On our way to Oban!

Tonight during my night watch we finally hoisted the main and the staysail. We were not yet racing but it felt really good to finally stop motoring. There was a big storm north of us with lots of lightning but it did not affect us. A beautiful spectacle.

This morning very early we did our man overboard drill and all went brilliantly and then it was finally time for race start!! The start itself was not very espectacular because just before the start time, the wind basically changed 180 degrees and mostly died. So the start was just a bunch of boats all limping around, prepared for a different wind. Then the 10 minutes passed and we were able to hoist the spinnaker code 1

Then the fleet started to disperse and we have been sailing all day under a gentle wind of around 10 knots and the spinnaker up, really comfortable conditions. We have a lot of clouds but no rain, so very nice conditions weather wise as well

We were visited by a couple of groups of dolphins, I'm glad that Angus was sleeping at the time! 

Motoring is boring

There's no way around it: motoring is boring and we have been motoring since yesterday night, so we are a little bit bored. I can't imagine what it must have been for the guys in leg 7 who motored for 9 days on their way to Panama! We have not even hoisted the main or any other sail, so we just pass the time getting to know each other, and getting used to our watches and the tasks that we need to perform every day.

We are all looking forward to tomorrow, when the race will start and we will all be in our way to Oban and our loved ones.

Highlights of the day include being able to helm the yacht, even if it's under power, and seeing a flock of pelicans. These birds are outstanding and graceful, love them!

And we are off!!

We have finally slipped our lines and I could not be happier. I will now be able to fulfil my dream of crossing an ocean and live the greatest adventure of my life.

We started the day with the last victualling purchases of fresh food and I also spent some time organising my things on board. Then after lunch everything finally started. We took the group picture with all the crews, then moved on to the stage where we were able to dance to our team song, then paraded to the boat, then the media team took our boat picture and then finally we slipped our lines and we were off.

It was a quite emotional time. I reflected on all the journey that has taken me here: the excitement of signing up, the first trainings, going through the pandemic, crew allocation, flying to Punta, my accident, my recovery and being finally here. I felt elated.

It was also quite emotional saying goodbye to my wife over the phone. I'm really going to miss her but I know she will be supporting me all the way and will be waiting for me with all her love in Portsmouth.

After slipping the lines we did the parade of sail and the send-off was brilliant. We sailed under the fireworks with Mike holding a flare at the bow, all under a beautiful sunset. A magic moment that I will never forget.

We have just sailed under the bridge (it was great fun to shout "Vamos Punta" under the bridge and have the echo return our shout) and we have now started our motoring towards the race start, which will happen on Thursday.

The Moment of Truth

After five years of waiting, after a pandemic and two race postponements, after falling down a hatch and breaking two knee ligaments, after having to cancel my participation in legs two and three and after being offered the possibility of doing leg eight, the moment of truth has arrived and I am about to start my great adventure.

Our time in Washington has been really nice, I have been able to visit all the main sights and to do some additional activities like biking around town or kayaking on the Potomac. We also did some really wonderful team activities like our party or our crew dinner.

But it feels that the time is passing really slowly, we are all ready to start sailing and what we want is that time passed fast and we finally departed. We did our refresher training and our crew brief. All the victualling activities are done and the boat is ready. So it is great that tomorrow we will be slipping our lines and start motoring towards the start line. 

I am super excited, I will keep you posted!! 

A second chance

 

After my accident in October, I asked the Clipper Race if it would be possible for me to do one of the later legs if my knee healed correctly. They told me that it would be possible but that there was a long waiting list and that it would be quite difficult for me to get a place. So imagine my surprise when a few days ago they told me that there was a spot available for me for Leg 8!! My knee has been healing really well and my traumatologist has confirmed that I should be ready to go, so I will be joining the Punta del Este team in Washington DC, ready to sail through the North Atlantic.

It will not be the same as my original plan: I will only be sailing one leg and I won't be sailing in the southern oceans (should I change the name of this blog?). I won't be either arriving in Australia, a place I really wanted to know and where I had planned some wonderful holidays with my wife. 

But I will be sailing with my team, my friends, my skipper and my boat and I will be able to fulfil my dream, and this is all that really matters. So I am really happy and thankful for this second chance. No open hatches near me this time!!

Disaster at Punta del Este

Finally, after more than four years, my adventure was about to start. All the waiting was over and I was ready to join the race and sail to Cape Town and Australia. I was incredibly excited

I arrived in Montevideo in the morning of the 14th of October after a long flight from Madrid. I picked up my car (a pick-up truck, I have always wanted to drive one of those!) and drove to Punta del Este. Punta is a nice but weird place, a very posh city very different from the rest of the country, full of tall buildings, in a really beautiful environment but with no real historical center.

