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New World Challenge training session 1 is over. I am much the wiser, much the fitter and much, much more excited about next years race.

The journey down to Plymouth was made by car rather than as was originally planned, by Debanessa. It turned out that only myself and one other could spare the time off work, and with the pretty violent weather that we have been having lately, I decided that discretion was the better part of valour. The drive down to Plymouth was fairly fast and uneventful, with the Z3 buzzing down the coastal route in sunshine interspersed with heavy rain and at some stages hail. I arrived at the Mayflower Marina at about 14:30 and was put to work helping Peter and Paul (the skipper and mate) load the provisions onto Challenge 31, previously Motorola in the 1996 BT Global Challenge.

The 67 foot steel yacht is magnificent, and the 72 footer that we will be racing on is even better (even though Peter still considers "his" yacht better). To put things into perspective, the smallest winches on the 67 are as large as Debanessa's main winches and they have a 32hp 3 cylinder diesel generator engine which is larger than Debanessa's 28hp main engine. Everything is thought out from a safety first point of view, and everything is very over engineered with the Southern Ocean in mind. No furling headsails or lazy jack mainsail furling of course - with 18 crew there is no need for lazy anything. Sails all come up by hand from the huge sail locker, are hoiked on and hoisted by hand, are then repacked by hand, and returned to the sail locker just in time for the next sail change to keep the trainees on their toes.

Other major differences with Debanessa, the Challenge yachts have running backstays on either side which needs to be set and tensioned with each tack, and being 40 tons of steel, they tend to plough through waves rather than bob over them in the way in which Debanessa does. So you get a lot more water over the foredeck - as I was to find out on Saturday night.

The first evening was spent talking and familiarising ourselves with the yacht.

Friday morning we were awoken at 06:00 by the big alarm clock, also called the generator which fired into life. Up and out of bed in our running kit ready for a brisk run up to "that bloody monument" with some press ups and sit ups along the way to keep us entertained. Bloody hell, I an unfit. Five years since any serious exercise and it showed. Nothing like a bit of exercise to remind you how little you have been using your gym membership. So by 07:00, the point had been made, I was puffing and panting and not at all sure that this is what I had in mind for the next few days.

Showered and dressed in wet weather gear (appropriate as it was now raining and sleeting), and it was now time for breakfast and to start getting Challenge 31 ready for sea. Clean, clean, wash, wash and put all those spinnaker, yankee and staysail halyards and spare halyards back to the mast. Then out with the sails, single up the fenders, remove the springs, and the land lines (we were rafted up against CGU), and everything is ready to go. Put-put across to QAB (Queen Anne's Battery) for 500 l of diesel (filling one of the four tanks). Finally we hoisted the main (heave ho, none of that winching nonsense), and headed out past the Plymouth breakwater into the choppy English Channel.

Sails up and down, tacking and jibing and coming to terms with the physical effort required to sail the Challenge boats was the menu for the day.

Back to Plymouth for the night, and some more theory and safety instruction including Man Over Board instruction.. To bed at 01:00 and to sleep some time shortly after that.

Saturday morning we headed out from Plymouth again, in lighter winds and with some welcome sunshine. The main seemed to go up a lot easier, the sheets, halyards, kickers and reefing lines seemed to all make much more sense,

Sails up, sails down, furled and put away. Tacking, jibing, Man Over Board, sails up sails down. Over and over. By the time the sun started dropping below the horizon and Eddystone Light house became visible nearby, we had our surprise MOB response down to 4 minutes and the sail changes and tacking were getting to be pretty damn good.

The Genoa came out for a bit in the light airs. A massive sail, which is only useful up to about 10 knots of apparent wind.

By 22:00 we were somewhere near Lizzard Point (tip of Cornwall before Lands End), and the wind started picking up. Unfortunately we had also lost a number of crew due to the cold, and sea sickness so at 01:00 when we were crashing though a Force 8 (40 knots of wind), there were only two of us left up on deck. Andy Bones and myself. "Time to drop the staysail" bellowed Paul, the Mate - so off we went to the foredeck.

I know that F8 and the English Channel is pretty mild compared to what is to come in the Southern Ocean, and Peter (the skipper) dismissed the water coming over the foredeck as "just a bit of spray". But hey, we got solidly dunked by that "spray" which was more like 2 feet of water crashing into us as we struggled with the Staysail (the smallest of them). Tremendous fun though. Exhilarating, exciting and everything that I had wanted and expected from the training. Give me more - lots more.

We arrived in Falmouth at 03:00 and were in bed by 04:00 for a quick snooze before waking at 07:00 for the next days fun.

Sunday morning was fun for me. We needed to practice retrieving a Man Over Board, and I volunteered (sort of as I has also won the prize by forgetting to turn off the Starboard 3 Man Cabin light). Into a dry suit (well dry except for the hands and head. On with the life jacket and then into the cold Falmouth water. Three attempts to rescue me, first using the grab net - then the strap attached to the spinnaker halyard and then finally using the rescue sling. The fun did not end there though, and I was pronounced "unconscious", and needed to be bundled below down the steep stairway head first. The unconscious MOB did strike up an involuntary protection of the head pose, but the rest of the crew were brilliant and I made it down below without incident.

The main flew up, the sails seemed to go up by themselves and generally the spirit of the crew had changed from one strain and difficulty to one of ease and simplicity. Everything made a lot more sense, and somehow even with days of aching muscles we were all able to do far more than we had ever though possible.

Fowey was the next port of call, pretty uneventful sailing. More of the same over and over again. We started to dictate the pace a bit, not letting the activity rest, and changing sails just for the fun of it. Reefing the main, tacking and generally mucking about. Various MOB exercises, some well done others not so good. The afternoon we were left to our own devices, and apart from a few "surprise" MOB's had fun rotating the jobs and all getting to do every job a number of times.

Monday we were able to hoist the asymmetrical spinnaker, and then drop it again after about 30 minutes of charging towards Cornwall at great speed.

Monday evening was the traditional night out for the three training crews. Pasta at "Pasta City", and then off to the very dubious "Jesters" night club. The tradition, apparently started by Pete Goss who asked the taxi driver to take them to the worst night club in Plymouth. Very weird place, only just made acceptable by being one of a thirty or so Challenge Crew and by having ZinZan Brook (sp?) in our midst - the New Zealand rugby captain who was doing some refresher training for his Wellington-Sydney leg of the 2000/2001 BT Global Challenge.

Tuesday was a bit more theory (with sore heads given the night before and 03:00 bed time), and then a lot of boat cleaning.

The next training session is next Thursday (15th of February). I can't wait. The race starts May 2002 - in just over 12 months time. Again, I can't wait.

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