How it all started

A couple of years ago, I decided to start a slightly crazy undertaking: the Clipper Round the World Yacht Race. After registering my interest online, I spoke with a recruiter, got excited, received an offer to join and signed on the dotted line.

For a while, life went on as usual and I kind of forgot about it. Then, last year in April, I went to Portsmouth for my first 2 weeks of training. These were on the "smaller" training boats, the Clipper 68 feet (~ 21 meters yachts), but it was quite a step change from my old sailing days mostly spent on 10 to 15 meters yachts. These Clipper guys need 3 people on deck and 3 below just to bring a headsail up; you get grinding like crazy to sheet in the yankee, change a head sail or take a reef and you’re done for. In short they were quite physical. But, they are pretty neat to sail and awesome to steer. I also started meeting fellow-minded participants who become great friends.

However, not much happened after that. Things went back to "normal" with family life, another move, this time out of London to the Netherlands and Japan, and a winter of telemark skiing in Hokkaido. I got a few certifications and training in the meantime, but my mind went pretty much to other things in the past 12 months.

A few weeks back, I had a third week of training, this time on the actual race boat, the Clipper 70. Two more feet do not look like much but these guys are another level. Big fat stern to surf on wave trains, larger sails, larger winches, larger everything! These yachts rock! We got a lot of joy running under asymmetrical spinnaker in the Channel. These boats are much better to sail than the 68 in terms of deck plan. The accommodation is well thought thru (if you like to share a bunk with someone else in an open corridor, with water dripping everywhere that is…) and they are well designed for true ocean racing.

The race seemed pretty far away… until last week: I went to Portsmouth for 24 hours for the crew allocation event. In a nice hosting at the Portsmouth Guildhall, a few hundred participants and myself got allocated to actual boats: I met my fellow crew mates, the skipper and the mate who will lead us around the world, and we got on talking about our race start on August 31st.

All of a sudden, the race became quite real, and I must say slightly overwhelming: have I really signed up to sail around the world over 11 months on a 23 meter boat weighting 35 tonnes with a 30 meter tall mast, together with 20 other crazies? How will I cope. Will I miss terribly Utami and the family, what if I am exhausted and sick… etc, etc… I have a bit recovered by now (although not fully) and I feel it is time to move forward and speak to all yo you my family, my friends about this.

In a few days, I will post more about why I am doing this, what it entails and how you can become a part of it. But for now, I leave you with this link to a nice video from Clipper that will give you an idea of the adventure I have embarked upon.

Stirring the boat through the English Channel during the first training

3 May 2024

Spending time in between trainings with Utami in the Netherlands and telemark skiing in Hokkaido

2024 - 2025