Queen Neptuna .... (but more like The Royle Family !)

Both Mission Performance and Team Garmin received a royal visitor in the shape of King Neptune, to anoint the new Shellbacks, as the new crew members crossed the Equator for the very first time. Matt Mitchell, skipper of Mission Performance describes his team’s unconventional royal ceremony:

“Over our lunchtime session today Queen Neptuna (round the world crew member Sophie Hetherton) hosted her court to welcome our Pollywogs into her domain and grant them the title of Shellbacks. The forfeits were suitably gross involving the fools halter, last nights dinner mixed with grey tank water, bilge water, coffee grounds and pancake mix, as well” as a good flouring for good measure. Everybody held themselves with great aplomb and earned their new title!

More sleep please

Today we have finally had the rest we have been waiting for- from slamming upwind. Sailing upwind is not the most comfortable points of sail, you are constantly living your life on a 45 degree angle, and then slamming into a wave that causes you to lose balance or throw you somewhere else. Trying to get into your bunk is a huge task in its self and once you are in you feel you could fall out at any moment even though the adjustable bunk has you pinned to the side of the boat, going to the heads and cleaning your teeth are difficult, trying to get changed into your gear with one hand while the other keeps you steady all make life very hard below deck and on deck you have to stay clipped on and hold on. Yesterday afternoon I spent a few hours in the fore peak- where we keep our sails, trying to repair a tear in our Yankee 2 so it could be ready to fly by the evening, a few times I was thrown across into sails or bunks, and was close to giving up all together but eventually finished it in time with Stephen, who gave up his off watch to help!

The other day while we were changing from the Yankee 2 to the 3 (as the wind was increasing), our reef 2 and 3 lines snapped, these are found on the mainsail and reduce the size of it when the wind increases, very important lines at this stage! So we had to drop our mainsail completely and hoist our Trysail (one of our storm sails). While the mainsail was down Matt and I spent from 8pm until 5am repairing the damage on the sail that needed doing to reduce further potential damage, on the plus side we finished it and I got a lie in until the afternoon! 

So now the wind has eased off and everyone has had the chance to recover and re-organise their belongings,  I think the next few days will be interesting in terms of the fleets tactics and the leader board positions could be changing, hopefully we will be making the right moves and see our position creep up the leader board with only just over 1000 miles to go until the end of race 8A. We will also be able to get some downwind sailing in, meaning a flatter, faster boat- oh and more sleep!

Mission Performance Crew blog, Sophie Hetherton

So I have finally got through 12 hours without getting soaked through to the skin. The squall activity has decreased considerably over the past few days which means dry clothes, dry hair and no clothing hanging around the bunks. 

On the down side the wind has had its moments... from no wind... to some wind - but in the wrong direction. Sometimes we get the wind we have been expecting(10 to 15 knots) but only for half an hour. All this wind change also means lots of sail changes; wind dies - windseeker up, wind shifts - windseeker poled out, wind builds - windseeker dropped and Yankee 1 hoisted.. and probably the staysail. Our muscles ache and a lack of sleep due to the heat makes the night watches hard to stay awake for. But we try to keep ourselves amused by playing games such as 'Who am I' and 'Truth, truth, lie', while keeping an eye out for wind lines, trim of sails and ships (we have had a few close encounters with large ships!) I can say my knowledge on collision regulations has increased a lot - thanks to our watch leader Derek! 

Today we have been making our journey past Papua New Guinea and past Long Island- I can say I know the outline of the island very well now as I have been staring at it for the past 8 hours- constantly tacking and not making much progress to our waypoint ! But when we get that bit of wind and boat speed is back up to 7 to 8 knots it's brilliant sailing! 

We are always hoping that the rest of the fleet are experiencing similar conditions, that we can gain miles back on them and say we pushed the boat as hard as we could and it was all worth it. We can only wait and find out when Matt updates us daily on position reports and its either good news or bad news- I'm hoping the next ones will all be good!

