Osa 5 - Clipper training level 2 - November 2010

The chilly November weather in England during my training reminded me of my late season sailing back at home in Finland: Ice laden pontoons in the morning, slippery decks during the first week and the next they were snow covered. Luckily I got a flight back home just before Gatwick Airport closed. Although I’m used to the cold, the dampness made its own extra tricks for surviving.

My two weeks of training took place back-to-back and I must say that after the second week I now know what life and sailing on the Clipper 68s will be like. Prior to starting the training, I had doubts in my mind about how the training would turn total novices into sailors in a week or two.

I have sailed for decades (mostly in the inland waters of Finland and also crossing the Atlantic) and have been a sailing instructor for last three years. You have to believe how totally amazed I was to see total strangers build up a team, learn the basics of sailing, start working together, do their duties without complaints and make the boat go!

The first sailing session took place in darkness as we went out to sea late at night, what a start! All that counts is the attitude and after these weeks we all were more definite that this is what we want to do during the race as well.

Thanks to my skippers Mat and Adam, their first mates Emily and Flavio, and my fellow sailors Desmond, Adrian, Catherine, Mandi, Graeme, Doug, Jen, Tom, Rob, Neassa, Dan, Johnny, Kevin and Neil followed with John, Lisa, Fabio and Reto (these four tolerated me both weeks), I was able to have great sailing weeks.

The most demanding part of the training for me was understanding how everything works on a big boat. Being used to doing lots of manoeuvres singlehanded on my own boat, you suddenly realise it takes five or six people to drag the Yankee sail to its place and at least three people to set it up. You understand the forces when you get hit on your leg by a swinging staysail sheet. English is not my native language and this sometimes caused me problems to fully understand what was going on, and learning all the terms in English will be my study lessons over the winter. It did not make it any easier while listening to the accents of Scotland, Ireland and Liverpool!

On the third day we went out of the Portsmouth Harbour area to experience what a Force 8 gale feels like. Reefed down to a third reef and having only the storm sail up was probably not what we might have had up in race conditions but that gave us a strong feeling that these boat are ones you can rely on in any circumstances.Best moments of my training were the night sails.

Then heading towards Portsmouth under a full moon I was standing on the upper side of the deck holding the shroud and leaning towards the wind: a feeling of real sailing. On another night we were heading towards France as the orange-red moon rose and it was really smiling at us. Changing the headsail with racing style being as a bowman during that moonlit night was really a memorable experience.The cold weeks gave me a good lesson of how to prepare for the real race. For the two week period I had enough good equipment, but when you are out on the ocean, you cannot dry your boots and gloves on the top of the hot water pipes, as I did at the toilet of the Cowes Marina.As the lakes and seas along the coast of Finland are frozen during the winter, all I can do is dream about May and my Levels 3 and 4. Meanwhile I can have a feeling of water around me only when going ice-swimming with air temperatures being -27 ⁰C but the water being 27 degrees warmer!

Article on Clipper pages about level 2 training