Race 1 - Day 32
Crew Diary - Race 1 Day 32: Liverpool to Punta del Este
21 September

Redman's Blog Part Tres:

Being Silly

Hello, my name is Redman and I like to write silly stories.

As it turns out I also like to sail, like quite a lot, but we'll get to that later. For the moment, let's talk about silly stories.

I've always enjoyed being entertained by other people's stories; tales as tall as pirate ships, banter as brazen as bull's balls or yarns as long as the hairs that are constantly being found on the floor of our boat. The type of story doesn't matter to me so long as two things happen when I listen.

Firstly, the person who's telling the story has to want to tell it. They have to want me to be hanging on to their every word, waiting with baited breath for them to hit the punchline. They have to want me to burst into laughter at the end, or make a scrunched up face in disgust (this look is usually reserved for my mates as they tell me about their previous night out) or sometimes they just want me to smile and nod after telling me the same story for the 7,000th time (I'm looking at you Dad). In any case, I find it very important that people want to tell their story.

This leads to the second thing that has to happen for me to enjoy a good old ripper. The story has to be told right. Every story has a proper way of being told and 9 times out of 10 if you want to tell a story in the manner that I've just mentioned, then you'll go to pains to tell it the right way. You'll make sure that you set the scene and then you'll give all the details required in order to hook your listener in (hand gestures are vital here), then with the timing of a late 90's stand up comic you'll drop your bomb of a punch line and watch with glee as your listener loses their mind. It is in this moment that you will feel like the funniest, wittiest, most totally eloquent person in the world. And to me, you will be. If you've told your story right and you've reeled me in then I will always applaud you at the end because I know how much fun it is to do and I love it when I get to see other people enjoying that same feeling.

So keeping that in mind, you can imagine that when I found out I could write a blog every 11 days on our boat, I was like a pig in s***! Here I was with a computer at my fingertips and a captive audience of people that had signed up to read about life on a boat and what their loved ones were doing and feeling, but instead had unluckily been stuck with me and my idiotic words. The only thing was that I had no idea what to write about. For all my love of telling stories, I'm not very good at expressing “feelings” and I felt like every other bloke was going to tell you all about how tough it is surviving sideways (it's really tough), or what the water looks like (it's blue), or how annoying their bunk buddy is (luckily for me Nano is the complete opposite of annoying but I've seen what other crew are dealing with and God help them all). No, instead I opted to do what I tend to always do: I made up a character and then wrote down the silliest things I could think of.

Enter my perfect foil – the one and only world famous sailor and lady lover, Jonny Prosecco. The man with the glorious mullet and a confidence that is reserved only for lovable fools and Swedish men in spas. Prosecco was the perfect man to bring some absurdity and humour to what I thought would normally have been a routine blog. The real Jonny is an amazing bloke who has earned my complete respect and not-so-secret fandom. Not only is he a pretty good sailor but he is always up for a laugh and is an amazing sport when it comes to being a human punch line. I love him for this. So thanks to him, I found a way to start telling my silly stories and before I knew it I was writing pages of stupid punchlines and outlandish claims and slowly but surely I ended up writing a blog almost every day.

Most of these blogs haven't appeared on the Crew section of the Clipper Race website but they've managed to find a special home in a place where they are published daily. I'm sworn to secrecy about not saying where these blogs have ended up but if you think long and hard about it, you'll realise where most of my ridiculous thoughts have decided to call home. If you're still not sure, think about this, where else might you find a daily blog on the Clipper Race website?

This might all be coming across a bit conceited and you're probably thinking – who the hell does this strapping young Australian, with his excellent sense of balance and his hair that already has the perfect combination of salt and pepper sprinkled through it, think he is? Bragging about how he loves to write silly stories and there's nothing we can do about it. What a loser!

The thing is, when I heard little giggles coming from the crew as they read my blogs I realised that I could help out around the boat in a non-sailory way. If I could make people have a little chuckle to themselves each morning then I figured that the morale on the boat, despite any wind holes or kitemares that might be thrown our way, would be kept in high spirits, even if it was just for a little bit. I never expected that my silly stories would get the response they did from some of you out there in the real world but honestly from the bottom of my heart let me say thank you. It's been such a privilege to hear from my fellow crew that their Mum's are asking whether or not we actually put sunscreen on the forestays, or that their sisters read the blogs each night as bed time stories. And to the people that are actually sending in supporters emails saying how much they like the blogs! Holy guacamole, are you guys the best! So yeah, all of this rambling has been an attempt to say thank you for letting me express myself, for letting me have a bit of fun on the boat in my own way, and for telling me that maybe you might have enjoyed it. You've tickled me pink.

At the moment, I'm only signed up to do Leg 1 (at the moment...) so it means that I'll be jumping off in Punta del Este in two days time, only to be waving Team Liverpool 2018 on their way as they sail to Cape Town. It's a pretty bittersweet feeling to be honest. Not just because I won't have an excuse to write my silly stories, but more so because I'll be saying goodbye to some of the most amazing people I've ever met. When I started this Clipper Race thing I had absolutely no sailing experience and all of a sudden I've been thrown into a tiny pink boat that is being shaken up and down and side-to-side like a half empty sauce bottle. If you think me being allowed to write a blog is silly, just take a moment to think how ridiculously silly the concept of the Clipper Round the World Yacht Race is. Take 700 amateur sailors who have never met each other, give them 4 weeks of training, find 12 skippers with salt-addled brains to keep them all alive and then just throw them into the middle of the ocean to fend for themselves. This is the epitome of silliness!

And yet it all works. Absolutely all of it works. It works because we're all here to achieve the same goal, to change our lives, and the key to the success of it all are the people on the boats. Specifically the people on my boat. I've wasted too much time rambling to list everybody now but just know that you're all amazing and I'm so grateful that my fellow crew and team members have made my race the phenomenal experience that it has been.

So that's it from me. I've spun my yarn and sailed my race and I've loved it all. Hopefully I've managed to tell my story right and here's hoping you enjoyed it... even if it's just a little bit.

Cheers,

Redman

Editor's note: So a few days ago Dan “The Dunker” Eastley wrote a blog that had feelings in it and the Race Office were all like “Oh my God Dan, you're so amazing”. Because I'm deeply petty and competitive, this is my attempt to write a blog about feelings instead of mullets and crazed Australians with sheep shearers. Take that Dan!