san francisco stopover

once the deep clean of the boat was done, I went to the doctor. I had spoken to gillian, the race manager, and she'd put me in touch with the insurance company. they emailed me with details of where to go and when. I got in a taxi early one morning and went to a medical centre, where a doctor checked me over. 'what is this scar?' was the question. on my left hip I have a massive scar from where I'd had my open reductions to fix my missing hip socket. I told her that I'd had CDH and she wanted to do X-rays to make sure the problem wasn't structural.

I had a panic. that hadn't actually occurred to me at all. what if it wasn't just muscular as I'd assumed. would this be the end of my race? a nervous hour or so as the plates were emailed and checked over. eventually she said she was happy it was just muscular and prescribed physio. I went to make an appointment and was told my insurance wouldn't cover it. I called them and they said they had to review the doctor's report to make sure they agreed with it.

we only had a week in san francisco and I didn't want to waste any of it waiting, and I said that to them. I knew I needed to get into physio as quickly as possible to get this fixed so I could leave. the next day I had an email with an appointment at a different physio. I turned up to be told I had the wrong time. by this time I was a bit stressed, and quite short with the lovely receptionist. he checked with the owner, as my physio wasn't even in yet, and the owner said he'd see me instead. he didn't normally take on new clients but as I wasn't going to be there long, he said he would make an exception.

when he checked me over, I couldn't even lift my left leg off the bed when I lay on my front. this was not good. it took a bit of time to work out what it was, but eventually patrick found the spot. at this point I accidentally kicked him quite hard. he was pleased he'd found it, but it was bad news for me. I'd done my piriformus, which is a tiny little muscle right in your hip. it wraps around and is a stabiliser. it could potentially take quite a while to fix. he said he'd try to sort it as quickly as he could and immediately started mobilising it. the sessions I had with patrick went: manipulation, stretches, massage, exercises and tens (nerve stimulation).

while this was going on, lorna and david were still here. I had a lovely day off with them and louisa. I hadn't seen them since race start and was amazed at how much weezy had grown while I'd been away!

because of my hip injury, I wasn't able to do the rig check so gaurav had to do it. he was well pleased, as he was getting off in san francisco and took loads of photos of himself up the rig! poser.... ;)

my final physio appointment with patrick was the day before we sailed for panama. I turned up, still in pain but coping with the medication, and he did his assessment. unfortunately for me, he decided I wasn't fit enough to rejoin the boat and so that was that. he didn't sign me as fit to sail and I was devastated. I went back to the hotel I'd stayed in with kate the night before. she asked how it had gone and I burst into tears and told her I wasn't coming with her. she burst into tears as well. what was I going to do?

on the way from the physio to the hotel, I'd called gillian - even though it was only around 0730. she's just brilliant. she said she'd meet me at the race office in around half an hour. when she arrived, I was sat on a box outside the portacabin with my ipod in. she dropped her bag and took me for coffee. we sat on a bench overlooking the pontoons and the boats, and talked about my options.

I was gutted not to be signed off, and asked her if I could sail anyway. gillian has been the race manager for a few races and has pretty much seen it all. she was in the royal navy for years and is the most sensible person I've ever met. she gave it to me straight: either get off in san francisco, get physio and rejoin in panama and finish the race, or get back on in san francisco, get off in panama and have my race end there even more injured than I currently was.

she doesn't, as my mum loves to say, fire and hit the wall. even though I was really upset I knew she was right. it's not easy for me to accept decisions like that, but gillian was really calm about it and even gave me a hug. she said she knew it was hard, but that matt must realise that there was a chance I wouldn't be sailing. I didn't want to tell him. I'd had a really positive debrief from matt in san francisco and really didn't want to let him down, and I felt not sailing was letting him down.

I sloped off to the boat, not talking to anybody I saw on the way there. I didn't want matt hearing it from anyone else. when I got to the boat, matt was on deck. I climbed (painfully) up onto the boat, and gave him the news. he had no idea I might not be sailing. I felt sick. I thought I was going to cry, right there on the boat, but managed (just) to hold it together. immediately I started thinking about stuff that was going to have to be covered. poor orla got an hour long immersive session on doing media. I had always done the transmission and editing, so she took notes while I gave instructions and tips.

meanwhile, the insurance were trying to sort me out with a hotel as the boat left in less than 24 hours. I packed up my stuff, taking only what I needed onshore with me. scotty on garmin very kindly looked after the rest of my kit so I could get it in panama, as we were very short on space on board mission.

slowly, the rest of my crew found out I wasn't sailing. it was really emotional telling them. it turned out there were another two round the worlders from other boats getting off injured in san francisco. aly from switzerland who'd sailed with us from singapore to china had torn one of her abdominal muscles, and ursula from PSP had severe problems with her wrists and needed a rest.

