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The day began at 4.00am with a torch shone in your face to wake the off watch from their sleep, allowing 15 minutes to get dressed and on deck.
With dawn breaking the on watch briefed their opposite number before heading for bed. Once everyone was on deck the call was given to go below. The six on deck the sorted out their racing positions and spent the next four hours trimming, setting and changing sails and looking forward to breakfast. On going repairs and general maintenance were the order of the
morning with everyone taking their turn to do everything.
The first landmark of the day was the chat show at 0700 GMT with the Duty Yacht of the day radioing all the yachts to get a current position and a report of general conditions plus any news items i.e sails torn, damage done, wildlife encountered.Shortly afterwards the shuffling of the Care Bears ( one person from either watch ) was heard as they rose from their slumber to get breakfast ready. The Care watch early in the leg was fun with plenty of variety i.e cereals, toast with jam or peanut butter, tea or coffee. Towards the end it was cereals and .... a great deal of imagination. The Care Bears were in for a torrid time, called from their duties of cooking the meals, cleaning the heads, disinfecting the boat and providing afternoon tea and scooby snacks for the evening watches, to change sails when the rough conditions required more than the 6 crew members who were on deck. 24 hours off to care for the others often turned into the watch from hell, with no sleep and plenty of jobs to do. Cleaning the bilges and the heads being low on everyone's Top 10 things to do in a day. Watch change at 0800 GMT meant breakfast and the prospect of 6 hours uninterrupted sleep. Having talked over the fun of the night watches, your weekly shower, wash or a wipe round with a baby wipe was the forerunner to your bunk. Diary updates and quiet contemplation, conditions allowing, were followed by the ritual of strapping yourself into your bunk to stop you being bounced out of bed by the Yacht lurching off a wave. Just when you felt that you were falling asleep, the on deck watch changed tack, leaving the off watch on the low side of the boat. The movement woke you and the climb to the high side began. Having dragged your sleeping bag and pillow up the 30 degree slope that was the floor of the companionway, the ritual started again. Sleeping bodies were considered as ballast. By 1400 GMT it was time for lunch. The off watch were first and the delights of freeze-dried pasta and cold tuna and sweetcorn with a sauce were gratefully consumed. The cardboard food had to be dressed up a little to get it down. 6000 calories a day and plenty of liquid had to be consumed every day to keep your strength up. To supply the 14 crew with water for drinking, showers, cooking and cleaning, the boats had 4 freshwater tanks carrying 1100 litres. With weight being a major consideration, they were rarely full and only filled with enough to last a day. The Watermaker and Desalination Units were important pieces of kit, when they packed in, the crews were subjected to drinking, washing and cleaning with salt water. The afternoon and evening watch until 2000 GMT was the longest of all. It
felt like it went on for days, bypassing your normal mealtimes and was
generally the watch when little or nothing happened. Boredom and
frustration with others were some of the hardest aspects of life on board.
Ocean racing allows plenty of time to think and reflect on life. Trivia
games and searching topics of conversation, like the taboo subjects of
religion and politics, helped you to discover more about your fellow watch
members aswell as pass the time. Frustration and conflict provide the
occasional flashpoint when the pressure became too much. With 14 different
people on board a yacht, all with their own views and opinions, was like
a bomb waiting to go off at any time. The art was to deal with the
occasional blow up and get on with the job in hand.
The last watch of the day saw crews scanning the horizon for red and white lights and constantly monitoring radar for signs of other vessels. Night sailing was exhilirating and the time for those who were racing to pick up their game, even higher, and gain miles over those in front and behind, time to creep up the leader board under the cover of darkness. Each Yacht raced each other for leg honours. Each watch did battle with each other to gain the most miles. Each person took immense pride at doing their job and regular rotation meant you stayed alert (?) all the time. The days were hard and physically demanding, the effort sogreat that you went to bed shattered. Your body clock never really adjusted to life at sea and he constant variation of weather conditions meant that you could not relax for a second. Most kept this up for 10 months, the stopovers providing well earnt rest and relaxation and a break from the daily routine
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