My mate Ian's round the world race with Clipper Ventures…...

[apba1166]

Derek Lundy's great book about the '95-96 Vendee Globe race, GODFORSAKEN SEA, has hair-raising scenes of  the single-person sailors of the 60-footers, sleepless days on end, climbing their 80-foot masts in Southern Ocean gales to fix halyards, repair lines, or hand-furl and the like. Amazing stuff.

[Giles]

I'll hunt it down.  Thanks, G

[Giles]

A couple of Ian's crew use the Green outside the house to fold some of the sails they will take with them around the world.  Race starts this Sunday, we'll be at the race start to see them on their way…...

[madmonday]

i'll see them in about a year or so.  safe travels

[Giles]

Just wandered down to the dock to see how things are going.  Frantic prearations all round:

[Giles]

Popped down to see Ian off today.  He left here to go about 20 miles down the coast to Southampton.  Southampton is the port that the fleet will sail from on Sunday.

Not as worrying as it looks, this is a smaller class of boat undergoing a righting test

My friend Sir Robin Knox Johnston (who was the first guy who sailed around the world single handed and is the guy behind this race) with the local Mayor.  Robin is the one scratching his beard, the Mayor is the one wearing the necklace

Opposition

Opposition

Opposition, opposition, opposition

Ian's boat

Ian then decides he needs to fix something up the mast (10 mins to spare - no sweat)

And at last they are off (that is not me Ian blows a kiss to)

[Beatle]

nice pics..

[rocket]

yep, thanks for sharing…

[Madame Buttonfly]

We're very excited about having places on one of the spectator boats that will be sending all the Clipper yachts off on Sunday.  Lots of fun (but my dear friend Sarah is Ian's fiancee and facing a year apart, so there will also be some tears…)

[Giles]

I think I'll stay at the bar then - not great on sympathy…......

[rocket]

sounds good, lets hope it will be a bright and sunny day

[jimmy]

Exciting stuff

[Giles]

I'm a bit worried about Ian.  It looks like he may be having to make his way back to the start.  Possibly some sort of collision overnight…...

[Beatle]

ur kidding, right ?

[Madame Buttonfly]

@Beatle:

ur kidding, right ?

Sadly, no…

[Giles]

No.

Take a look here.  You can actually do a replay, and sometime in the early hours of last night there were 4 boats very close together, Qingdao was one of them.  Then she peeled off and started heading north, the other 3 continued generally in a Southerly (correct) direction

http://www.clipperroundtheworld.com/index.php/follow/race-viewer/

[Beatle]

woah, so what happens now ? also, u know how hard it is for me not to make one of my ironic remarks…I assume this is somewhat of a tragedy - but I really want to comment on the "not enough rum" stuff....biting my tongue

[Giles]

Anyway.  Here are a few pics from yesterday.

There is always one arse at an event like this (this time it was not me).  Amongst 100's of spectator boats, an aircraft carrier and 10 racing 68 footers, this jerk decided to have a ski…....

The fleet heading to the start/finish line

New York motoring to the start/finish line

Qingdao (Ian) Gold Coast and motoring to the start finish line.  You can see the 2 foresails ready to be hoisted - these will go up about 10 minutes before race start

[Beatle]

lol, I actually find the water skier guy kind of brave..or ignorant…

[Giles]

The trouble is he kept falling off, then he was just a bobbing head in a sea of boats.  The Coast Guards told them to stop a few minutes after I took this pic…......