Squalls and more Squalls

We are over a week into our long race to Singapore. Race start was again not a simple one for us. As we were motoring to the race start line a large fuse (for our electronic charts etc) broke, one that we would definitely need. So we had to motor back to Brisbane and have it replaced the next day, meaning we were 20 hours behind the rest of the fleet. It is disheartening starting a race by yourself and sometimes I feel we are not really involved in the race, although in the past 24 hours we have gained some ground on the others, with the boat in 11th place only being around 80 miles ahead!

It is sad to leave Australia, I have spent around 7 weeks there, but I am definitely not sad to be leaving the Bass Strait for good! It threw some challenging conditions at us, however this race so far has been difficult for its own reasons; the first 4 days brought with it strong winds from a southerly direction, meaning we could sail down wind and get some good surfs in, I'm currently holding the speed record for this race of 21.1 knots but it caused the new crew members to get sea sick due to the rocking motion! They have all recovered now and instead of down wind sailing we have up wind sailing and have squalls to deal with, these rain clouds can sometimes appear suddenly and have a lot of wind and rain underneath, the boats that will do well in this race will be the ones that can judge when to change their sails or put reefs in (making the mainsail smaller) or out at the right time, otherwise the boat can become very over powered and cause it to heal excessively. Over the past few days we have had squalls coming every few hours that can be 15 miles across, then in between the squalls- no wind at all, so we are constantly hoisting and dropping our yankee 1 (the largest headsail). Everything is wet and then when you go below deck it is extremely hot and stuffy, making it hard to get any sleep, I will be looking forward to when the squalls reduce as these make life on board a lot harder!

Today we have been talking about the risks of pirates in the Sulu Sea an area we will be sailing into, the risk is very low but we have put plans in place in case we get approached; we will set up a pirate watch, so there will be one person always looking out for any small vessels coming towards us, if they do we get everyone on deck to show we have numbers (although we are only a crew on 12, other boats have 20!), we will wear the same clothing, set off rocket flares and make mayday calls- the likelihood of any of this happening is not very high, but it is something we have to be prepared for! Also in today's discussions; Kate, Claire and I are planning what we are going to do for the Equator crossing and what we will do to the Shellbacks (people who haven't crossed the Equator before). Plans are looking good and even better than when we did our crossing- so now it's time to go and get the costumes sorted!

Here we go again.

So it was up for an early start from the Rivergate Marina. With tearful goodbyes from those on board and those who we were leaving behind, we then motored out along the river for 5 hours to the race start line which was off shore. Then the jinx struck again, before we started the race all the electrics blew on our boat. So it was back to the marina for us and an overnight stay before getting the fuses fixed, setting out again, 20 hours behind the rest of the fleet, at least we have got the other boats to chase.

Sad goodbyes and excited hellos

Leg 4 is finally over and we arrived safely in to Brisbane on the morning of the 9th. I say 'safely' as we had no more accidents and the fact we managed the last 24 hours with Bwian up with out something going wrong seems a huge achievement, hopefully we will be able to get some more kite action like this over this next race!

We finished our race in the early hours of the morning and then motored the next 40 miles up to Brisbane. We are berthed in an industrial area and it is also quite isolated. After breakfast we got straight on with the deep clean. That evening there was a crew get together meal along with the new joiners for the next race; John, Rachel, KC, Gaurav and Mike everyone enjoyed a 'Dark and Stormy' (Rum and ginger beer) courtesy of Derek! Luckily my Dad passed on this drink as he was breathalyzed later that night by the Police! (All clear!). It also gave us chance to say a proper goodbye to Jo and Neil who have been with us since day 1 and also Katherine and Beth.

The next morning it was time for me to start the repair on Thor who we had damaged before Sydney and for the next 2 days I have been repairing him, unsurprisingly our sewing machine has broken- AGAIN! so this will be a job to be completed when we get to Singapore So no 'unleashing Thor' for this race, not that I think we will need him as this next race we will be sailing through the Doldrums again, a thought that many of us who experienced Leg 1 are not looking forward to!

