Fever pitch...

So the final morning has come around!!!! As I sit here, highly unorganised and with a little still to pack into my bag, I am an hour away from leaving home and heading to join the boats in Hull.

A weird weird feeling, but a really exciting one at the same time.

Jamaica's official naming ceremony is at 2 o'clock this afternoon so am hoping to make it over to that in time. I'll be blogging from each of the stop overs, so the first one will be up here when I arrive in La Rochelle in about a weeks time. I'l stick some photos up of the whole start debarcle then.

Well I better go adn finish packing, have some breakfast and hit the road, not going to happen on its own!

Sorry this has been a short and rather lame attempt at a big send off blog, some what lacking in expressing how exciting it all is. Thanks to all for the various send offs from work/london/home, much appreciated.

Keep in touch and keep your fingers crossed - we have alot to live up to now we've been named after the fastest man on earth...

Pete

Don't forget you can sponsor my barnardos fund raising efforts if you fancy - its a great cause and would be really appreciated. Just follow the links on the left hand side...

So close I can smell it...

So the clock is about to tick down into single figures in terms of days to race start and the emotional roller coaster is coming to a climax.

I’m about to set off on a ten month Round the World Yacht Race, and so naturally 99.9% of my mindset is being super excited about the coming months, to the point where I can’t really fathom the correct words to explain it. I’ve already said goodbye to a few people that I know I may never see again, depressing as that may sound I suppose its just reality when you go away for a long time. That’s the bit that makes up the other 0.1% unfortunately.

That’s not to belittle friendships that I have made by any means, (I will or course genuinely miss people, I am human!!!) but the race has been so long in coming for me, long before I knew some of my friends in London in fact. I first heard about the Clippers race when I was 18 maybe 19, so nearly 7 or 8 years its been lurking in the back of my mind. I’ve been incredibly lucky to do some great adventures in the interim (climbing trips to the Alps, Dolomites, Andes, cycling trips, overland travels aplenty etc.), but the 2920 days since I heard about the race is now about to become just a single digit – 9!!!! (I can tell even as I’m writing this article my excitement is rocketing)

As I write this the 10 68ft stripped out Clippers racing yachts have departed Gosport on the South Coast of the UK, where all of our training has happened and many a good beer shared in the Clarence pub. Edinburgh Inspiring Capital, Jamaica Lightning Bolt, Uniquely Singapore, Cork, Team Finland (the latest and final entry into the race), Qingdao, Cape Bretton Ireland, Hull & Humber, Spirit of Australia and California won’t be returning for just shy of a full year having complete a full circumnavigation in the mean time…

As for me, I’m finishing work this Friday which brings its own set of mixed emotions. Turner and Townsend have been incredibly supportive and I’ve met some great people here. From London I then head home to see family on the Wirral and on from there to the North East, each move signifying a step closer to the 2 o’clock start gun on Sunday 13th.

I’ll be blogging from each port about what we’re up to and of course writing about the events of each leg and posting photos back. On board, I’ll have a GComms account via the Satellite to send very short emails to a select group of family and friends.

I’ll make sure I blog again before I leave to say a final farewell. Thanks for following

Pete

Jamaica Clipper!!!

And so, finally after a fairly lengthy wait (no doubt thanks to the credit crunch), we onboard CV2 have been officially confirmed as Jamaica Clipper. The boat, endorsed by Usain Bolt will be called Jamaica Lightning Bolt.

How we are going to fair in keeping Jamaica's name in the headlines as the fastest nation on the planet I don't know, but I can assure you we will be giving it our best shot. Pete our skipper seems to be getting pretty keen on the idea of going all out for the race.

It also means that we will get a home port on the race which is great. This will mean that unlike one or two of the other boats, we'll have our stop in Port Antonio at the end of Leg 6, where hopefully we should get a good reception and welcome from the Jamaicans.

Not sure what the design for our boat will be yet as the one in the picture above is the 07-08 design. Still remains to be seen but I'm really genuinely pleased to have been given Jamaica as a sponsor - will be great fun!

The race is really creeping up now, to say i'm excited is the under statement of the year - 20 days to go! I'm sincerely hoping we get to meet old Usain in Jamaica. I reckon after 8 months away at sea by this point, there might be one or two of us that could give him a run for his money in a sprint to the bar...

A very happy Pete, Jamaica Clipper!

Barnardos Fund Raising...

So its time to get my fundraising efforts off the ground for my charity that I'm racing for. I've decided to go with Barnardos for this adventure, one of the UK's leading Children's charities.

They do some really fantastic work and have over 400 projects in the UK now, helping with situations ranging from
drug misuse to disability, youth crime to mental health, sexual abuse to domestic violence, poverty to homelessness..

I'm really proud to be representing them so please give your support if you can! I've set up a justgiving page, which you can get to by clicking here.

Any help you can give would be greatly appreciated.

Pete

Oil Skins - Check. Boots - Check. Shorts -Check. Socks....hmmmm how many pairs to take??!!!!

So prep for the race is really beginning to take off (its just over 30 days before I set off) and I'm getting to the stage where I am faced with the usual conundrums of previous trips - what kit to take!

I'm beginning to buy the last bits I think I'll need to take with me and questions of cotton vs. synthetic, heavy weight vs. light weight, 3 pairs or 4 pairs are going round and round my head on an almost daily basis!

Training for a few weeks on the Solent gives you a fairly good idea but that is after all, only a week. Packing a bag for ten months has had me scratching my head a little, since the weather will change so significantly during the race. We'll encounter the full spectrum from freezing temperatures with snow and rough weather for weeks on end, right through to being so hot down in the galley on the way to Singapore that it becomes almost unbearable!

Planning for the trip swings almost always in favour of making me super-excited, but very occassionaly to the mind-bogglingly complex, making me crave the simplicity of adventures where you sling a bag over your shoulder and set off from your front door. This time around though it would be folly in the extreme to head out to the world's oceans without the right kit and preparation.

So while the kit debate is still in full swing, the good news is that atleast I have chosen what book I'm going to bring on the boat! Its called 'Kiss or Kill' by Mark Twight, a climber from North America. Hopefully in times of plight it will give me the mental resolve i need - no matter how bad I think I have it the suffering this guy went through to achieve his goals is epic in comparison...

Until next time...