The Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race

So on Christmas Day I set off with my Dad, Rob and his wife Karen, Alan and his wife Prue for a picnic on Bondi Beach... unfortunately it was windy, rainy and cold, so we came straight back and had a picnic lunch at the hotel and in the evening Christmas dinner there as well!

Up early the next morning and ready for the race start, the Clipper fleet paraded in front of the Sydney Harbour Bridge before moving a little way up the harbour to be joined by a further 80 yachts including maxi yachts of about 100ft in length, down to smaller yachts of 40ft in length. Although the main prize is for the fastest boat, there is also the Tattersalls Cup which works out a handicap for each boat based on length and sail area etc. 

Having gathered on one of the two start lines it seemed as though we were all in an amphitheatre with hundreds of spectator boats around the edge of the race area. With tensions growing as each canon sounded down to race start, finally the gun went off. The whole fleet charged to the first race marker with the maxi's leading the way and all the large and small spectator boats alongside creating a ferocious wash, it was an electric race start unlike no other and one of my highlights of the whole race so far.

As the race panned out, we were in the middle of the pack and pleased with our position, the maxi yachts pulling quickly away as expected. For the first 24 hours we tacked along the coast with occasionally light winds and we were able to bring out 'Bruce' again since his big repair in Sydney and fly him, later 'Bwian' made a successful appearance for a day and we made speeds of over 20 knots,  as we made our way towards the Bass Strait wind speeds increased and 'The Sydney to Hobart' lived up to its reputation by giving us really hard up wind sailing and very rough conditions, with regular gusts of 60 knots and waves coming from the side, we were into extreme conditions. The final 24 hours involved tacking duels with other boats before making our way to the finish line in Storm Bay to finish the race in a credible of 55th out of 94. With a great welcome at the dock side from not only the Clipper supporters but all the other yachts and the locals, it was a great atmosphere, celebrated in the usual Clipper way with lots to drink!

...and what did Santa bring you ?

Getting ready for Race start

The Big Boys are soon out in front

Can you spot us?

A Great sight

Happy Christmas

 

I have been in Sydney now for over a week and it has been a brilliant stop over so far; spending the first 5 days sorting out the boat and some big repairs to our sails, mixed with parties in the evenings. I then had 3 days off to see some of the sights, first trip to the famous Bondi Beach, then a day on a coach trip out to the Blue Mountains which are about 50 miles to the west and really are blue! The Scenic World Railway and cable car then took us right down in to the valley and back up passing the iconic rock formations called the Three Sisters. After lunch we returned via a wildlife park and saw some of Australia's native animals; Koalas, Kangeroos and Crocodiles, with a chance to cuddle the first two, but not the third!

Last Saturday, my Dad and I took the famous ferry over the Harbour to Manly for the day- with half of Sydney also heading out for the weekend! We then met up with Dave (from Leg 3 who is recovering well from his injury) and some of our crew for drinks and a meal.

While I was having time off, Mission Performance, along with all the other boats, was taken out of the water to have her under side cleaned (by Claire, Neil, Ant and Derek) of all the algae that has accumulated on her since London, followed by applying a coat of anti fouling paint. We also found a piece of rope had become attached to the folding propeller, holding it in an open position and potentially causing extra drag on the boat. Even small things like this can slow us down over the very long distances we have traveled, so it will be interesting to see if we start to perform a little better in the future races having sorted this problem out and one or two minor adjustments to the rudders.

So now back in the water and ready for action we took her out for a Spinnaker shoot (flying our Mission Performance branded Spinnaker under Sydney Harbour Bridge) with photographers capturing the moment, along with my Dad trying to do the same from the bridge.

With 1 day before the Sydney to Hobart Race, tensions are beginning to grow in the marina. The Clipper yachts will be racing in their own class as well as against approximately 75 other boats, with the favourite to win being 'Wild Oats'. This occasion is one of the highlights of the Australian sporting year along side the Melbourne Cup and the Boxing Day test match. So there is a lot of talk in the Press and Television about our participation in the race.

