Being a Mother

I've always wanted to be a mother, but I was never granted that privilege. Ironically though I find myself now being a 'mother' every ten days or so to 16 other crew members on this round the world yacht race!

Being on Mother Watch on an ocean racing yacht involves being on galley duty for a full day and looking after people's stomachs. This is one day where you don't get to go on deck to do any sailing, which is rather comforting when it is cold and wet outside, but I usually miss all the action on deck. Being below deck in the galley is damn hard work though (the only consolation is that mothers also don't have to do any sailing watches during the night so they get this one night to sleep right through!).

A mother watch day starts by preparing for breakfast from about 5.30am, which involves making oats porridge, getting cereals ready, and making coffee or tea. I made up a large batch of muesli for this race with some healthy seeds, rolled oats and dried fruit - it's been very popular and ensures we all get enough fibre in our systems. Some mothers attempt pancakes or pikelets, but there can be nothing too fancy at sea.

Usually the mothers on our boat choose a name for their 'cafe' with a theme for the day, and they play their favourite mood creating tunes. The hub of chatter, sharing of watch updates, weather conditions and lots of laughs, is a crucial gathering point for this little family.

The standard Clipper 70 Galley

After breakfast the mothers usually plan the meals for the day, do some cleaning duties, wash dishcloths, provide drinks and hand out some snacks. Yesterday I was on mother watch while the boat was pounding into the wind at 10 to 12 knots and at a 30 degree keel. Performing creative cooking, baking, cleaning duties at this angle is an incredible challenge. You learn to pour boiling water into coffee mugs at a very strange angle. You lean your arched body against the counter and constantly duck to dodge bowls or condiment bottles falling from the upper shelves. Mixing, pouring, serving, or dishing things out are usually done with one hand while the other holds on or stabilises objects or containers. Sometimes you feel as if things are level because you get used to the angle, until you look at the gimble of the stove hanging at its limits to realise that under normal circumstances you would actually look a bit strange standing with your groin pushed hard against the sink!

Photos from various Clipper 70 Galleys from the 13-14 race.

The crew usually appreciate your efforts mostly because they know how they've had to deal with the heat in the galley, or the constant demands for a cup of water, or the request for a cup of tea for all on deck just when you've washed your last big pot!

Bread baking has become one of the favourite and most creative activities, and the smell of freshly baked fruit loaf with cinnamon usually promises a tasty addition to our evening tea. We've had curry bread, Nutella scroll, olive and sundried tomato loaf, and every loaf is keenly devoured.

Lunch and dinners are usually one pot meals that need to be easy to cook and serve. Our boat has chosen to invest in freeze dried meals, to the dread of some of the crew, but it is convenient and nutritious. I guess we have been a bit spoiled with some delicious concoctions so these instant meals are a bit hard to stomach. But we are a racing boat crew after all, so we are slowly getting used to the taste and repetitiveness, and will probably appreciate the ease of these when we sail through the Southern and Pacific ocean in much harsher conditions.

Like the kitchen of a 'normal' family, the galley is the place of warmth, sharing, and comfort. The mother provides a climate of connection and belonging.

The best part of the day for a mother is when the final cups of tea are served and you hang the last tea towel up to dry, with half the crew happily fed on deck and the others in bed. In the red hue of the quiet galley I breath out an exhausting breath before I close up this cafe and turn in for a mother of a sleep.

Strange, but probably also wonderful, how life sometimes grants you what you wish, but in a very different format to what you ever would have thought!

The Heads

On the topic of the heads, let me share the experience of using this necessary space on a boat with 16 to 22 other people, especially at an angle. It isn't called the heads for nothing: apart from it being the most important basic requirement, it controls your body and the health of your mind in the end, and has also become a centre of attention on Dixie (our nickname for our boat). Of course, sharing it with a group of men assures that it is a regular topic of discussion, and bowel movements are often described in much unnecessary but hilarious detail. Farting is also a regular and usual occurrence, and everyone just basically now ignores it, although I still find it funny and have a little giggle every time someone lets rip. 

This was one of my biggest fears of life on this boat for several reasons: there is only a canvas curtain dividing the only private space on this boat from the rest of the crew. Luckily the boat is always noisy with water rushing past, generator running, or people going about their cooking, cleaning, sailing or chatting business. Issue number one solved!

Smells are also strangely not really an issue because there are ventilation vents and I bought spray for each head - problem number two solved!

Sitting down while the boat is at an angle - now that is a challenge! And pumping afterwards - the biggest challenge and dread and fear of everyone! We all know that if you block the head, you have to clean it up. "Having a one inch pipe for some two inched arse holes could be a real conundrum", I heard one crew member say!

