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3,500 calories a day, tiny bunks, bruises and sea sickness: What it takes to train for a round-the-world sailing race


‘One thing we have in common, is that we’re all a bit mad,’ our skipper said with a grin as we sat down for our first session.

I was with nine other people embarking on my first week of training for the Clipper Round The World Race.

The annual event, which first started running in 1996, was conceived by Sir Robert Knox Johnston who single-handedly circumnavigated the globe in a 32ft boat named Suhaili in 1969.

After achieving the intrepid feat and scoring a number of other titles, he decided to make sailing accessible to everyone, and the Clipper Race was born.

Sadie gets to grips with sailing during her Clipper Round The World training

Anyone can apply to do the epic 46,850 mile / 75,500km race, which cuts through some of the world’s most treacherous waters, but they must undergo four weeks of intensive training before getting the green light.

There are various topics covered during training including knots, the main logistics of sailing and, most importantly, safety at sea.

Some of the main concerns include capsizing, losing control of the steering, fire and man overboards.

The round-the-world race is split into eight legs. This year, the race starts on September 1 and is due to finish August 2020.

Participants can elect to do all eight – if they have £43,500 spare – or a more affordable way of tapping into the experience is doing a leg or two.

Each leg varies in length, with the longest being 40 days and the shortest 17.

I had signed up for the latter, with my route (leg 2) set to take me from Uruguay to South Africa in late October. On this leg, the weather is mixed – temperatures would range from 10c to 30c – and the seas are unpredictable.

Being a bit of an adrenaline junkie, the brochure blurb describing this 17-day stretch definitely appealed to me.

‘This leg can throw everything at you – from raging South Atlantic storms to long surfing runs which combine to pose a unique mental and physical challenge.’

The Punta del Este Clipper boat which will be taking part in the race

This year, there are 11 boats in the race, with each sponsored by a company or destination.

I would be aboard the Punta del Este, supported by the namesake Uruguayan city where we would depart.

On the kit front, Clipper has selected British brand Musto as the technical clothing partner, with all racers provided with a bright yellow weather-proof uniform to see them through.

What immediately struck me after arriving for my first Clipper training session was how diverse our group was.

There were people who had travelled from all over the world to Gosport in Portsmouth to ‘learn the ropes’.

In our Level One training group there were a couple of Canadians, a few Americans, a German lady, a man from the Netherlands and several of us flying the British flag.

The Clipper race attracts a diverse range of people from different countries

The age range was equally spread – this year I’d heard the youngest Clipper participant will be 18, while the oldest is in their late 70s.

Some people in our group had some sailing experience, while the majority had none.

Everyone had different reasons for being there – retired, just finished school, just sold businesses, just received some inheritance, just got divorced or like me, looking for a new challenge.

I had never had never really sailed before so this was all new to me.

All I knew was that I enjoyed spending time out on the water and had sailed on some fairly rough seas aboard engine-powered expedition boats, from the wilds of Antarctica to the choppy west coast of Mexico.

Along with being told that we all had a shared trait of ‘being a bit mad’ we were also told by our skipper what a life-changing experience the Clipper race was going to be.

The tiny bunk beds on the Clipper boats. During the race participants must hotbed

His daughter had done the full circumnavigation a few years back, so he could vouch for its impact.

First things first, we were given a tour of the 68ft boat we were going to call ‘home’ for the next week.

I’m used to camping, so the Clipper boat didn’t faze me too much with two tiny toilets that needed pumping by hand to flush (up to 30 times!) and a squashed sleeping compartment with tiny bunk beds that have to be hoisted up at an angle to prevent you from falling out.

During the race, participants have to hotbed and share the bunks with a partner as everyone does shift work and sleep at alternate times.

Luckily, to ease us in slowly we would have our own beds for the first three training sessions.

On the food front, our skipper warned us to keep our energy levels up as we would be burning around 3,500 calories a day during training and up to 5,000 during the race.



The key pieces of kit for Clipper Around The World training

I completed my sailing training during the summer months so lighter clothing was needed.

Each Clipper race participant gets a pair of Musto sailing salopettes, smock jacket, shorts, T-shirt and long-sleeved top. Here are some of the other pieces of kit I used during the four weeks which came in handy…

We would be taking it in turns to cook for each other as ‘mother’ (sailing lingo for chef), with all ship duties divided up equally.

The kitchen had a cooker on a gimbal so it would remain balanced while sailing along at a 45-degree angle. There was also a harness so you could strap yourself into for added safety while you cooked!

The thought of rustling up meals for more than 10 people in the tiny space filled me with vague horror… although the menu looked fairly uncomplicated with the likes of pasta, pasties and soup being the staple spread.

