Taking on the elements

“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that
you didn’t do than by the ones you did,” Clipper Race Chairman and
Founder Sir Robin Knox-Johnston, the first man to sail solo non-stop
around the world, quotes Mark Twain as another fleet of intrepid
adventurers get ready to start the Clipper 11-12 Round the World Yacht
Race.
Round the world crew member, Ben Goodall will be amongst the crew taking on
the planet’s most extreme sailing conditions during the eighth edition of the
world’s longest yacht race.
“I’m looking forward to the whole thing!” exclaims the Clinical Psychologist, who
will log 40,000 miles over the course of his circumnavigation.
“I’ve said to people during training when they’ve asked ‘why are you doing it?’ I
said ‘well growing up there were so many oceans I wanted to experience: the
Pacific, the Southern Ocean; and of course you’ve got the various ports we race
into, that was that decision made.’”
It wasn’t until Crew Allocation that Ben discovered he was a De Lage Landen
crew member and would be racing on board the first ever Dutch entry in the
Clipper Race.
“Crew Allocation was a really good day, really exciting and very well organised
and it was very nice to meet all the crew,” reveals the 30-year-old soon after
completing his Level 1 training course.
“The whole of the training was a fantastic experience and a really good bonding
experience with everybody. We had an excellent skipper and first mate in
Brendan and Vicky and during the week I learnt an awful lot.”
Ben’s Clipper adventure will stretch over eleven months as he races across the
world’s greatest oceans, visiting 13 countries on six continents and forcing his
friends and family to become fixated with all things race viewer related.
“Some of my friends and family think I’m mad and some of them think I’m very,
very brave but everyone has been very supportive and they think it’s brilliant.
“They love the idea of Clipper and they’ve all been watching Against the Tide and
checking the website for news so it’s all very exciting.”