Now the sails are back on board the boat and we are ready for the race. So Matt has given us an easy day on Christmas Day, with a planned trip to Bondi Beach.

Happy Christmas to you all from Sophie, Team Mission Performance, oh and my Dad! 

ARRIVING IN SYDNEY

THE ICONIC SHOT

IN THE BLUE MOUNTAINS

ONE OF US IS NOT IMPRESSED!

SKIPPY

AT WORK IN THE MARINA

OUR SPINNAKER SHOOT

LOOKS GOOD

BONDI BEACH

It's nice and warm in Sydney

After some slow progress up the coast of Eastern Australia, we finally sailed into Sydney Harbour on Saturday morning to the spectacular sight of; first the Sydney Harbour Bridge and then the Opera House.

We arrived to the clapping of the Team Mission Performance supporters club (my Dad) and cold drinks at Rushcutters Bay, the home of the Cruising Yacht Club of Australia, then straight down to deep clean the boat and checking in for the next 12 nights at a local hotel as our boat will be lifted out of the water for a jet wash and a coat of anti fouling on her underside. The night before last we had the Prize Giving ceremony at the hotel in which we finished 8th! (Our best position yet!) and then last night we had our crew meal at the yacht club.

So far I have only had chance to have a quick trip to see the Opera House, 'The Bridge' and the Royal Botanical Gardens, as I have been doing a lot of unfortunate sail repairing on 'Bruce' outside in the sun. With this hot climate it doesn't feel like Christmas at all to me! Once I have finished sail repairing tomorrow I will be able to have more free time to see the rest of the sights.

Only 90 miles to go !

Not long now until we arrive in Sydney! Although the wind has dropped, hopefully some time early hours of the 13th, Australian time. It's strange to think this section of Leg 4 is already over and the next race will be the big one: The Sydney-Hobart race in 2 weeks time, where we will probably experience some intense racing. Matt is keen for us all to specialise in some of the jobs on board for this, so we might have our best helmers and sail trimmers etc, doing those jobs. It will be interesting to see if it makes a difference to our performance.

In the last 24hours the weather has changed drastically, we have gone from full wet weather gear (including dry suit) to shorts and t-shirt weather! But tonight is our last night watch luckily my watch is on the single, 10pm till 2am watch. The night before was a great watch with a clear starry night and then seeing dolphins darting through the water with the phosphorescent plankton which clings to them was incredible.

More kite katastrophies !

 I'm beginning to think Mission Performance is cursed in terms of flying kites! After a week long repair on 'Thor' in Albany, it was decided that he should be flown for the first time on Sunday, conditions were not bad nothing he couldn't handle and every one was clear on how he was going to be hoisted. Everything went fine and he was flying for about 10 minutes until he flogged and collapsed, then completely ripped across the head, at this point an 'all hands on deck' was called and as I was off watch I made my way up on deck to hear Matt shouting at me not to come up!!! I guessed the worst and sure enough I saw the main part of the kite trailing in the water and the head flying like a flag at the top of the mast! Retrieving him went smoothly as usual (we are now considering that we should set up a kite retrieval business due to the amount of times we have had to pull them out of the water) I assessed him downstairs and surprisingly the majority of our repair in Albany had held, it was a new tear across him! So as we have no sewing machine it looks like I will be spending few days in Sydney repairing him again.

Our current position is 6th place and we are getting some great speeds even though we cant fly 'Thor'. Helming has been brilliant and with some big waves we can still get over 20 knot surfs. Tonight we will be passing just south of Tasmania, then it's north to Sydney where the fleet will have to decide whether to go east or west of the East Australian Current depending on the wind angle, as sailing into the current will greatly reduce speeds. 

