The day dawned bright and sunny and we arrived at the boat at 9am full of nervous excitement! The sails and anchor were made ready on the deck, the water tanks were filled to the top and the engine was checked!

We were allowed a short break to say our final farewells to loved ones and then we joined the boat.

Adrenaline was high and to cheers of our team boat song, Fat Boy Slims’ Righ Here Right Now, Right Here, Right Now we set off on a parade around the Docks on foot. This procession culminated on a parade onto the stage to the same song for skippers to make a speech and official photos to fireworks!

All teams boarded, last team photos were taken and the ground crew prepared to help the boats out the marina.

The lines were slipped and the boats motored out of the marina at 4 minute intervals, a feat of incredible organisation, great helming by the skippers and some brave ground crew in ribs helping to manoeuvre these 30tonne beasts of the sea!

Once all the yachts were out in the Thames, we formed a conga line of brightly coloured boats and waited in anticipation of Tower Bridge being raised. Sailing under this iconic London monument was just something that will stay etched in our memories forever!

Tonight we are at anchor in Southsea, with a completely full bunk we are doing 45 minute anchor watches where we will take the bunk of the person we wake up! Should be a very interesting evening! Tomorrow brings an early start, we have to have our anchor up by 7am, sails yanked on and sailing by 8am to do two man overboard practice drills! Race countdown starts at 9.50 for a 10am start and then that’s us off to Portugal!

I’m off to bed now before my anchor watch and the next update will be at the end of this first race in Portimao, so wish us luck and keep an eye on the race viewer!

https://www.clipperroundtheworld.com/news/article/get-ready-for-some-gripping-viewing

I have made a video of the trip out the marina and under tower bridge, find it on my Facebook page

https://www.facebook.com/223001213/posts/10100321566517151?sfns=xmo

Over and out!

Quick post to the link for the race viewer on YouTube where it will be live streamed from 2pm today

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=PyJsAh8oDAg&feature=youtu.be

So I’ve arrived in London, registered and my things are packed on he boat into my tiny cave locker! We had our boat naming ceremony on Tuesday night where our sponsors generously put on a hog roast, free bar and live band and we had such a party! The pontoon was bouncing and we literally had to prop up the bar!

The team have been busy with tinkering with our boat to make her more homely and user friendly, a fab team have been working on her for the last 3 weeks and soo much appreciation goes to those people who dedicated their own time to the task!
Since arriving I have helped with lots of odd jobs, including sort out the medical supples. Ines, Anna and I went through the 12 boxes of things making sure it’s all there and arranging it logically and to make it easily accessible (like organising the back of my work truck- soooo satisfying!) Im amazed by what we carry, including oxygen, hardcore drugs, a huge range of antibiotics and full support over the sat phone from PRAXES (thank goodness!).

I’ve been assigned the role of Watch Leader for our first race, which means I will be leading my watch of 11, looking after their safety, ensuring we are going the right way, keeping up morale and (most importantly) sailing fast! This is scary, exciting and truly an honour for someone with not really a lot of sailing experience!

The last couple of weeks has been a whirlwind with some amazing highs when visiting/ visited by some special people and some lows including an impromptu trip to hospital for my gran, but hopefully she is up and about to come see the boats off this weekend.

I’ve had a week of catching up with friends and I’m overwhelmed with the support I’ve had for this adventure, thanks again to everyone I’ve had messages from and especially those I’ve caught up with!

Tonight is the race crew party, so I’m off to find a nice dress, and I’ll put up some more photos soon. Over and out!

These two small bags are all I have for the next year- one has a sleeping bag, pillow, waterproofs and drysuit and the other has clothes in it- most of it is thermals and the bright pink drybag contains my nice “in port” clothes for the year! #allmyportphotoswilllookthesame

Watch this space! I’ve decided to try and detox from my usual 6-10 cups a day- going cold turkey 😀😂

Here’s a video of the stopover ports we will be visiting on the journey 😀

https://www.instagram.com/p/B0vilbLgNJJ/?utm_source=ig_web_button_share_sheet

Exciting package from Musto today 😀

Lily isn’t sure about the Banana suit 😂

https://youtu.be/I1h88I9apRk