker work and of course more man overboard (MOB) drills. Tacking is when the boat is turned with the bow passing through the wind (sailing up wind) and gybing is when the boat is turned with the stern moving through the wind (sailing down wind). Reefing is where a portion of the main sail is taken in at the bottom to reduce the surface area / amount of power the sail is collecting from the wind.
When the wind finally cooperated and we had the opportunity to set up the spinnaker, it was a thing of beauty. Its size and potential power when full was so impressive. We had perfect wind for learning but didn’t have it powered up as we became familiar with trimming. I loved sailing with a spinnaker.
We did one more MOB drill where we were set up for a letter box drop before the drill started. The letter box drop is how the spinnaker sail is lowered through the space between the boom and and the main sail in order to control its descent below deck. We also covered wooling and hoisting the spinnaker. I wasn’t much help on wooling as being below deck started to make me motion sick. To wool the spinnaker, the sail is bundled every few feet and tied with wool that will break when the sheets are pulled after the sail is hoisted. The wool is biodegradable so it doesn’t have to be collected after the sail is hoisted and can fall into the water.
This was the first time many of us were on the Clipper 70s opposed to the Clipper 68s we had been training on and we struggled to get used to cooking on the 70s. We burned the first four meals we made… someone actually named our WhatsApp group “The Burned Ones.”
I found people in my level 3 that I felt I could have continued to develop friendships with but we would be separated before long onto our competing boats. I am sure I will still see some of them on stopovers through the next year but it is a bit interesting to observe how people that I feel inclined to develop friendships with move in and out of my life. I also recognize the many that I just meet in passing and appreciate them as well.
Overall, it seemed like a successful week of training, learning more about sailing and getting to know new friends, competitors and teammates.
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