Crossing the North Pacific in the Clipper Round the World Race 2005-2006 Part 4 by Guest Author Brian Luster

(Brian Luster is a fellow nautical blogger and author of the excellent blog A Movable Bridge. Brian took part in the big Asian leg of the 2005-2006 Clipper Race. The current race is taking place right now and the crews are in Asia as I write this --Adam) (Day 8) The beatings will continue until morale improves: Still off the coast of Japan, 4151nm to Victoria I’m actually not sure how long this storm has been going on. I think we’ve been in the roughest stuff for at least 18 hours, with fairly rough weather for the past 24 (or more?). Yesterday after lunch I went to my bunk to try to sleep, but the angle of heel, the pitching and rolling, and the stomach-turning free falls each time the boat topped a wave made it impossible. So I lay there, listening to the howling winds and the machine-gunning of the spray across the foredeck, and imagining what it must be like for the on watch topsides. Foolish me, I decided to get dressed and take a look. I got up on deck just as they were putting a third reef in the main. The waves looked ferocious—all nasty churning gray, streaked with white foam, maybe 10 to 15 feet high. I should have stayed below. But with just half an hour until I had to be on watch, I stayed on deck, going up to the foredeck to help bring down the Yankee 3 (the smallest headsail). When the rest of my watch came on deck, Jenn and I went forward to lash the sails down more securely. With our tethers clipped to the jackstay, we crawled on hands and knees up to the foredeck in 40-knot winds. Once up there it was like swimming, what with all the water coming over the bow. We managed to get the sails secured and crawled back to the cockpit. Occasional waves would wallop us, and the spray would sting like bullets or razor blades where it hit exposed skin. At 9:00 p.m. we came off watch for dinner, which I was unable to eat. All that training so many months ago finally paid off, as I was now able to be seasick in a very professional and efficient manner. The night went like this: to bed in wet clothes, trying to dry them by body heat in my sleeping bag; two hours later, back into wet socks, boots, and oilies and up on deck to face 15-to-20-foot waves; an hour or so on deck, then down to the saloon while the next shift went up; trying to sleep on the saloon floor until it was time to go back on deck; and then the cycle started again by going to bed in wet clothes. The days blur. The beatings continue. Tomorrow, exhaustion sets in