Beyond the far horizon-conversations with Clipper sailors in Seattle

by David Schmidt, Sail-World USA Editor on 26 Apr 2016 For most sailors, the term “distance racing” conjures up warm memories of a Bermuda or Fastnet race, possibly a storm-tossed Sydney-Hobart Race, or, for the really dedicated (read: those with forgiving bosses or professions), a Transpac Race-events that take between (ballpark) three and 17 days to complete, depending on the boat, the conditions and the crew. While these time-honored racecourses are notorious for occasionally dishing out “beyond-brochure” conditions, especially the Sydney Hobart Race, these Corinthian-focused competitions are between 600 and 2,225 nautical miles.

These numbers pale in comparison to the mammoth leg that the Clipper Round the World Race experienced when they set sail from Qingdao, China to my hometown of Seattle, Washington (USA)-a leg that stretched a mind-numbing 5,400 nautical miles.

While the boats left Qingdao under their light-air kites, but conditions gathered the further east the boats sailed-a trend that would continue as the teams harnessed the strong winds and big seas into high-mileage days.

Tragedy struck the fleet on April 1 when Sarah Young (40; UK) was swept off of the IchorCoal boat and died. According to reports, Young was not clipped in at the time of the accident, and while her crew recovered her body and tried to resuscitate her, these efforts sadly failed.

Then, 22 days after leaving Qingdao, the Da Nang-Vietnam sustained a serious knockdown that broke a laundry list of equipment, forcing the team to retire from racing. While this was certainly not to skipper Wendy Tuck’s liking, this veteran of 9 Sydney Hobart Races clearly understood that the time for racing had passed and that the time for strong seamanship had arrived.

By the time the first half of the fleet arrived in Seattle, I showed-up at the Bell Harbor Marina to find a scene that was punctuated by broken bowsprits, tattered sails and exhausted-looking sailors. There, I caught up with Olivier Cardin, the skipper of LMAX Exchange, as well as sailors Ross Hamm, Stephan Connor and Han Kim to learn more about their experiences crossing one of the globe’s biggest and boldest swaths of blue.

Can you please tell me about the race to Seattle—how it was?
Olivier Cardin (FRA; LMAX Exchange skipper): It was tough from the beginning to the end, because in the beginning we had some light weather, lots of Chinese fishing nets, so some tricky things before Japan. After Japan, the beginning of the North Pacific was very difficult with light weather and at one time a storm came and after that it was strong, sometimes very heavy weather and big waves. So from in the middle to the end, it's very, very hard in terms of wind, waves.

What was the most wind you guys saw en route to Seattle?
Olivier Cardin: Ninety knots.

How would you compare this leg coming to Seattle from southern ocean legs?
Olivier Cardin: It's different because it's cold, wet. We saw the sun two days, it was in the low pressure all the time and the weather is very bad. In the southern ocean, we had quite good weather. It was easy and it was shorter, it's quite short it's like sprinting in strong winds. Here you have to deal with two weeks in strong winds.

So this is your second time around the world on the Clipper-are you crazy?
Ross Ham (AUS; Garmin): Crazy, insane, there have been other words even from the Clipper staff to describe my personality. Truly, I love sailing. I love the regimentation and the discipline that's involved with being a crewmember of the Clipper Around the World Race. It is a wake up, eat, sail, eat, sail, sleep routine, repeat. It just continues. It wears away at some, but you see people go through different phases and how quickly they adapt to the watch system, and I seem to fit in pretty well. As I said previous times, I'm like a dog with two tails and both of them are wagging.

How would you compare your experiences in the Southern Ocean with this Pacific leg?
Ross Ham: The Southern Ocean the first time around is a totally different ocean, it's a mixed bag, what I call a confused sea. There's no defined swell pattern, which can play havoc with the boat, let alone the strength of the breezes.

Northern Pacific [in the last edition of the Clipper race] we saw the great Northern Pacific rollers where you [might] see eight to ten waves to the horizon, 800 meters wide, six to seven meters high. Mathematically, we worked out the cubic tons to be 8,000—so many cubic tons coming at you, get out of the road. The best advice to helmsmen that I gave in Qingdao is when you're coming to the helm at night, don't look backwards. Just look at the floor, be safe. Don't worry what's coming, you'll be on the helm.

The boats, much credit to them, some of the silly things we do and some of the things we do to them, they stay intact. We may break fittings, we may break sails, but intrinsically the vessels are very, very safe.

This time across the Pacific, totally different ocean. There was a violent low, a big low system or a big system went through before us and it looked like we were left with the remnants of that. It was like Godzilla was ahead and we had the sons of Godzilla attacking us. They hit us and they hit us hard. My previous record in helming in speeds and also in wind velocity was 86 knots, this time here we've got the photo, records of the wind gauges over about 30 minute period never went less than about 85 knots and it peaked out at 113 knots.

The 113, 105, 108 spells are very clearly defined as around about three minutes long.

Tell me about your passage.
Stephen O'Connor (UK; LMAX Exchange): The expression I'll always use is ‘we're beleaguered, battered, bruised but not broken’. So all those expressions describe quite clearly how we feel as a boat. The boat took a pounding, there's some items on there that got broken through the sheer enormity and magnitude and power of the sea. The crew themselves are in good condition, although incredibly drained. A lot of fatigue, a lot of tiredness, but now we're in port and we've got nice facilities, nice accommodation. Hopefully we'll recharge our batteries and be back looking to the next race, but things are good.

Was this one of the harder legs you've sailed so far?
Stephen O'Connor: Without a doubt. I think this was the hardest leg out of the entire race. Maybe not the longest, because the previous race we had to do a bit of sailing in the South China Sea, but this race across the North Pacific had everything you could possibly imagine from an ocean. We had the cold, we had the enormity of the waves, the enormity and high speeds of the winds themselves, the swell, the currents, everything it threw us.

In the North Pacific, you sometimes come around off the coast of Japan and it's relatively quiet, but once you left Japan it's like coming and the North Pacific real is suddenly opened up, and the majesty and the power and also unfortunately the cruelty of the North Pacific did take its toll on the fleet. So a massive respect for the ocean and what she can perform, Mother Nature, we are just visitors in her kingdom really.

Tell me about this last leg, how was it?
Han Kim (KOR; Clipper Telemed+): It was good. I think our maximum winds were about 92 knots, and our maximum boat speed about 31.3. We had some big swells and really fast winds, and it was just awesome. You could see all these waves in these waters swirling around, it was beautiful.

So you enjoyed it, you had a good time?
Han Kim: Oh, I had a fantastic time.

Were there first-time crewmembers on board for this leg?
Han Kim: Yes, a few of them.

Did they also have a fantastic time?
Han Kim: In the beginning, most people get seasick, but then after that it's fine. I think the hardest part was the cold actually, because some people were not used to it.

Do you have one particular memory that's the highlight?
Han Kim: Just fast speed. I think about four days ago, we were hit by this really strong low front, and that's when we hit 92 knots of wind and the boat was just flying. The boat, when it reaches a certain speed, starts kind of like whistling and I love that.

Racing resumes this Thursday (28 April) as the fleet embarks on a leg that will take them down the West Coast, through the Panama Canal and then north to New York City. Stay tuned for more Clipper interviews, next week.