Thursday 22nd – The Eagle has landed!

We're here!  We've done it! Hoo-bloomin'-rah!!!  At 9.30am this morning, the Hull & Humber Yacht finally pulled into Urca Yacht Club, in Rio de Janeiro Marina, under the watchful eye of Joff the Clipper race director, the swiftly blinking lenses of the media cameras and, oh yes, into the welcoming, outstretched arms of Christ.  Now you can't really ask for a bigger welcome than that can you?!
Actually we did get one better. Virtually every member of the c...
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Wednesday 21st

This is it – this should be our final full day of sailing on this leg.  If we keep moving at a decent pace (we had given in and stuck the motor on just to keep ticking off the miles) in theory we'll cross the old finish line this evening and should be in to Rio by about 2am.  We are all starting to get excited  - and even Vic who for days has been saying “we'll never get to Bloody Rio” is now full of belief.  A new religion is born! We had just started to rejoice when a Br...
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Tuesday 20th
Today I was Mother again – this time with Duncan  - who was in the galley bright and early before me, whisking up a storm... or more accurately, a jug of powdered milk. The normal breakfast routine trundled along – made slightly simpler by the fact that the choice was either porridge or muesli - we've run out of all other cereal options.  In fact we are now down to our final few 'day bags' of food!  We'd catered for the estimated journey duration that Clipper had given us but ...
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Monday 19th October

Nightwatch whizzed by last night – it obviously pays to be busy and I managed to break up the evening into bite-sized sections.  Tom, who has been standing in as our watch-leader, has been very organised and given us half-hour slots for helming during the evening/night and made clear that as part of our duties, we then go on to check sail trim in the half hour after our helm.  So once I knew my schedule, I was able fit in a couple of hours of logging video (part of my med...
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Sunday 18th October   - Dolphins & Dickens

Today was a catch-up day – which now seems to be part of my Sunday routine... although I think any routine is more by accident as you do tend to lose track of which day of the week it is. So I caught up on my blog, caught up on some washing and then gave myself time off to catch-up on my reading.  Reading for me is a luxury which in my old life I rarely afforded time for.  Even in my new life here on board I still struggle to allow myself time to si...
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Saturday 17th – Food & Fantasies...

Qingdao came out of stealth mode at midnight and are back up to 57 miles in front of us.  We've been trying to chip away at their lead over the last few days and now the chance of catching them is starting to seem unlikely.  It was our last realistic goal for this race and the leg and although there are still a thousand miles left to race, the route choice and weather conditions are pretty well going to be the same for both of us – so unless they hit a w...
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Friday 16th

No mother-watch today – hooray – so it should have been a great day.  However I had a really bad night last night. I was exhausted after 2 days of being constantly on the go from 6.30am to 9pm...and I was just too, TOO HOT!  I lay in bed trying to will myself to sleep and eventually got up thinking it must be about 7.30am.  It wasn't – it was 1.30am and just coming up to night watch change over. I shuffled into the heads – as that's what you do when you get up in the middl...
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Thursday 15th – Mother-watch – the Sequel

I arrived in the galley this morning at 6.30am – having had very little sleep due to the violent motion of the boat.  Actually it wasn't really that violent but the wind had picked up again and we were hooning along upwind, at around 10 knots, heeled over and crashing off the occasional extra big wave – all things we had long forgotten about! Chloe had last night been nominated to do 'mother' with me today as Paul – who was on the rota - was ...
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Wednesday 14th   Equator Day!

Today was a landmark day for us.  No matter what the weather was going to throw at us today we were pretty certain we'd cross the Equator.  In fact our estimated crossing time was just after midday.  I was on mother watch with Brett – fellow 'round the world-er' and man of very few words – the first three of which to me today were “I don't cook”.  Not great when that was our chief objective today – however we soon came to a deal that I cooked and he wash...
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Tuesday 13th – Challenges!

The Wind has finally picked up – last night's watch was great.  We were moving again and all thoughts are focused on trying to catch Qingdao. They are just over 50 miles ahead of us and lying in sixth place.  We're in seventh. It's now looking unlikely that we'll catch the rest of the fleet and as long as we keep moving we should hold seventh at worst.  Over the last 36 hours we've managed to take a couple of miles from them – but nothing significant. We're all...
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Monday 12th – Stress and Relief

A new day dawns and with it a new watch leader - Mike B - otherwise known as 'Bridas' – as he comes from Bridlington and who is an inaugural member of the soon to be famous “Silver Foxes” club - a group of 'Gentlemen' on board H&H, distinguishable by their years (old buggers) and their fine silvery locks (although most of them have now had a No.2 all over!).  So, Mike led us through his first watch with great calmness and purpose aided by his new-found b...
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Saturday 11th October