I have been on mother duty today and can safely say my cake making abilities have vastly improved especially as we have no recipes and I was guessing ratios I also made sure Nutella was a key ingredient! Other news is that I am well impressed with a bruise I have on my nose and below my eye having been hit by the yankee sheet, my face went numb for a while, but I recovered. Now for a much needed 10 hour sleep (the bonus of doing mother watch!).

Birthday on the boat

It was my 19th birthday yesterday. Strange to think that a year ago I was still at school working on my personal statement for university, A levels still to come and I had only just started to think about doing the Clipper Round the World Yacht Race. A lot has changed in the past year! My Birthday started off as normal with our watch on from 6am till midday. In the 'happy hour'  which is our daily lunch time meeting I was given a gift of a pot of Nutella due my addiction to it, (many times I have been caught with a spoon and pot of Nutella in my hand!) and a duck with goggles drawn on him (my nickname on board is 'Biggles' as I have a pair of sailing goggles and hat that make me look like the character Biggles!). The whole crew then sang Happy Birthday to me and they had baked a chocolate and caramel cake, with custard of course! This will be a Birthday I will always remember!

Race start for this leg was very interesting for us; Matt decided to play it safe and not get too in the way of race start in case of collisions! Coincidently two boats did collide causing enough damage to delay them for 24 hours, now they are back racing and hot on our heels. Our first 24 hours back at sea were rough, with up wind sailing, meaning our new and rejoining crew members; Helen, Anthony, Stephen, Fi, Mark and Katherine had to quickly adapt to life at an angle! Over the last few hours the wind has eased off and we are sailing more on a beam reach (the wind at 90 degrees to us) meaning the boat is flatter and life below deck is a lot easier! On this afternoon's watch we saw some dolphins, which was exciting for the new crew members as well as us old ones as the last time we saw dolphins was during leg 2, it makes uneventful watches more interesting and more photos for our huge album!

At the moment we are in 8th place but we are the boat furthest south which is good news in terms of Matt's plans, at some point we will be starting to turn further east and make our way south of Tasmania and then north up to Sydney, this is going to be a short race of around 10 days so I think we are going to have some exciting sailing as we get closer to the coast and I hope less damage to our sails!

Everything's Amazing in Albany

What an amazing finish we had arriving in Albany. We hadn't seen land or another boat for over 3 weeks since leaving Dave Griffin behind in South Africa and at last we saw the coast of Western Australia...... with 3 other Clipper boats heading for the finish! Matt then put us through some intense sailing, after hours of racing against each other and countless head sail changes all of us got to the headland to turn into Albany. We were at the back of the group of 4 in 11th place so had nothing to lose. So we decided to 'welease Bwian' our spinnaker as the other 3 boats had chosen not to use kites for the final push to the finish line. This saw our speed increase considerably and poor Invest Africa became our target to beat, with about 5 minutes to the line we overtook them, but they fought back and blocked our wind that filled our kite so this allowed them to pass us, at this point 'Bwian' filled again and again we picked up speed and just beat them to the line by less than 4 seconds, after 5000 miles! The other boats Old Pulteney and Derry~Londonderry~Doire were less than 4 minutes further ahead. Loads of people came up to us afterwards saying it was the most amazing race finish they had ever seen. For Team Mission Performance; Although we ended up coming 10th out of the 12 boats it was a brilliant result and the highlight of our race so far.

Now recovering in Albany; We have met up with Dave Griffin again who is recovering from his injury but the worst news is that we are going to lose round the World crew member Mick from the boat, he tore ligaments in his knee, not only is he a great guy, he is a very experienced member of the team. He will have to have an operation on it, I do hope he is able to return to the boat later.

So far I have spent a lot of time repairing sails again, the locals have been very kind to us all, along with driving me around town to get things, putting on BBQs and music festivals. Yesterday a few of us were all given surfing lessons which was great fun. On this trip I have been lucky to see Sugar Loaf Mountain and Table Mountain, but Albany has Dog Rock!                                               

           Thank you for all your kindness Amazing Albany!