I'd decided to slip our lines the next morning when they left for the race start. it was actually physically painful watching my home sail away from me, with all my friends on board. we stared at each other for ages while she slipped the berth. gillian and justin, the race director, had very kindly said I could go with them to the race start at the golden gate yacht club. so we jumped into a taxi and headed up there.

after andrew's man overboard incident, all the boats had to do an mob drill before race start. it was really weird watching from land as they completed the parade of sail and got ready for the start. and then, that was that. they raced out under the golden gate bridge and were gone. it was a really disjointed feeling as me and aly watched them disappear from the yacht club. the insurance had got me a hotel but all my stuff was just dumped in the office after getting off the boat.

I headed back to the race office to collect my bags and went to the hotel. I didn't know how long I'd be there or when I'd rejoin the race. I wasn't thinking about not rejoining. that wasn't an option. I guess I'd be glued to the race tracker like everyone else for a while...

leg 6: qingdao to san francisco

after staying in a hotel for a week (LUXURY!!) it was back to the boat at the very last minute for race start. being the organised type, I'd packed my small accessible bags and my day bag, and stowed my big bag the night before. it was just as bonkers leaving qingdao as it was arriving, but with the added excitement of one of the skippers passing out at the leaving ceremony...

PSP had arrived the day before, and were being given 48 hours grace to do their deep clean, maintenance and try to rest before leaving to catch us up across the north pacific. so only 11 of us left to motor towards the le mans start area.

derry trying to avoid us. me filming by the running backstay

the biggest change for us on board mission was going back to full mother watch!!! for the first time since we arrived in sydney, we were doing a full mother watch. we did the sydney-hobart on short mother as the race was only 3 days, and from hobart to qingdao we'd only had 12 people which isn't enough for full mother. on this leg we were up to 14, and those 2 made the difference!

food on this leg was particularly tight, as we had less than the original amount of crew, so the budget had been cut. the regulars on board were happy to see so many sea sick leggers, as it meant we could have seconds! selfish but true. they were only sick for a few days, and it was a long, hungry leg for us.

a few days out past japan, we managed to hank a dirty great mooring line that another (much bigger) boat had lost. it wrapped around the keel and with some persuasion by manoeuvring we managed to get rid of it.

manky big rope we hooked...

it was a cold one as well which didn't help. in fact it was so cold, that we had four folk go down with cold shock. thankfully we had an emergency medic on board who got them off deck, into sleeping bags and decided to close the accommodation hatches and open the engine room doors to warm them up. unfortunately matt was the first to succumb, but he wouldn't do what he was told and came back up on deck. this just made it worse and eventually he was made to go to bed and warm up.

derek, who was helming in the heavy weather, also went down meaning that sophie had to go and take over while he was heated up. unfortunately she'd been on the bow with me and kate, and all we were told was that she had to drive, not that derek was sick. we'd been taking the headsail down and were keeping ourselves warm that way. eventually we got the sail down and found out what had been happening. james, our medic, made sure that we were given hot drinks to keep warm. after the cold shock incident, we split our small watches into two groups of three folk, doing half an hour on deck at a time then swapping. we also put in the storm boards at the top of the hatch, which we hadn't even done in the southern ocean!

snow in the north pacific....weird...

code 2 going up. perfect hoist in a sausage!

the biggest surprise we had was when it snowed. for two days almost. mental. you just don't expect it at sea. gaurav, who is from india, had never seen snow before!

we did have some great kite sailing though. and some extremely fast white sail reaching! I managed 25knots at one point. there may have been screaming.... we also had some massive waves, and did a lot of reefing. the storm jib also made quite a lot of appearances!

don't look behind you but there's a massive wave coming

the mighty stephen dand reefing

ah the storm jib!

on this leg every boat had a sea scout volunteer on board. we had beanie, whose real name was james but we already had james the medic, so he was renamed :)  about a week out of san francisco, we started servicing the winches. everyone had been very careful about not losing bits over the side, but unfortunately beanie dropped a tiny wee bit of plastic on the last winch. he immediately looked up at me, in an extremely guilty fashion and I knew he'd dropped something... it was just a question of how important it was. turns out it was the feeder from the top section. annoying but not as bad as it could have been. his punishment was to whittle one out of wood, using another feeder as a template. it didn't take him too long and it worked really well! we used it for a couple of legs before it was eventually replaced.

he was also a pretty unshakeable driver in the heavy conditions. beanie, stephen and me were one half of our watch during the cold spell. one night we were doing our half hour stint when beanie was overpowered and the boat rounded up, and we broached. he managed (somehow!) to regain control before we went in the water but everyone got a bit of a fright. stephen fell off the side deck into the nav station hatch but was ok. beanie was slightly reticent about helming after that, but he got back to it the next morning and was absolutely fine.

during our split shift watches, we rotated on each watch so we weren't always with the same folk. one night when derek (our watch leader) was on his mother sleep, I was on with sophie. we'd just finished our half hour and stephen with his two guys were coming on deck to swap. sophie was driving and handed over to stephen. I was making my way slowly forward to the hatch, looking forward to the heat and a brew, when I heard sophie screaming. not just screaming, but absolutely terrified screaming. it's making my blood run cold writing about it months later, and I hope to never hear that sound again.

