{"id":5731,"date":"2017-10-10T17:35:29","date_gmt":"2017-10-10T17:35:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/horsington.blog2.idnet.com\/?p=5731"},"modified":"2017-10-10T17:35:29","modified_gmt":"2017-10-10T17:35:29","slug":"mark-tucker-has-withdrawn-from-the-round-the-world-race","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/horsington.blog2.idnet.com\/?p=5731","title":{"rendered":"Mark Tucker has withdrawn from the Round the World Race"},"content":{"rendered":"

Facebook watchers will have seen the announcement\u00a0 that Mark Tucker from Horsington has decided not to continue in the Round the World Clipper Race.<\/strong><\/p>\n

He has kindly furnished the Blog with an explanation of why he has taken this decision.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Mark Tucker (Foreground, right) with members of the GREAT Britain crew<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Around The World (or, maybe, just around the corner…)<\/strong><\/p>\n

Sometimes in life things just don\u2019t pan out exactly as you think they\u2019re going to. \u00a0Situations often work out better than you expected but other times they don\u2019t quite live up to their billing. \u00a0My round the world yacht adventure rather falls into that latter category.<\/p>\n

For some people racing a sailing yacht around the world has been a childhood dream. \u00a0For others it\u2019s an important tick box to go with climbing Mouth Everest, running the Marathon Des Sables or hiking to the North Pole. \u00a0For the rest, like me, it\u2019s simply a personal challenge, an adventure.<\/p>\n

You\u2019ll probably all have read the previous posts about the Clipper Round The World race but, for those that don\u2019t know, it\u2019s an organised event that runs every two years and provides paying amateurs the opportunity to race a fleet of twelve \u2018matched\u2019 racing yachts over 40,000 miles around the world, or part of it if time, money or enthusiasm doesn\u2019t stretch that far. \u00a0As the Blog\u2019s Editor previously attested, these are proper racing yachts – designed to be fast, hard work and uncomfortable! \u00a0The race is staged over a series of eight legs – Liverpool to Uruguay, Uruguay to South Africa, South Africa to Western Australia, Western Australia to The Whitsundays (including the Sydney-Hobart Race), The Whitsundays to China, China to Eastern USA, Eastern USA to New York and New York to Liverpool. \u00a0It had been my plan to do the lot.<\/p>\n

\u2018So, what happened?\u2019 is the question everyone asks when they hear that finishing the 6,400 mile race to Uruguay was going to mark the end of my Clipper adventure. \u00a0I think they\u2019re looking for some earth-shattering event; a massive argument with my Skipper, ending up overboard mid-Atlantic or my bunk buddy wetting the bed perhaps? \u00a0Disappointingly for them, none of those things are true. \u00a0It was more a realisation over time (and, believe me, five weeks at sea gives you plenty of thinking time!) that the race, for me at least, wasn\u2019t as fulfilling as I had expected it to be.<\/p>\n

I had massively enjoyed my training. \u00a0Clipper provide everyone, regardless of experience, with four weeks of compulsory training. \u00a0Additionally I had been selected to act as a Crew Coxswain (one of the people that take over if the Skipper becomes incapacitated) and had received a further couple of weeks of, mainly theory, training for that. \u00a0It had been great fun; I was learning lots, experiencing new things, was physically demanding and I was meeting lots of new friends.<\/p>\n

I had expected all of that to continue into the race but, perhaps a little like a failing marriage, once the honeymoon period had worn off the realities of life started to hit home.<\/p>\n

Sailing a yacht across a vast expanse of ocean is rather different from racing \u2018round the cans\u2019 or even cruising around islands or down the coast. \u00a0For the vast majority of the time, sometimes for days on end, the boat needs only a couple of people to sail it – someone to helm and another to ensure they\u2019re making good speed and course. \u00a0Whilst these roles are rotated around the watch of about ten crew it can mean that, save a little sail trimming, for most of a four or six hour watch there is little, if any, sailing to do. \u00a0Fantastic when the sun\u2019s shining and there\u2019s dolphins on the bow, not so great when it\u2019s dark, cold and pouring with rain!<\/p>\n

