Sailing the storms of South Africa

It's been as wet as Lancashire for Dave as he heads to Cape Town

When Dave Paton retired from the fire service at 50, he wondered what to do next.

He decided to set himself a series of challenges - including teaching himself Portuguese and learning the guitar including playing a couple of songs in public.

But Dave is sharing his biggest challenge with us in a weekly article.

With his sailing experience limited to a week on a dinghy, he's now joined the Clipper Round the World race!

This week Dave and the rest of the team are rolling round the deck, getting wet through and fighting through storms!

PART SIX - Day 11 Wednesday 11 November 2009

Race 3 - Rio to Cape Town

Cape Town beckons.

The expected race arrival date in South Africa was 14 November. As I write we are 245 miles out and, if we maintain these speeds, could arrive in less than 21 hours - a full two days early. At the moment we are in first place, with our nearest competitor 59 nautical miles behind us.

It's nerve wracking, but we're in with a strong chance of winning this leg of the race.

But the move from tenth position to first has not been a smooth journey. The tactics were to move deeper into the South Atlantic searching for what sailors call 'low pressure systems with good winds.' You and I call them storms. And we found them - one after the other.

You and I call them storms. And we found them - one after the other Dave Paton

Racing up from the Antarctic they have given us a roller coaster of a ride as we battered our way through wild seas.

Man overboard

On the first leg to Rio we were mostly in shorts and t-shirts. This time we've been wearing almost everything we had and swapping one damp set of clothes for another as watch followed watch.

It's taken a toll on a number of yachts in the fleet and we ourselves have a long list of repairs that will need attention once we get to port. Both our spinnaker poles are broken; our wind instruments aren't working, the mainsail is damaged and we've had to cut a number of ropes away that control bits of our rig.

One of our competitors, Hull and Humber, lost a man overboard and recovered him in 17 minutes. That caused us to review our safety procedures and, just 24 hours later, we were caught by a rogue wave and I was in exactly the same predicament, flying across the deck under a deluge of water straight towards the rails - but I had my safety line clipped on and was brought back to the deck with a bump.

Richie, our skipper, said later 'Don't worry; I'd have got you back.'

Festooned with cake mix

Our plans to celebrate a crew member's birthday went by the board as huge waves continued to catch us into the night. The galley and saloon were festooned with cake mix and noodles as we were 'knocked down' (a wave that should be expected to roll under the boat instead breaks over you and knocks you over on your side) - three times.

As I mentioned last week, we weren't even safe in our bunks. On the third of these knockdowns one of the crew was ejected from his bunk, sailed between the bunks in the middle of the accommodation area and woke up against the bunks on the other side. Thankfully he was only bruised.

If this has been a taster for the next leg to Australia and the full might of the roaring forties and the southern ocean, then I'm not sure I'm ready for it. Still, R&R in Cape Town and clean dry clothes will soon perk us all up.

If you want to see how we're getting on just go to the website . You can take part in a virtual race on the website and see if you're a better at ocean racing than we are!

Dave Paton

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Dave's blog - part one

Dave's blog - part two

Dave's blog - part three

Dave's blog - part four

Dave's blog - part five