So, when you sit down you just hope that the angle of the boat doesn't cause your bum to touch anything underneath, and I resort to pumping while I'm doing my business. These little boat toilets are very sensitive and have to be handled with care, but they often overflow, especially when not level. So, when it looks like too much water is going in the bowl rather than down the hole, the natural inclination is to start pumping faster and with more force, which is precisely the wrong thing to do. I've seen many men come out of there all sweaty and in agony looking for the bucket, sponge and anti-bac. Even the skipper once came out of the heads with a sheepish and anguished look on his face while holding a plastic bag in the air with a floating turd in it!

The most dreaded picture I often have in my head is that I get thrown out of the cubicle through the curtain with my pants on my knees when the boat is being bumped around by the waves, so I hold on for dear life when nature calls.

So far, so good! Every successful visit to the dreaded heads is a personal achievement!

For the first few days of this second leg of the race we were pounding into the wind on the port tack, but three days ago we got our spinnaker up and we are now sailing with the wind (broad reach) at about an average of 9 to 10 knots. The boat is much more even keeled, and so are all the temperaments and moods around me. The night watch last night was probably the coldest we've had, but it was calm and the moon over the water serene and beautiful. Sunrise provided another stunning photo opportunity, which I wish I could've shared with you all.

One of the highlights so far on this leg of the race, apart from the usual spectacular sunsets, sunrises and moonlit nights over the water, has been the very exciting visit of a pod of more or less 40 - 60 pilot whales and dolphins playing around the boat. And then I got to go up the mast yesterday! The adrenalin rush going up a mast of 29 meters (from water level) on a moving sea had me euphoric for a couple of hours after I had to spike and get the kite halyard from the top of the mast for our spinnaker peel.

'High as a kite' has an exhilarating new meaning and I'll wear the harness whenever I can (everyone always declines the opportunity to wear it because it makes it doubly difficult to go to the loo and restricts movement - we always need two people on each watch wearing a harness in case we need to do a rescue for Man-overboard). I want to make sure I get to go up the mast as often as I can and will take some pictures to share next time!! The view from up there over this beautiful expansive and wide angled, watery landscape is something I will

never forget!

Day Report : October 19

Today was a glorious sailing day, and even though it was a bit cold we had a calm sea, managed to keep at nine to ten knots, had lovely sunshine, and the mood was generally jokey and light. I bathed in the glory of the sunset and watched the sea birds touch the water with their wing tips, skim the waves and adjust their angle to the wind as they glided close to the surface. Their trimming skills are an example for us to follow.

When I refer to our sailing it involves grinding on the coffee grinder to trim the spinnaker, calling the trim of the kite, helming and generally manning the points where things could go wrong, like if we accidentally jibe. We do a rotation of tasks of a half an hour each because each of these require optimum concentration and is physically quite demanding.

I am starting to feel more comfortable doing all of these sailing tasks, and don't fear making mistakes as much. I'm definitely building up more confidence and am really starting to enjoy my sailing.

The day was ended with an extra ordinary effort from the 'mothers' in the galley cooking a ham roast with potatoes, sweet potatoes, turnups, roast onions, peas, apple sauce - delicious!

Life on the boat is great!

Shower Aftermath

F= heads (also shower)

Well, that shower cost me a lot! As I've explained, the power on this boat definitely lie with the men, and the women (four of us on this leg of 17 crew) are sometimes an 'irritation they tolerate'. My shower request was looked at with disdain and I was told that the outlet was not connected in any way. Then a guy from another boat came over to show me a pump that was meant specifically to drain the shower grate. He also explained how the pump works and told me that the women on their boat have been taking showers, with the same story from other girls on some of the other boats. I asked about the consequences, how it would work, what the implications would be if I did, and I was willing to be the experimenter for the other girls on our boat. Nobody else was willing to try.

I should've known that if anything can go wrong, it will (Murph - your law!!). Late this morning the skipper was shown very full bilges, and guess who was to blame!!!! Apparently the pump was not diverted out but instead pushed the water into the bilges. I immediately said that if it was because of my shower I will clean it all out, and was sniggeringly told that they were certainly not going to do it!

I rolled up my sleeves, tried the clumsy hand pump (which just didn't work), and then continued to sponge up twelve buckets of dirty water out of the bilges! Yes, your first response to this is correct: how the hell did I use twelve buckets of water!!? I have used a camp, campervan and boat shower many times in my life and I could not've used more than probably three buckets of water, if that.