We leave tomorrow morning for a 'Le mans' start (we all stand behind the grinders with the head sails down until the start is announced) out of Brisbane and then onto extreme heat, pirate waters and cyclones!

Crew wanted

We have now finished our third and final race across the Bass Strait and are making our way up to Brisbane. Unfortunately we are 18 hours behind the rest of the fleet as at race start we had an accident which meant two of our crew members had to be evacuated. 

Having set off in the afternoon with the rest of the fleet, we were making good progress out of Storm Bay, the boat was heeling quite a bit and at around dinner time Derek and Katherine were below deck on the high side, when Katherine slipped and Derek tried to catch her, they both fell with Derek hitting his head on a ledge and becoming unconscious and Katherine falling and fracturing a rib. Matt assessed Derek and decided to make a mayday call which Qingdao responded to, turned around and came to our aid as they had a doctor on board if he were needed. We dropped our sails and went to turn our engine on but it failed, making the situation more difficult. We hoisted the staysail, set off a red smoke flare and with in 10 minutes a helicopter arrived, however they had to turn back as an engine warning light had come on, we were all really being tested on what we had learnt over our training! So a police rescue boat had to come out and evacuate Derek and Katherine, they were then airlifted to hospital and we were towed back to Hobart by Qingdao, before they left us two voluteers joined our boat as we only had a crew of 10 and needed 12 to sail her, so now we have Jess and Brian helping us for this race. 

At lunch time the next day we set off again (along with Katherine who was now well enough to sail) and had a difficult race across the Bass Strait, with strong winds and big waves making life on board hard. Two nights ago we sailed through a squall that saw 70 knots of wind making helming very difficult with rain pelting in your face and waves coming over the side. Now we have Bwian up and a flat boat again so we can all reorganise our belongings and tidy the boat up. We have received an email from Derek who has now recovered and is joining us in Brisbane. We hope to arrive there in the next 24 hours, where we will be saying goodbye to Neil and Jo who have been with us from the start, we are still looking short on numbers for the next race so are hoping for some new crew to join our boat as sailing with so few makes life incredibly hard and every watch tiring. Leg 5 is going to throw every kind of sailing at us from wind holes and heat in Singapore, to bumpy upwind sailing and freezing conditions as we head towards Qingdao.

New Year in Hobart

With Henry Lloyd having problems with her rudder the next race start to Brisbane was put back by a day, which was great as it gave me 3 days to see Hobart. Luckily I was able to stay off the boat with  Steve and Sue McQueeney, Steve works for The Friends' School Hobart, the only Quaker school in the Southern Hemisphere and it has close links with The Mount School. In fact I had quite a suprise when I arrived into Constitution dock at race finish to find out that the Commodores of the yacht clubs at both the race start (Howard Piggott of The Cruising Yacht Club of Australia) and the race finish (Richard Batt of The Royal Yacht Club of Tasmania), were both Old Scholars of The Friends' School, so I have a great picture of us all next to Mission Performance upon my arrival into the dock, another link to bring the two schools even closer!

With the race finishing just before New Years' Eve, Hobart knew how to put on a big party, my Dad and I spent it with all the other race competitors and thousands of Tasmanians next to the dock  at a festival called the 'Taste of Tasmania' serving local produce, from kangaroo burger and possum pie to local wines and ciders, then to see in the New Year 11 hours before the UK with fireworks and music.

On New Years' Day my Dad drove me, Neil and Rob up Mt Wellington which sits as a back drop to Hobart and at 1270mts is higher than any mountain in England. We were not only able to get some great views of Hobart, but also see where we were going to start the next race  and the points we would pass. As the last race wasn't very long, we didn't have a do lot to Mission Performance to ready her for race start on the 2nd, apart from the normal pre race talk from Matt on how he hoped the race to Brisbane would work out, so after a quick bite to eat with some friends, it was an early night to bed, making up for New Years Eve.

My Mate Ollie Phillips

Commodore Richard Batt, Me
 and Commodore Howard Piggott 

Crew Brief

Neil, Me and Rob up Mt Wellington