The crews eat three times a day, with breakfast usually around 7am, lunch at 1pm and dinner at 7pm. Depending on the weather, meals are served out on deck or in the saloon. To keep energy levels up, there are also a plethora of snacks stored away in netted cubby-holes.

Other parts of the boat we would become familiar with included the engine compartment, the saloon (where all of the goodies were stored), the navigation room and the rope room.

Many of us agreed that learning how to sail was a bit like learning a foreign language.

For instance, a rope is called a ‘sheet’ and a sail is comprised of three edges called the ‘luff’, ‘leach’ and ‘foot’. The bedroom is called the ‘ghetto’, the kitchen the ‘galley’ and the toilets the ‘heads’.

The toilets on the Clipper boats operate via a hand pump

Each day, our vocabulary continued to expand, as did our sailing knowledge. My confidence also improved each day.

The first time I took to the helm it was a pretty scary experience. Little me in control of this big boat.

I’d capsized canoes, kayaks and even little catamarans previously but thankfully the Clipper boats are extremely difficult to flip over. The big wheel takes some manoeuvring, especially in choppier waters, and it certainly proves to be a great arm workout!

One of the things we quickly learned about the process was the importance of team work.

The saying ‘many hands make light work’ kept ringing through my head as we went about preparing the boat for sailing, powering it through the water and packing it down at the end of the day.

The pack down, which can take around an hour, is certainly one of the more tedious tasks, as everyone is tired but the heavy sails and ropes need to be put away below deck and put in order.

I was really worried I would struggle with it all but I quickly found myself settling into boat life.

The most important thing for me was getting stuck in at every opportunity and maintaining a positive attitude – something that can be a little tricky to do when living with strangers in a small space!

I looked to the small things to keep me going… having a shower at night back at harbour and catching up with everyone over a beverage at the local pub – luxuries that aren’t available during the actual race.

Most people choose to divide their training up, doing a week at a time when getting time off work permits. This is probably the more sensible option but me being a slight glutton for punishment did my first three sessions back-to-back.

I felt pretty frazzled by the end of it all, as sailing proves to be a non-stop workout and my body was peppered with bruises.

At the end of each training level we had to pass a test proving agility, boat and safety knowledge and our ability to tie knots, the main ones being a bowline, tugman’s hitch and Admiralty knot.

I was relieved to sail through each session. The toughest part for me was Level Two where we were put on a rota system, with our sleep patterns broken up between duties.

Sadie washed her hair in a mixing bowl one day with no shower available at sea

We also spent a few days off shore where we got to experience ‘life at 45 degrees’ and one girl had to be taken back to shore with acute sea sickness. She decided to drop out of the race altogether.

In August, I returned to Gosport for Level Four, my final training session before the main race.

This time round, I was put on my actual race boat Punta del Este (a 70ft vessel instead of a 68ft) with 17 people so we could get a real taste of what would be in store.

We worked in shift patterns, only sleeping for three-hour stints in our coffin-sized bunk beds and then waking up to complete duties for the following three hours.

These short sleeping stints were pretty tough. I listened to music to help me get to sleep through the crashing and pounding of the waves but I felt pretty delirious as the shift work ran on.

We were off shore for 6 days, with the training session culminating in a race against the other 10 Clipper boats.

Sadie said her body was peppered with bruises after three weeks of sailing training

The adrenaline was certainly pumping, as this was a simulation of the real thing.

Our charismatic race skipper Jeronimo Santos-Gonzalez helmed for the majority of the race, using his knowledge to steer us into second place.

High points? Learning to work as a team, boarding our beautiful Punta del Este boat, feasting on a delicious chicken curry one evening, achieving a top speed of 15.5 knots while at the helm and soaking up the sunny weather as we had some downtime out on deck during shift.

Low points? Having my period while on the boat certainly wasn’t great, trying to sleep while being bashed about from side to side was equally unpleasant and we had a frustrating night shift from 1am to 4am where everything seemed to go wrong.

There were even tears as these mishaps caused our boat to fall behind a few places but Jeronimo soon got us back on track.

Everyone in our team, as with previous training sessions, agreed it had been a great week.

‘If we’re not having fun then there’s no point in being here!’ Jeronimo cheered as we sped along on the Solent.

We all left Portsmouth feeling tired yet fulfilled and all a little nervous about what the real race will be like, crossing some of the world’s most treacherous waters.

But as the saying goes, ‘We cannot direct the wind, but we can adjust the sails’…

Sadie with some of her Level Four team members

Sadie’s place on the Clipper Round the World race is supported by Musto, the technical clothing partner for the 2019-20 and 2021-22 editions of the event. More articles on her racing experiences to come.

Her gym training is sponsored by Anytime Fitness.  





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