March 20, 2022 Restarting the Clipper Round The World Race

It has been a sometimes difficult two years since my journey around the world via the Clipper Round the World Yacht Race was stalled in the Philippines due the rapidly emerging COVID-19 Pandemic. Many activities of daily life and especially travel were severely restricted since March 2020. I was was forced to return to my home in Santa Monica. Once there almost immediately summoned to South Texas to help my aging parents as my mother had a brief scare with cancer. I am happy to report that she is well now.

During my two years away from the Clipper Race I tried as best as I could to make myself useful at home with projects starting with a pandemic garden where we now farm some vegetables and herbs and incorporate them into our daily diet. I completed the build of my 17 foot wooden sailing dory and got that out on the Marina Del Rey waters. I helped with a much needed redo of our bathroom and pushed hard to get the remodel of the kitchen completed as well. Sadly the kitchen project is stalled as others in my family need to take charge of that. I also built Studio-Shed in our back yard which will serve multiple uses, most currently as an exercise studio complete with rowing machine.

During this tine I also found avenues to continue sailing. I reached out to the LifeSail.org in Marina Del Rey and became a top volunteer there where we use sailing to reach out to disadvantaged children and veterans returning from active service who may experience issues integrating back into civilian society. I sailed as crew aboard a Swan 48 sailboat from Huntington New York to Bermuda and Back in July 2020. And in August 2021 I helped deliver a 68 foot cruising sailboat from Detroit Michigan to Halifax Novo Scotia.

Now in March 2022 world wide COVID conditions have improved just enough to allow the restart of the Clipper Race. So I have returned to Subic Bay Philippines. All 11 yacht race crews have completed a full week of refresher sail training and another full week of boat maintenance and provisioning. Tomorrow the fleet of 11 racing yachts will depart from Subic Bay and head north to an area between the top of the Philippine Islands and Taiwan called the Luzon Strait. Once there on March 4 the fleet will self organize a raced start putting us firmly on our way to Seattle. We will be out to sea for approximately 30 days, maybe less if we are really good at sailing and picking the route through the weather systems and ocean conditions that we will encounter.

Ultimately we plan to get these race boats back to London by the end of July 2020. Our planned stopovers are Seattle, Brermuda, New York City, Derry LondonDerry and finally London. We will be transiting the Panama Canal in the sail from Seattle to Bermuda. Very excited now to restart.

I will be blogging about the race when I can here: https://clipperdiary.blog

The Clipper organization and fleet of 11 boats with their skippers, AQP’s and crew aboard have adopted UNICEF UK a Charity Partner. UNICEF, the United Nations Children’s Fund, works to build a better world for every child, every day, everywhere. UNICEF provides more children with clean water, life-saving food and vaccines, education and protection from violence than any other humanitarian organization. Thru the efforts of crew on our boat alone and our supporters.we have raised some £36,298.34 to date. As a fleet we have a goal to raise over £1,000,000 for UNICEF UK. See https://www.unicef.org.uk/about-unicef-uk/

If you also believe in this cause for children around the world and can spare a few coins please consider a donation at my just giving page which is here: https://www.justgiving.com/companyteams/seumas

Cheers Everyone I am ready to go!