End of June I was again on my way to the South-English city of Gosport. It was time for my fourth and final week of training, before starting the race around the world end of August. Everyone has anticipated this moment and worked hard to get there. For me it felt even more special as I had only sailed with one other person from our team.

It started with an orderly queue, playing into the prejudice of the British queuing for everything. With nine boats on the water that week, there were over 100 crew starting their level 4 training that morning. The first stop was the official photo being taken. It took some time until it was my turn. But standing in the line I met a few of my former training crew. We could exchange on the other trainings we had done in the meantime as well as which teams we had been allocated to.

Right behind me in line was Alex, who is also on Team Lou. We had not met before but made good use of the time getting to know each other. This simplified the process of remembering all the names on board, which is not necessarily one of my strengths.

After the photo we received our foul weather gear for the race. In addition we got the official shorts and a sun-blocking shirt for the warmer legs. With all that gear we are now easily identifiable as participants of the race. Only our team-kit will be distributed at a later stage, close to race start. And by then we hopefully also learn about our team sponsor, which is not known at this time.

Onto the boat

After trying on the new kit, ensuring that everything was the right size, we were heading down to our boat – CV23. Without a team the hull is still plain white and just a bit boring. But this will change hopefully soon. On the boat we got to select our bunks for the week and started the theoretical test. To ensure the safety on board, each crew member has to pass this assessment before every training and every leg of the race.

Once everyone was on board we had a short safety brief. And then we were ready to slip lines and get started. Similar to the procedure for all stopovers, the boats slipped lines one after another with exactly three minutes between them. This was quite an impressive sight, seeing nine of the ten boats heading out towards the Isle of Wight. This first glimpse of the race procedure has motivated everyone on board to give their best.

The first couple of hours passed in the blink of an eye. We were going through some of the usual emergency maneuvers. Part of this was to transfer goods from one boat to another while moving. Another was towing another vessel and being towed. Lastly we took a look at the different means we have on board for fire fighting and tested the hose. Finally, it was time to set sail. We went through the first few tacks before starting to settle into the watch system. The aim was to continue sailing for the next three days before anchoring for another night at sea. And the grand-finale of the week should be a two day test race in the channel.

Hoist the sails

In the following days we were sailing up and down the English Channel. We headed towards France two times, and visited Portland Bay once. During this time we could experience very different weather conditions and thus test different sails. However, the wind started to die on Saturday morning as we made our way to the eastern tip of the Isle of Wight to anchor. It was quite nice to have no wind while at anchor, allowing for a good rest ahead of the mock race. But as the wind had not picked up until Sunday morning, the start of the mock race had to be postponed several times as there was still too little wind to sail.

In the afternoon there was just enough wind to get the race started. It was not really a lot of wind, but at least we were moving in the right direction. At least until the tide turned and pushed us in the opposite direction. The first few boats managed to round the virtual mark set by race management just before the tide turned. But we and two other boats were too late and we kept being pushed away by the steadily increasing tidal current. We tried for a little over half an hour, but the current was much stronger than the wind. Finally, the skippers of the affected boats agreed to skip the mark an head for the next waypoint as otherwise we would have been stuck for at least 6h.

In the evening hours the wind faded away and once again the tidal currents pushed us into the wrong direction. Nonetheless, we tried to make use of every gust to make some progress towards the next turning mark. Or at least try to minimize the drift in the wrong direction. During this calm weather we witnessed a beautiful sunset in the English Channel with the orange sun reflecting from the flat water.

End of the Race

On the next morning the wind increased a bit, allowing us to round the next mark with the other boats. We were back in the race. On the way back we were sailing in close proximity to the other boats, always have a few of them in sight. So we kept looking at what they were doing and tried to trim our sails hoping to catch up a bit.

Shortly after rounding the next mark south-east of the Isle of Wight, the tidal current switched again and we were once again pushed the opposite way we wanted to go. And the wind was dying again. So in the late afternoon the race was called, allowing us to start the engine and head back towards Gosport. It was just after half past ten when we docked again in Gosport. After a shower we had all been longing for, we went back to our bunks shortly after to be ready for the deep-clean of the boat on the next morning.

As per usual after every training (and every of the races to follow) the boat was cleaned from top to bottom on the day after arrival. Everything was taken out, cleaned and then put back to its place. In addition we needed to do a few checks to ensure the boat is in good condition for the next group starting their L4 training the week after.

I will have to work for another couple of days before I have two weeks off to spend some time with my family and friends. Then I will go back to Gosport to help prepare our boat for the race. I am excited and very much looking forward to starting the race end of August.