I left my stuff in our apartment and drove to the harbour. After saying hi to Jimena and Karin at the Yacht Club I went to the Punta yacht because I wanted to check some of the victualling inventory. This is when disaster struck.

I was walking in the boat and saw Alex at the bow. I wanted to say hi because I really like this guy, he is a beautiful person. So I was waving at him and was not really looking at the boat surface as I should have been doing. The forward hatch was open because they were going to put back the sails that had been taken out for deep clean. I did not see this and I just walked into the open hatch. It seems that there was a sail tie to stop you from doing precisely that but it seems I just stepped over it without noticing. So I just walked into the hole. Just like in the cartoons when a character falls down a manhole.

I don't remember exactly how I fell but given my injuries I believe that I first struck one of the side bunks with my knee and then I hit the floor with my back. I ended up sitting in one of the crossbars, with my feet on the bilges. I was soon assisted by Marc and Alex who checked that I was not badly hurt. Soon I was also assisted by a local doctor who happened to be nearby and who helped me lie down in the galley and did further checks on me.

Soon several people from Clipper (Dan, India, Dale) joined us and started calling for an ambulance. Then Nano arrived, you could see the worry in his face. He stayed with me the whole time until I went back to our apartment, I am really thankful for all his support and help.

The ambulance arrived and a paramedic did further checks on me and declared that I was OK and did not even need to go to hospital. But we all wanted to make sure that everything was fully OK so I insisted on being taken there. 

They did some x-rays and an ultrasound and they did not see anything worrisome so they signed the release form saying that I was ready to continue my Clipper race. I was really happy about this because I did not really want this to be the end of my adventure.

Reflecting upon my fall I thought that I had been really lucky: I had not broken any bones and I had not hit my head at all. This could have been so much worse... Now I just needed to make sure I recovered and was well enough to continue the trip.

Monday was price giving and while I was happy for the team, I felt a little down myself. I still had some pain in my knee and back and was starting to consider if it would be wise to join leg 2. So I left the celebration early and went to bed to try to rest as much as possible.

Then on Tuesday we did the Asado which for me was the highlight of our stay in Punta del Este. Amazing food, great music, great talks with all my team mates and an incredible environment. I had so much fun! And I was feeling great, I even led the "trencito" (conga)!! My spirit was really high.

But then that night I realised that next day I needed to do my refresher training. And I realised that even though I had been telling myself that everything was going ok, the reality was that it wasn't going well. I still had pain in my back and my knee and I did not really see myself moving around in a bouncing boat. After a long night with almost no sleep I decided that I needed to withdraw from leg 2 in order to be fully ready for leg 3. Otherwise I would just spend some miserable weeks onboard, risking my security and my health and the security of my mates.

After speaking with my wife I called Nano and explained the decision. He was fully supportive and he told me that he thought it was a very brave and mature decision that a lot of people would have refused to make. 

After making this decision I felt much relieved. I realised that I had been extremely anxious worrying about whether I would be able to continue the race or not. And I really felt I had made the right choice.

I notified Clipper about my decision and I started looking for flights to return to Spain after race start. I had a lot of support from all my crew mates who all tried to cheer me up and all said that they were really looking forward to see me in Cape Town.

I spent a couple of days helping with victualling activities and then finally it was race start day. It was a really emotional day, it felt so wrong that I could not sail away with the rest of my team. So I waved them goodbye, hoping to see them again soon in Cape Town. But in any case I really felt that I had made the right choice, I could tell that my body was not really ready to go sailing yet.

The day after race start I flew back to Madrid and then took a train to my home town of Pontevedra. I had arranged a visit to a traumatologist to take a new look at my injuries to see how they were progressing. That is when I received the most devastating news that I really did not expect to receive: he told me that I had two broken ligaments in my knee and that I would need surgery. That was the last thing I was expecting. I had some pain but I could walk and move around and did never suspect that I could have such a serious injury (which no one had detected in Uruguay). But soon a magnetic resonance confirmed the diagnostic.

So that was the end of my race, the end of my dream, the end of my adventure. It is so sad that I cannot even begin to describe what I am feeling. But right now my mind needs to be on getting my injury treated, the surgery done and to recover as best as possible.

That's all Folks!

Race Start

Finally, after more than 4 years of waiting, the day that I had been waiting for arrived. Race start was finally happening and I wanted to make sure that I was there. My race was not starting yet, as I am doing legs 2 and 3 but I wanted to be able to see my team off, celebrate with them and help in any way that I could.

I arrived in Portsmouth on Friday evening and I spent some time with Gerry, my partner in the Media Team and we talked a little bit about how things were going to work for this team. It was a nice beautiful evening and we walked to the place where the crew party was happening while chatting about this.

The party was held in a kind of warehouse in the Historic Dockyard. The building itself was not very attractive and the music was a bit too loud for my liking but I soon found myself talking to a lot of people, saying hi to all the people that I had met during my training weeks and starting to meet all the members of the Punta del Este team.

