Leg 6 Race 2.. Bye bye, China. Bye bye.

30.03.2024

Unlike the beautifully sunlit and shimmering, dragon scaled, skyscraper skyline that we had had the day before, our departure from Qingdao offered a veil of foreboding fog. We woke early to sleepwalk onto busses, ferrying crew to and from the cruise terminal to check out of China, before returning to the fleet to consummate our departure. Countless drums boomed and dragons danced as we were paraded through spectators to slip our lines; all captured by hundreds of photographers and a swarm of fizzing drones above, ready to eyeball the occasion. We mounted our dragon and exited the marina last, applauded by fireworks and cheering crowds before meeting the cool sea breeze and leading the fleet around the bay in our parade of sail, in front of the Olympic stands, and a line of flags, many of which are represented by the Clipper crew.

Now was our time to say goodbye to the East to head East for the West. The passage ahead of us is treacherous, tempestuous, and a pretty silly thing to do, by all means. Of all the people who have sailed across the North Pacific, over fifty percent have been Clipper crew; I feel very lucky to have ended up in a position for which I can join that small group of people, however I am not blind to the challenge ahead and am respectfully apprehensive of it. It’s going to be long, it’s going to be cold, it’s going to be big. I can’t wait.

We set out at a leisurely pace into the grey towards our Le Mans start, 70 miles motor out from land. After 18 hours, a man overboard drill, and some AIS track art... we had made it to the start. Which was delayed. A classic wind hole to begin the journey, mixed with an even thicker fog, reducing our visibility to metres as we lined up alongside our fellow yachts; we knew they were next to us but it was spooky to see the great mainsails materialise from the mist. Once the wind had built to a semi-respectable level (about 8 knots) the start was decided. We made our final preparations, same game plan as before, the countdown began and we were a GO! Again, we led off the start! Such a great feeling as we pulled away, watching the boats abeam of us slink back into the mist from whence they came. After the ten minutes had passed however, and we were free to adjust our sails, it was clear to see the intentions of the fleet as the wind veered around us. White peaks like mountain snow peeked out above the fog behind us as the great kites were hoisted high, all that was visible in the excitement of the return to downwind sailing. One by one we gybed off pointing down towards the bottom of Japan, around 700miles away, our first challenge of the race.

The night became tough as we proceeded the fleet into messy tangles of fishing boats. It added new perspective to the question: “if a tree falls in a forest and no one is there, does it make a sound?” We didn’t fancy testing the “if AIS says there’s a boat there, but we can’t see it, is it really there?” question. Wails of tankers, tugs, fishermen, and Charlie-Victor-Two- somethings cackled a confused cacophony over the radio as the fog dangerously drew the local traffic to disorder. With only 400m of visibility on other lights, we were left with very little time to react to any threats; our main option became slinging our boat to starboard for a few minutes in an attempt to avoid the incoming obstacles ahead, seemingly thoughtless in the poor visibility. One of our counterparts, CV23, seemed to want to test the previous question a little too much, and came to a very unfortunate conclusion. Frantically calling the other yachts in search of a Chinese speaker, for which we are the proud couriers of two, it soon became apparent that they had been caught in a fishing net... and were being towed... backwards... unlucky. In this weather though, it could happen to anyone, I really hope they’re ok and get out of it and back to racing soon enough. Quite the catch though.

A strange beginning.

Will x