But of course, I don't have any way to defend myself or get out of this one. I just sucked it up and finished the job. I also realised that it was my first and last shower on this race! ;-( Wet wipe washes on the colder legs, and back of the boat showers on the warmer ones are what I will have to put up with.

Twelve buckets of water?! Maybe it was because I sneaked in a man or two, or I have been a very dirty girl indeed!

Secret Showers

I don't know how most men are absolutely able to go without a shower for four weeks! I know they apparently do the wet wipes cleaning thing, but nothing compares to getting clean water over your skin. Even throughout the very hot leg one over the equator, many of the guys on board didn't bother to wash with water. We had a few fire drills and then they had a rinse down, and of course when we had our shellback ceremony they had to get the slops washed off, but apart from that it seems they see this is a kind of a camping trip where they don't need to wash really. And they also see it as a bit of an irritation that the ladies seem to have a need to shower! I always feel a bit guilty when I do.

In the first leg, when we had very hot weather through the doldrums, I used every opportunity to sit at the back of the boat and have a sea water bucket wash and then rinse with a litre bottle of clean water. When one of the crew mates did a limerick about each of us, that was the thing he mentioned about me - not missing an opportunity to have a shower. I would mostly do it at night, when it was dark enough to do it as unnoticed as possible. I would put my bathing suit on, have my life jacket on, and sit with my legs dangling over the side.

This has many challenges: have you ever tried to get a bucket full of water on a speeding boat? The bucket just seems to skim over the surface, but when the water does eventually go into the bucket the force is quite intense, and I am so scared to lose the bucket over the side. I have lost so may things over the side already.

On this leg the whole atmosphere and climate of the crew and trip is very different. Firstly, it is much cooler and then it is at such an angle that everything is so much more difficult. I would not be able to sit at the back of the boat with ease, so I asked sheepishly if I can have a shower in the one head that is kind of set up for a shower. When I say set up, I mean that the there is a foot pump to get rid of water on the floor, there is a shower head in the hand size basin, and that is all.

I eventually managed to convince some men to 'allow' me to shower today but it took me over an hour because firstly just staying upright is already no mean feat! The cubicle is very small, the whole place gets wet so one has to dry everything off meticulously afterwards, and then you I had to pump the gray tank.

But alas, I got a shower! I feel like a new woman, and I appreciate the feeling fully because I don't know if I'll be able to have one again before we reach Cape Town!

When you have your next shower, please think of me and appreciate the glory of it all.

The Heads

On the topic of the heads, let me share the experience of using this necessary
space on a boat with 16 to 22 other people, especially at an angle. It isn't
called the
heads for nothing: apart from it being the most important basic requirement,
it controls your body and the health of your mind in the end, and has also
become a centre of attention on Dixie (our nickname for our boat). Of course,
sharing it with a group of men assures that it is a regular topic of
discussion, and bowel movements are often described in much unnecessary but
hilarious detail. Farting is also a regular and usual occurrence, and everyone
just basically now ignores it, although I still find it funny and have a little
giggle every time someone lets rip.

This was one of my biggest fears of life on this boat for several reasons:
there is only a canvas curtain dividing the only private space on this boat
from the rest of the crew. Luckily the boat is always noisy with water rushing
past, generator running, or people going about their cooking, cleaning, sailing
or chatting business. Issue number one solved!

Smells are also strangely not really an issue because there are ventilation
vents and I bought spray for each head - problem number two solved!

Sitting down while the boat is at an angle - now that is a challenge! And
pumping afterwards - the biggest challenge and dread and fear of everyone! We
all know that if you block the head, you have to clean it up. "Having a one
inch pipe for some two inched arse holes could be a real conundrum", I heard one
crew member say!

So, when you sit down you just hope that the angle of the boat doesn't cause
your bum to touch anything underneath, and I resort to pumping while I'm doing
my business. These little boat toilets are very sensitive and have to be
handled with care, but they often overflow, especially when not level. So, when
it looks like too much water is going in the bowl rather than down the hole,
the natural inclination is to start pumping faster and with more force, which
is precisely the wrong thing to do. I've seen many men come out of there all
sweaty and in agony looking for the bucket, sponge and anti-bac. Even the
skipper once came out of the heads with a sheepish and
anguished look on his face while holding a plastic bag in the air with a
floating turd in it!

The most dreaded picture I often have in my head is that I get thrown out of the
cubicle through the curtain with my pants on my knees when the boat is being
bumped around by the waves, so I hold on for dear life when nature calls.

So far, so good! Every successful visit to the dreaded heads is a personal
achievement!