Sunday is traditionally a day of rest.  But not for me today.  Having had our downpour yesterday and the tiniest extra bit of breeze, today is the first time in over a week I don't feel like the heat has sapped every ounce of energy from me.  So I've knuckled down to catching up on my web-blogs, (in the vain hope that at least 3 people are reading them!) and now that we've started moving have turned my mind to the Equator and the fact that, as part of the crossing ceremo...
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Saturday 10th October – The Deep

Despite the rain over the last 36 hours, it seemed hotter than ever last night.  I had an hour’s sleep if that – and have woken up in a bit of a grump!    Suddenly I'm feeling that this 'Firm' was perhaps not all it was cracked up to be – and that perhaps it should provide air-con for it's employees – along with personal 'brow-moppets' and complementary buckets of ice. I decide that's an email for later and arrived on deck at 2am wearing what is gener...
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Friday 9th – Dress-down/dress-up Friday!

The end of yesterday evening finally brought some relief from the heat. We'd watched the clouds gather throughout the afternoon in the distance to the east and ahead of us.  We took down our spinnaker and hoisted the more forgiving head sails and almost immediately the rain started.  The wind didn't arrive with it and as the thick, black clouds gathered overhead - even though just aft of the boat the sea and sky remained holiday brochure blue - Piers ...
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Thursday 8th October – Big Journeys

The next morning we were relieved to see our sail still flying.  No signs of stress or weakness in the repair and we stood in the morning sunlight studying the fruits of our sweaty labour and could now see that it was well worth it.  After all, when your racing the boat comes first and you do whatever you have to do keep her moving.  We were pleased to have played a major part in that – even though it had been a slog at the time!

The day passed very pleas...
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Wednesday 7th  -  The Final Operation

Back up on watch at 2am we actually spent a couple of hours up on deck doing some helming and trying to remember what it was like to sail!  The winds were still very intermittent for us – the air was hot and humid and night watch attire was the same as day attire – shorts, t-shirts and either crocs, flip-flops or bare feet!
By 4am we were back in “theatre” to re-insert the leech line through the edge of the tape. It took 3 of us nearly two hours to ...
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Tuesday 6th October – Albert's Birthday

After the previous day's escapade I was looking forward to a long sleep.  One of the perks of being on mother watch is that you get a long night’s sleep either before or after your watch.  Mine was before.  The downside to this was that it was far too hot to sleep properly and I was also conscious I needed to be up extra early to get all the plans for Albert's (Alison – now known as Albert) Birthday in place.

I hadn't banked on waking up at 1.30am a...
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Monday 5th October  - Best laid Plans...

It was indeed lucky that I had been super organised, as this morning I was given my own special present.  Actually to be fair it was mine to share with the two Mikes.  The mid-weight spinnaker we had been flying to try and move us along, had got caught on the spreaders which then proceeded to rip it.  Not just one rip but a whole mid-section that peeled down, banana-skin style right through the middle!
As we were about to go off-watch and try and get som...
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Sunday 4th October – Planning a party at Sea

My attention is drawn away from racing today as it's Al's Birthday on Tuesday – the day when I'm next on Mother watch, so the onus is on me to try and conjure nice Birthday food from the contents of the 'day-bag' of ingredients I have on that day.  It's a bit like 'Ready, Steady Cook' only without the cameras, the chefs who know what they're doing...oh yes and without any decent ingredients!!!
The menu for Tuesday is the normal breakfast (porridg...
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Saturday 3rd October – The Gate

There's bad news, good news and good news today. The bad news is that Qingdao have declared that they have crossed the scoring gate ahead of us.  The good news is, that looking at their co-ordinates they've miscalculated and have actually gone outside the scoring gate – which is unfortunate for them but gives us the second bit of good news, in that we've now crossed it (at last – I was beginning to think we never would) and have gained an extra two points....
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2nd October
Well it's got us again. We're so close to the scoring gate now and the wind has died and we're going nowhere fast. However it's big Mike's Birthday today. A youthful 53 years old and the team have gone all out to make it as special as possible. Fresh coffee has been brewed for breakfast, and Vic and Al have been working overnight and into the early hours making fresh bread 'sausage rolls' - using up some spare tins of hotdog sausages, and a fantastic looking chocolate cake – from...
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1st October
The wind has definitely improved.  We put a reef in our mainsail last night (pulled a section of it down to the boom to reduce the sail area).  I also had fun getting some good video footage and still shots of the waves crashing over the bow and a wall of water flying into the air as we once again slam into a wave. I also got pretty drenched as I was lying on the low side of the deck holding the video camera as far out and as low as I could get it, without actually disappearing und...
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30th September

We all know that the one thing you can rely upon with the weather is its unreliability.  And sure enough it's lived up to that over the last twenty-four hours.  Overnight we continued to crawl along, although the wind has a feeling of starting to build.  Having looked at the synoptic charts, Piers took the decision to tack out to the west – away from the direction of the scoring gate but hoping that the better winds we'd find out there would make our overall speed towards the ...
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