Back on board - updates on our training, sailing schedule and how to track our progress on the race to follow

I apologise for not updating my blog for a while now - we have been busy with training and I have only returned back to 'reality' a week ago. Since I left Australia I have been on three training courses, over a four week period,  and gaining a lifetime of experiences. I am now in London working my last few weeks for IBM (what an amazing company that puts so much trust in their employees and allows so much flexibility), and then I am helping take our boat from Gosport to London two weeks before race start on the 1st of September.

In the next couple of weeks I will update you on various aspects of the training and what living on a boat will be like whilst on the race - bunking/sleeping, eating, working as a crew, watch schedule, heads (the toilets), cooking for 22 while the boat is keeled over at a 45degree angle, etc. Watch this space.

At the moment I am staying in Greenwich while I am waiting for the time to fly - such an interesting little place with a very rich maritime history. It's also famous for giving its name to the Greenwich Meridian (0 degrees longitude) and the Greenwich Mean Time.

I walked around town and was in awe of Cutty Sark - a British Clipper tea trade ship built in 1869  (where our Clipper race name comes from) that is permanently dry docked at Greenwich and on public display.

Because speed was so important for merchant boats the tea clippers raced against each other - this race became a popular betting event. Cutty Sark was one of the fastest tea clippers and also one of the last as the sail boat era came to an end to make way for steam ships.

She had a great reputation as holding the record time for taking wool from Australia to Britain for ten years. Improvements in steam technology however meant that sailing ships were sold off and Cutty Sark was taken over by a Portuguese company. A retired sea captain then bought her to use as a training boat.

Those sailors must've been amazing to figure out all those sheets and halyards - I get confused on the 70 foot yachts we sail. Cutty Sark was 212 feet and 5 inches! While being on watch in the pitch dark and early hours of the morning I was thinking how incredibly brave and adventurous they must've been to have sailed with so little 'technology' to their advantage.

The Cutty Sark when she was under full sail

The Cutty Sark figurehead is a carving of Nannie Dee, the nickname of the witch in one of Robert Burns' poems, who chases Tam O'Shanter (a drunk farmer) and grabs at his horse's tail. The stark white carving of Nannie Dee, bare-breasted and holding the grey tale of the horse captivated me. The poem describes her as wearing a Scottish linen sark, which refers to a short (cutty) undergarment that she had as a child and was thus even shorter. While on training level 2 and 3 I was referred to as the bow lady or figurehead because I loved being on the bow and foredeck. I didn't let any opportunity go by to work on the pulpit or sit on the bow sprit. I think my position on the deck has been established. Whether I will be so brave and keen when powerful waves wash over the deck and icy winds blow right through me, is still to be seen.