Stage 1 to 5 - The onshore experience
So .. the fleet is off and connectivity to the sailing boats is limited.
The crew onboard can choose to purchase a package to share e-mails (just text) with friends and family. Any other connectivity is fully dedicated to the instruments onboard and communication with the race committee. Each 6h a skech is shared with all the skippers, containing weather information and the location of the rest of the fleet.
Beyond that, each team has an onboard reporter and a videographer who will attend each leg on a different boat to capture the race and the teams in full action. On Leg 1 James Chapman captured team GOSH for our Instagram and Facebook pages helping ClipperTeamGOSH go live!
The team onshore gathered together in a Whatsapp group discussing what we see in the Tracker with Team GOSH and how they perform, what their tactics could possibly be and speculation about what’s going on onboard.
After we shared our experience and the team debriefed on their race stopover in Uruguay, Oli (skipper) agreed to start writing daily blog posts to be shared with the whole team about every 24h. This completely opened up the insights in how Oli & Otto were driving some of the decisions made, but also gave a lot more inclusive view on the life onboard, like how the team had to make multiple sail changes per watch due to the changes in weather, which damage they suffered, and how they repaired the sail after a flocking that created hundreds of small wholes in the yankee sail, etc.
What follows are three more legs which will see the team battle (and win) every race by gathering points by making it to the top three boats through the scoring gates and making the fastest time through the Ocean Sprints. Many of that could be followed through my Instagram reposts and updates, even though it isn’t until the end of year that I could really shift my focus to my own race.
On the 2nd of December many colleagues contributed on Giving Tuesday with Elastic tripling the contributions and I want to thank everyone who have found their way to my fundraising page. Celebrating Christmas and New Year’s was an onboard experience for the crew on Leg 4 and I’ll be catching up after their arrival of Stage 5 from Fremantle to Airlie Beach.
Arrival in Airlie Beach
I owe you all an update here and promise to keep you posted during my upcoming races on the Asia Pacific Challenge coming up!