For the first few days of this second leg of the race we were pounding into the
wind on the port tack, but
three days ago we got our spinnaker up and we are now sailing with the wind
(broad reach) at about an average of 9 to 10 knots. The boat is much more
even keeled, and so are all the temperaments and moods around me. The
night watch last night was probably the coldest we've had, but it was calm
and the moon over the water serene and beautiful. Sunrise provided another
stunning photo opportunity, which I wish I could've shared with you all.

One of the highlights so far on this leg of the race, apart from the usual
spectacular sunsets, sunrises and moonlit nights over the water, has been the
very exciting visit of a pod of more or less 40 - 60 pilot whales and dolphins
playing around the boat. And then I got to go up the mast yesterday! The
adrenalin rush going up a mast of 29 meters (from water level) on a moving sea
had me euphoric for a couple of hours after I had to spike and get the kite
halyard from the top of the mast for our spinnaker peel.

'High as a kite' has an exhilarating new meaning and I'll wear the harness
whenever I can (everyone always declines the opportunity to wear it because it
makes it doubly difficult to go to the loo and restricts movement - we always
need two people on each watch wearing a harness in case we need to do a rescue
for Man-overboard). I want to make sure I get to go up the mast as often as I
can and will take some pictures to share next time!! The view from up there over
this beautiful expansive and wide angled, watery landscape is something I will
never forget!

Life at 30 Degrees

I am getting into the routine of the boat again - the watches are turning into days and so we move along to Cape Town. Eckard Toller would be proud of me: I am so living in the moment and just thinking about what I need to do now to be able to make it through this watch, that I am totally unaware of what day it is, or what the date is. Nothing else matters but to get enough sleep to make it to the next watch. I feel totally disconnected from the world. This email from the little crew laptop is my only connection to the world from this big blue living bowl of water surrounding us.

The trip from Rio so far has been very much on one tack and at an angle of about 30 degrees. It is quite a frustrating, physically very challenging, and sometime hilarious, and keeping a sense of humour has been the only way to stay half sane. Trying to put together a meal for 18 people is in itself a challenge, but at this angle it edges on the ridiculous. People have been falling about, and some really hurting themselves. They hang a monkey rope from the one side of the boat to the other, and I have found myself skidding from one side to the other on a few occasions. You always have one hand on the boat or handrail, or handle, or wall. Brushing your teeth, making cups of tea for the rest of the crew, eating on deck, getting into your bunk, and then the worst of all, using the heads, demands new skills and coordination. I have impressed myself with how I have caught things mid air or prevented a

spill.

I'm exhausted and falling asleep at the laptop. Sleep time.

PSP Logistics winning Race 2 in Rio.

Next post: Showering...

Mountain Climbing on the Inside

I am sitting in the saloon on a bench without a pillow (we take them off because the crew come in from the rain and wet and spoil them with sea water stains and they also keep slipping to the floor in wild wind conditions), and  I'm writing on the little crew laptop that we store under the saloon bench. The boat is at about a 20 to 30 degree angle, which is an incredible challenge to move about. On deck is actually more comfortable and safer. What makes it worse is that we are pounding into the wind at about 9 to 10 knots (course over ground) to the finish line. The waves make the boat rock about in very unpredictable bounces with the wind speed at about 30 knots. Every knock goes to the core of your being and every one is at a different angle and in a different direction.

We have more or less 120 to 140 sea miles to go and it is actually quite nail biting. We are in the lead but are followed very closely by the current second place - Jamaica. It is becoming quite tactical now - when they tack, we need to cover them to stay in the lead. We are keeping a close eye on their every move. But so many factors can still influence the end result and so much can still happen. Our main focus, and the true win for us, will be if we can get over the finish line first. After all our hard work, that will be our victory. We've had so many set backs, and have persevered despite those, so we are feeling very proud with where we are at. Keep your fingers crossed please.

I am now going to try get my wet weather gear off - a claustrophobic exercise to get the jacket over my head - while keeping my balance and trying to not get thrown from port to starboard, or slide back down hill when I start the climb to my bunk. We have a rope strung to help one move about. I am developing good mountain climbing skills ;-). I just watched a guy slide on his backside all the way to hang his jacket in the wet locker. Another rather comical sight is to see the poor cooks in the galley wash the dishes after serving a challenging lunch session with pots, plates and food flying all over the place. They have to duck to avoid spreads falling from the top shelves. And then, they tack! And you have to adjust your bed to lean to the other side and everything that found a secure place on the previous tack now moves about trying to find a new resting place... until the next tack!!!

Using the heads (toilets) in these conditions is worth another blog... Stay

posted!