we'd been hit on the high side by a massive wave, after one of the yankee sheets had snapped. peter was lying against the guard rails with his lifejacket inflated but ok. stephen was shouting 'sophie! sophie!' but I couldn't see her. I unclipped my safety line and ran back through the cockpit to the helm, scared about what I was going to find. I didn't know if sophie would be lying on the after deck with a broken leg, or worse. as I passed the front of the helm, I could see her clinging onto the guard rails on the outside of the boat. she was tethered on with the spectra helming strop and screaming. I clipped on to the nearest strong point and grabbed her left hand. then I dropped her hand, because I was double gloved. so I put my sealskinz mitten in my mouth, pulled it off, spat it out and grabbed her again with my neoprene glove. this time I didn't let go.

she'd been sitting next to the helm as the sheet snapped and the boat heeled the wrong way. the wave had picked her up and flung her backwards over the guard rails. thankfully she was still clipped on with the helming strop so wasn't going anywhere, but we still had to get her back into the boat. shortly after I'd got a hold of her, I realised I couldn't pull her in myself. seconds later, matt appeared behind the helm and grabbed her other arm. between us we managed to pull her back inboard. my heart was racing at the thought of what had just happened. by this time, the other watch were on deck and the clew had pulled off the yankee 3 with the flogging. a team were mobilised to go to the foredeck. normally we'd be at the front of that team, but I had to look after sophie. all my years of lifeguard and first aid training kicked in at this point, and I wasn't letting go of her. we sat for a while in front of the helm, squished into a tiny space hugging each other. she was calming down and I didn't want her to get too cold, even though she was in a drysuit.

once the yankee 3 team had gone up to the foredeck, we moved slowly through the cockpit, making sure we were both clipped on and moving together. I got her to the hatch and down the stairs, then I put the kettle on and made hot chocolate. I reckoned she needed the sugar! she was really shaken up, but sophie doesn't stay that way for long :)  immediately she was like 'we need to get on deck and help out' and I was like 'oh no. not you' and kept her downstairs. eventually everything started to calm down. sophie finished her hot chocolate and I put her to bed, having got her out of her wet foulies and drysuit. matt and james the medic came down and checked on her, and I stuck the kettle on to make everyone coffee or tea or hot chocolate.

we had just found out about andrew taylor from derry that night. he had gone overboard while not clipped on and had been lost for 90 minutes. out of sight of the boat. I can't imagine what was going through the crew's minds for that length of time. oneDLL had assisted in the search, and thankfully he was brought on board hypothermic but OK after an hour and a half.

it wasn't all terror and screaming on the north pacific leg though. about halfway, the clipper office got in touch with me and asked if they could have some photos of sophie, kate and me, along with answers to some interview questions. they were going to run a piece on the three of us, as we'd lost so many crew and round the worlders. we decided to get some interesting photos, so proceeded to pile out onto the bowsprit, and orla took the photos. not sure what matt would have said if he'd come on deck to find 75% of his round the world crew on the bowsprit! we worked out that if we'd fallen off, between us he'd have lost his chief of staff, sail maker, bosun, media person, watch leader and assistant watch leader!

setting up for our 'fearless females' shoot

fearless females

don't tell matt.... 

slightly less terrifying photo for clipper ;)

the injury that I'd had on leg 5 with my back/hip had started to be a problem after around 3 weeks on this leg. it was so bad that I couldn't stand up, sit down or lie down without crying. after some experimentation, james found the right combination of painkillers that meant I could at least sleep. I was still going on deck throughout this, but it was incredibly uncomfortable. I wasn't much use in sail changes but I could still drive, although for much shorter periods of time. I was miserable. and to make it worse, james started to beat me at backgammon....

as we sailed under the golden gate bridge (the finish line) with our code 2 up, we were joined by a spectator boat full of people. they got pretty close, and there was a bit of pressure to get the drop just right with our new audience. thankfully we had a textbook drop and the kite came down beautifully. unfortunately, when we started the engine it caught fire, as one of the big pipes had split. some of the boys were doing a temporary fix while we were trying to wool the kite and it got a bit cramped downstairs for a while. 

matt decided to sail in as close as we could get and keep the engine for berthing while the boys got it fixed. this meant it took us a bit longer to get to the marina. we were aiming for the yacht club right next to the baseball ground and there was a game on. it was quite an amazing view from the boat!

why hello, san francisco! nice to see you :)

much as I hoped my back would just get better, like it had before, it didn't. by the time we arrived in san francisco, I was dragging my left leg behind me and couldn't get on or off the boat using the mooring lines. it was clear I was going to have to go and see a doctor when we berthed. 

my old flatmate from university lorna, her husband david (who I'd sailed with on the tall ships) and their daughter (my fairy goddaughter!) were waiting on the pontoon for me which was amazing. lorna is a paramedic. she took one look at me and told me I had to go to a doctor. and it was non-negotiable.

but we had sailed across the north pacific!!