Its been a few weeks since i have updated this site, my excuse is that i have been so busy with just about everything else!! So lets recap on whats been happening over the past 2 months, we had crew allocation in the Portsmouth Guildhall at the end of June, that was a fantastic day, albeit it rained and rained .... We sat in anticipation in the man hall waiting for our names to b called and allocated a particular boat. Some had preferences, i had decided i would be happy with whatever boat i was given, though i did have some preferences for skipper, the experience would be about getting along with the whole crew. The skippers were announced, the boats called and from a sealed envelope the crew for each boat announced. Up stood Ricky Chalmers, the skipper of Durban 2010 and beyond, first name out ... Keith Howard, that was it my home for the next year, a few other names called i had met before, most of my fellow crew however were new to me, i can recall feeling really excited inside this is it ...the boat and crew with whom i am going race around the world. We spent the remainder of the day getting to know each other, posing for pictures on the yacht and partying in the evening ..... something i know we are going to do long and hard at every stop-over, watch out the Clipper fleet are in town.

I have completed both of my part C training weeks, the first was a really tough time with fairly continuous force 9 peaking force 10 gale force winds. We left Gosport, sailed across the Channel then up to Rotterdam, we had two races with the fleet, we finished second on each occasion, an excellent effort on every ones part. We had a civic reception in Rotterdam which was fantastic, a taster we all thought of things to come, it made you feel very proud of what you are doing and excited that so many people are taking an interest in what you are doing. The main race from Rotterdam to Hull started off well, we were leading for some time only to have a spectra loop blow on our spinnaker clew, we lost time in recovering from that eventually finishing the race fourth. By the time we reached Hull marina we were minus a gearbox and being towed in to an industrial berth away from the main hive of activity ... I'll fill you in on that soon.