Let me go attempt getting into my bunk (by climbing half way up the opposite wall) and try to get some rest while rocking about and listening to the water swoosh past the hull. Luckily I am so tired after all the sail changes and reefs we've done this morning that falling asleep won't be too difficult!

Flying Fish and Sinking Whales

I can't believe we are almost done with the first leg - it has been an experience so far!

The short race to, and stop over in Brest was a good introduction, but it is a distant memory now. This race - the 4500 sea miles so far - has been full of highlights and incredible experiences. The most memorable for me has been the encounters with wildlife: we've seen dolphins playing around the boat - different types. Before the doldrums they were smaller and stubby with yellow whitish bellies, and they moved extremely fast through the water. Sometimes two or more of them would swim together and change direction in an instant, as if they are in telepathic sync. They would jump and frolic around the bow and we were sure they were looking at us while showing off in perfect performance. The past couple of days - this side of the equator, they were slightly larger and grey bellies - doing back roles to our delight. The guys were making fun of me because I would get into a completely exhilarated state and forget everything around me in awe of these creatures.

The whales are also a sight to see: a couple of weeks ago a Minke whale followed us for miles and then swam gracefully around the bowsprit before she decided to find a new play friend. Yesterday we almost bumped into a huge mother and calf right next to the boat - I am sure she was around two thirds of the length of the boat. It could be quite a disaster if we do happen to crash into a large whale, so we are on constant lookout.

Night time is an issue in terms of the whales, but we just hope they'll get out of our way. There are other wonderful sights at night: the phosphorescence in the wake of the boat amazes me every night. Sometimes big blobs of florescent green jelly fish go past like watery street lights guiding our journey. And then, in the full moonlight it is amazing to firstly hear their blow holes, but then to watch the dolphins swim around right below us.

We've had beautiful sea birds fly around the boat because fish get stirred up by the vessel and provide a welcome easy catch. A couple of exhausted and lost swallows landed on the boat but we found the one dead on the deck the next morning, and the other almost got trampled on while we were scurrying around in a squall.

Flying fish are probably the most curious creatures we've seen so far. They fly over the waves for almost 50 meters sometimes, and many have landed on the deck or even through a port hole on the skipper's bed! These evolutionary curiosities provide good entertainment for us rail side sitters.

We've even had a couple of butterflies in the middle of the ocean that probably got swept along with winds from the coast.

Apart from the wildlife highlights there are many others to share, like the beautiful fresh bread every day!!! More about this and other daily trivia of life on the boat when I chat again.

Please follow our race and the skipper and crew blogs through our website. I will be in more regular contact soon.

Love you all and miss you heaps!

Hugs and a big sailor's kiss

Ursula xx

Message in a Bottle

So much has happened – I don’t know where to start, and I have so much to talk about and share. I think I’ve probably taken living in the moment to the extreme. I’ve had no connection to anyone in any way, except for the 20 people with whom I live, as if they are my family. I’ve been trying not to think about my past too much, and have not for a moment thought about a life after the race, even though I’ve missed Calca, Jess, my friends, and my house more than I can explain. I’ve just thoroughly focused on what needs to be done right now, and getting through the next watch. This has been a strange experience in terms of a time concept and most days I have had no idea of the date or day of the week. Hours have started consisting of watch systems and the time to your next feed and sleep. And so, watch systems have flowed into days, and days into weeks. I can’t believe I have been at sea for over three weeks since this race start in Brest in France!

The start of this race for PSP Logistics and Team Excellence has been good (we were in the top three), but we slipped into 10th position when we went through the doldrums. It was part of our plan though – not necessarily slipping so far down the rankings, but we had a strategy for our course, and we stuck to it. It took determination and perseverance to push through, and now that we have a good chance of a podium position, we are very excited. The tension and anticipation is palpable. We have three or four days to go before we reach Rio, probably about 4 days ahead of the last boats. That is a huge lead. They even changed the next race start date because the last boats are so far behind. I am stoked to be part of such a great crew and to be a leading boat. Please cross fingers for us – we so want to win this race and we stand a good chance,  as you might have seen if you followed our progress on the race tracker!!!

Despite all the  challenges I am incredibly happy and enjoying every moment! What else could I do if I am one of only three women on a boat with18 lovely men!!!!

I plan on getting my own email systems sorted in Rio and will then send you updates on all the various aspects of my life on this boat.


Note: This post has been written by Ursula onboard the PSP Logistics clipper in the Atlantic and sent to me,Trevor Kemper, via another crew member's email access to me for posting. Ursula has not had the funds to pay for the expensive internet access (this might be a good time to click on the 'donate' button on this page) for more regular and detailed posts from Ursula. I am happy to take any questions and forward on brief messages, just comment below.