Gee's Sailing Diaries: Part 1

A lot can happen in a year.

If you'd asked me just 12 months ago whether or not I was a sailor, I would categorically have said no. But never one to turn down an opportunity, a chance conversation with two strangers waiting in line for a circus show back in 2019 eventually led me to being offered a place on a leg of the 23-24 Clipper Round the World Race.

The Clipper Race is an endurance challenge like no other and is one of the biggest trials of the natural world. Founded in 1996 by Sir Robin Knox-Johnston, the first man to sail solo non-stop around the world, it is the only race where the organisers supply a matched fleet of eleven 70ft racing yachts with fully qualified skippers and first mates to safely guide the crew over 40,000 nautical miles in 11 months. The route is divided into 8 legs, consisting of between 13 and 16 individual races and crossing 6 oceans. Participants can opt to complete either the full circumnavigation or select one or multiple individual legs.

Since 1996, almost 6,000 race crew from over 60 nations have taken part in the race. Luckily for me, no prior sailing experience is necessary as Clipper provides mandatory training in order to take part in the race. But it doesn’t feel right to be blogging about my time on the good vessel CV21 without also mentioning how I came to be there. 

I was the 4th out of 6 ambassadors to have the honour of joining CV21 for a leg of the 23-24 Clipper Race. From exchanging numbers with that couple whilst in the queue to the circus all those years ago, I found out about a charity supporting young adults in the UK, and in 2021 I applied to take part in a ‘start yachting’ week with them, held in Oban, Scotland. Quite honestly, before then I thought that learning to sail would be somewhat out of my reach, predominantly due to how expensive the sport can be and reliant on access to the appropriate locations. To my astonishment I was accepted and spent a wonderful week on a Clipper 68ft training yacht, exploring some of the inner Hebridean islands, such as the Isle of Mull, under sail. I have always loved the sea, and this opportunity gave me a fresh perspective on something I already knew I would adore. I didn’t have the smoothest of childhoods and have a limited support network as a result. But the sea was one constant in my life that I could hold onto. In some ways, the sea taught me how to survive. It taught me there is life after the storm, and that it could still be beautiful; that you just have to keep going.

Across 2021 and 2022, around 80 individuals took part in a similar experience, and at the beginning of 2023, the charity gave me the opportunity to apply for a sponsored place on a leg of the Clipper 23-24 race.

Over the years I have learned to grab the opportunities that life throws at you with both hands and sailing in a race against a matched fleet of 10 other boats across the world’s oceans was one of those opportunities. I had nothing to lose in applying for that sponsored position but everything to gain. What happened after that has been a bit of a whirlwind. Barely a few months after it was announced that I and 5 other incredible women were successful as Ambassadors in March of 2023, we started the intense 4 weeks of Clipper Race training that all crew must pass before being able to join the race.

The Ambassadors were allowed to select the preferred leg of the race they wanted to take part in. This choice was made in conjunction with the nature of the Clipper Race and our training Skipper feedback which was no easy decision for any of us! Thankfully, our experiences and aims differed enough that we chose different legs – I get the impression that as individuals, we have all got exactly what we wanted and needed out of this experience so far. Personally, I wanted my first offshore sailing experience to be a little bit of everything. I wanted my leg of the race to be a well-rounded taste of what the Clipper Race offers. And Leg 5 seemed to tick all of those boxes. Starting in Airlie Beach, Australia, the first race of the leg is an almost 5000nm sail across the equator and the Coral and South China seas, to Ha Long Bay, Vietnam. The second race is a shorter hop but takes care to dodge the Chinese fishing fleets from Ha Long Bay to Zhuhai, China. So not only would I cross two seas and the equator under sail as part of this opportunity, but it was taking me to a corner of the world that I never thought I would see because I never thought I would be able to afford the cost or have the time to travel to the other side of the world.

The 23-24 race ends at the beginning of August with a homecoming stop in Oban before the fleet returns to Portsmouth and the Clipper headquarters. You can find out more about Clipper and the current race standings here: https://www.clipperroundtheworld.com/

If you'd like to follow along with my other adventures, you can find me here: www.instagram.com/GeeAdventurous