So, what does occupy your time? \u00a0Well, clearly talking complete rubbish to fellow crew mates is an important time filler and aside the more interesting tasks such as an hourly log of position, a daily check of the received weather information, an occasional glance at the display to check for other vessels nearby and the six-hourly review of our race position against the rest of the fleet, it\u2019s a long list of cleaning and maintenance chores. It\u2019s amazing how dirty a small space can become, even when in the middle of the ocean, when there are 21 people living in close proximity.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s equally surprising how much maintenance a yacht can require. \u00a0The regular list of duties includes cleaning heads (toilets), pumping out and cleaning bilges, \u2018making\u2019 fresh water (from sea water), emptying waste water holding tanks, checking for any chafe (signs that ropes have been rubbing and are likely to fail) and performing any maintenance required – anything from servicing pumps to repairing cookers and generators.<\/p>\n

All very necessary, none very inspiring! \u00a0Add to that the sea sickness (far worse than I\u2019d experienced ever before), the tiredness (it\u2019s really not that easy to sleep in a roastingly hot bunk, in an ocean swell, with someone operating a winch inches above your head) and uninspiring food (sorry Pip!) and you couldn\u2019t be much farther from the sailing pictures you see in the back of the colour supplement.<\/p>\n

Life is about balancing things to make decisions; often there\u2019s no correct answer, you just have to do what feels right at the time. \u00a0I thought long and hard about my decision and, ultimately, the lack of that childhood dream or tick box meant there wasn\u2019t enough on the \u2018keep going\u2019 side of the scales to offset the boredom, sea sickness, exhaustion and risk of injury. \u00a0Ocean racing is something you have to be 100% up for; there is nothing more annoying and, in some cases, dangerous than to have a \u2018passenger\u2019 on the boat – I promised my Skipper and my crew mates that I\u2019d either be completely in the boat (pardon the pun!) or I\u2019d walk away. \u00a0Could I have completed another leg or even finished the race? \u00a0Absolutely, but it wouldn\u2019t have been fair to them or true to myself.<\/p>\n

So, after a few days in Buenos Aires, I\u2019m now enjoying the South African sunshine as my crew and the rest of the fleet race towards me. \u00a0How do I feel? \u00a0Content, I guess. \u00a0I had set out, with the best of intentions, to conquer the world and I won\u2019t have achieved that. \u00a0But I will have completed a long ocean crossing (the longest in Clipper\u2019s history), I\u2019ve sailed across the Equator (whilst Neptune transformed me from Slimy Pollywog to Trusty Shellback), I\u2019ve learned loads about the oceans and about sailing and I have made great friends along the way. \u00a0Was I a little naive? \u00a0Maybe, but my training and discussions with everyone I talked to suggested it was going to be a blast. \u00a0Do I regret it? \u00a0Absolutely not. \u00a0I\u2019m proud to have achieved what I have and would make a similar decision given my time again. \u00a0I\u2019m just ready to fill my time with the next, different, adventure. \u00a0After all, that\u2019s what life\u2019s all about.<\/p>\n

Looking forward to seeing you all about the village, or in The Half Moon for a pint, for the unabridged version very soon! \u00a0And please keep supporting the GREATBritain crew; I certainly will be and knowing there\u2019s a ton of people out there willing you on makes a huge difference!<\/p>\n

We thank him for his openness and honesty, and wish him the best of luck -ED<\/em><\/p>\n

Postscript – Horsington’s other adventurer, Chris Bailward, cycling home from Sicily via Italy, Swizerland and France, is now in Paray-le-Monial a day’s cycle ride this side of Macon. With a following wind and no punctures, he might be back by the end of the weekend. 1800 miles in the saddle, another epic ride.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Facebook watchers will have seen the announcement\u00a0 that Mark Tucker from Horsington has decided not to continue in the Round the World Clipper Race. He has kindly furnished the Blog with an explanation of why he has taken this decision. Around The World (or, maybe, just around the corner…) Sometimes in life things just don\u2019t … Continue reading “Mark Tucker has withdrawn from the Round the World Race”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2757],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5731","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6glYD-1ur","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/horsington.blog2.idnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5731","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/horsington.blog2.idnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/horsington.blog2.idnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/horsington.blog2.idnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/23"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/horsington.blog2.idnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5731"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/horsington.blog2.idnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5731\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5733,"href":"http:\/\/horsington.blog2.idnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5731\/revisions\/5733"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/horsington.blog2.idnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5731"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/horsington.blog2.idnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5731"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/horsington.blog2.idnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5731"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}