I also spent some time talking to the people who had come to represent the Yacht Punta del Este Club, Hector, Jimena... and also to Nano's sister. All of them really nice people and I am sure that we are going to have a wonderful welcome in Punta de Este.

Soon the whole team moved to the dance floor and we had a blast, dancing like crazy and having tonnes of fun. You could see that our team was one of the teams having a better time, all joking and dancing together. A great night!

It's a shame that I was too tired from the trip and I had to leave for my hotel before I could celebrate Angus' birthday, which was on Saturday, but I heard they celebrated it heartily.

Next day I got up early and went to the boat. It was a great opportunity to take some good pictures of the yachts as the crowds had not arrived yet. Soon you could see a lot of movement all around, with people working on the last purchases and the last "to-dos" for the boats. I also used this opportunity to get my crew kit from the race office so that I could use it on Sunday on stage.

Since I am part of the Victualling team I spent some time looking at how they had stowed everything so that we could replicate this in Punta del Este. There was a moment of panic when I could not locate the toilet rolls as they were not in the place that they had told me they had stowed them. I was finally able to find them in the space above Nano's bunk. Uff!

We had a meeting of the victualling team to talk about all the last items that were left to do and the last purchases that needed to be done and I spent the rest of the day running errands and going to a lot of different places to find everything that we needed.

In the meantime the people doing leg 1 were all busy doing their meetings with the race directors and with Nano, trying to get all the information they would need for the race.

Finally around 7:00pm we stowed the last items on board and it was the time to relax a little. I went with Eugenia and her partner to a local pub and we had a great time talking about our expectations about the race.

During the day the Clipper maintenance guys had been working in our generator which did not seem to be working fine. When we left around 7:00pm we were a bit worried because the yacht was a mess, with tools and stuff everywhere, a bit of a smell of gasoline and no clear solution for the generator yet. It really did not look like the yacht could be ready for the crew on Sunday.

Next day I again arrived quite early to the boat and was amazed to discover that all the mess had disappeared and all was dandy and nice. Apparently they had been working late until around 11:30pm and had replaced the faulty generator with one of the generators from the 68s, with the idea of replacing it with a new one in Cádiz. I was impressed with the quality of the work of the Clipper maintenance team.

My last task before race start proper was to prepare the expense sheet for the victualling team and I spent some time trying to squeeze 2 minutes of Nano's time so that he could sign it. I was able to deliver it to the race office and went back to the boat to wait for the ceremony to begin.

It was a great opportunity to have a lot of chats with all the crew members that were starting their race and to wish them good luck. We took a lot of pictures and while we were taking one of them, Sir Robin Knox-Johnston creeped up from behind and photo bombed us! It was really funny to have him appear suddenly as part of our picture!

We finally started walking towards the stage. The first part of the walk was great, with all the teams applauding each other as a show of respect and of recognition of what was going to start. Then a Brazilian bloco started playing on stage and we were soon all dancing and laughing on our way to the stage. We shouted "Vamos Punta!!!" again and again.

It was finally our moment to go up on stage, dance to our team song, take the official photo and be presented to the audience. It was incredibly satisfying to be able to be up there and to be able to share such a great moment with my team. I would not have missed it for anything in the world.

Then we had to say goodbye to the people doing Leg 1 as those of us who were not participating were not allowed to return to the boat. Lots of hugs and good luck wishes, it was quite emotional. I felt really jealous, I would have really loved to be able to sail away with them.

I had been lucky and had been able to secure a spot in one of the 68s that were going to be on the front line for the race start, so after seeing all the yachts slip their lines I boarded my boat. We had to wait until the parade of sail went in front of us before we could depart but even docked we had a great view of the yachts during the parade and was able to exchange a couple of "Vamos Punta" with my mates on board.

We finally departed from the dock and motored to the area of the race start. Even though we were on the front line, we were still quite far from the race start line itself so I was not able to see the start in detail but we could all soon see that Punta del Este was in the lead!

Once the yachts had started the race we were able to get closer to them and had a great time seeing how they were starting this great adventure. The wind was light, so a lot of windseekers were used. Most boats were not able to make the first mark due to the tide and were forced to tack, the only one that managed to make the mark was Perseverance which took a small lead.

We spent a lot more time motoring close to all the yachts and seeing their evolutions. It was great to be able to see all of this from the water and we were even able to exchange a couple of "Vamos Punta!" with them.

Around 6:00pm we started our return to the dock and I used the opportunity to relax a bit on deck, trying to absorb everything that had happened during the weekend.

A really exciting weekend which I loved. Next step is meeting the team in Cádiz and then it will finally be my turn!!

P.S. Punta del Este is in first position as I write this!