Published November 2014 in Freshwater News

Author’s Note: Do you dream of racing around the world, but figure you’ll never make a Volvo crew?  Then maybe the Clipper Round The World Yacht Race is for you.  It gave me the opportunity to dream, even if my bank account didn’t.  Enjoy!

Many of my friends, to say nothing of my ever-patient wife, have often heard me pine that, were I 20 years younger and about 100 times the sailor I am, I’d love nothing more than to crew for an entire Volvo Ocean Race.  Fortunately for them (and truth be told, me as well) I am in my mid-fifties and neither Ian Walker nor Chris Nicholson are ringing me up.

That doesn’t stop a guy from dreaming though.  If the boys on the Volvo boats don’t want me, I have other choices available.  Like, for starters, the Clipper Round The World Yacht Race.

As you probably know, the Clipper Race was dreamed up by legendary Brit sailor Sir Robin Knox-Johnston who, among other accomplishments, gets to list on his resume the first singlehanded, non-stop circumnavigation in history.  The race is an 11-month race around the globe, which in and of itself is somewhat unique.  What makes it that much more interesting is that crew positions are open to amateurs, 40% of whom have never even sailed.  All you really have to possess is a sense of adventure, a willingness to leave home and family for months at a time, and presumably the actual physical ability and stamina to withstand life at a constant angle of heel in some of the more interesting waters around the world.

Well, that’s not all you have to possess.  Out of curiosity more than anything else (since I’d already promised my wife that I’d never, ever actually go off and do something like the Clipper Race) I sent away for a crew application packet.  And a few weeks later, sure enough, an envelope arrived in the mail.  I tore into it, and started reading the glossy brochure detailing the upcoming 2015-2016 race.  As I got into the details, and read some of the requirements, a glimmering light of hope started to glow inside my brain (my tiny brain, some would argue): I was actually somewhat qualified to do this thing!  I had at least as much experience as other crew members, there were men and women who were even older than me, and I was pretty sure I was physically up to the challenge.

The challenge I was pretty sure I wasn’t up to was convincing my wife to let me do it.  As I’ve said, she’s not all that enthusiastic about my doing something like this, seeing as how, you know, I’d have to risk my life and quit my job.  Not necessarily in that order of importance, mind you.

Nevertheless, I read on.  And then I came to the ultimate, bigger-than-Mt.-Everest challenge: the cost.  If you want to crew one of these 70-foot ocean racers, the price tag is a mere 45,200 British pounds.  A quick currency exchange conversion shows that, as of this writing, that much English cabbage translates into exactly $72,446.53 US dollars.  For that, you get all your training, a crew slot for the entire race, and some pretty nifty tee shirts and jackets (note to the Oregon Offshore race committee: I have a radical idea for how you could make next year’s race REALLY profitable).

If you don’t feel like biting off a bill of over $72,000, you can sign up to do just one leg.  To do that, you’ll need to shell out 5,000 pounds for training, plus an average of 5,475 pounds for each leg.  That comes to a far-more manageable $16,787 US dollars.  And no, I don’t know if that includes a tee shirt.

Still, if you harbor dreams of competing in a serious round-the-world race, and you don’t mind spending your kids’ college fund, check it out at www.clipperroundtheworld.com.