A year on a sailing ship, in a confined space, in the middle of the ocean: Anyone who takes part in the “Clipper Round The World” regatta faces a huge challenge, especially socially.
Living with 20 strangers, locked in a shoebox at sea from which no one can escape, became the biggest challenge of the race for me - something I never imagined. Over time, however, the team found each other and achieved great success at the regatta.

Lots of potential for conflict

The crew members come from 21 nations, the youngest sailor is 29 years old, the oldest is 70. Different generations, different cultural and professional backgrounds come together. Many team members have already been working for 25 to 30 years and are solid personalities. Not everyone is willing to be told something and adapt to others.

How can this work?

There is a lot of potential for conflict on board, in a very small space. It starts with little things:
Where and how does someone leave their things? Does he put his wet towel on my dry sleeping bag? Does someone show consideration and speak more quietly when others are sleeping? How do crew members wake each other up when there’s a changing of the guard? By jerking your shoulder or something more loving – like a sailor does – with various animal noises? And what about doing your daily work? Is it always the same people who pitch in?

Roles emerged on the “Ha Long Bay”; some crew members remained passive, others became proactive, and still others wanted to take command. These dynamics develop more intensively and quickly on a ship than, for example, in an office where everyone goes home in the evening. On board you spend 24 hours a day together. The crew members’ idiosyncrasies quickly come to light and conflicts quickly flare up.

The four phases of team building

A sailing crew like that of the “Ha Long Bay Vietnam” also goes through the classic four phases of team building: forming, storming, norming and performing. According to psychologist Bruce Tuckman, the model’s developer, all phases are necessary and inevitable.

After the team comes together, the forming phase, the storming begins: the members get to know each other in a positive but also a negative way. The first conflicts arise. If a constructive culture of debate is established, these can be overcome. If this is not the case, the same conflicts may arise again and again over time.

The cooking and eating on board, the lack of sleep due to the night watches – every single crew member has to struggle with the special situation on the ship. But the biggest challenge is living together – and organizing it so that it works. Because the bottom line is that there is always someone in the way and you yourself are often in someone’s way. Therefore, on a sailing ship, a special level of mutual care and consideration is required to get along as a team – starting with the question of where to leave your wet things.

In Leg 1 of the regatta, the crew of the “Ha Long Bay” was not a well-rehearsed team, not a race team. She also didn’t do particularly well in the races (yet) and took rather lower places. That changed: the crew found each other and were ultimately further ahead in the races.

Sailing in shifts

Changes in team size and team organization also consolidated the structure after the first legs. The crew was reduced in size and the members on board were able to adapt better to one another. In addition, the team switched from a two-wax to a three-wax system.

What does that mean?

At the beginning of the regatta, the crew was organized according to the two-watch system. The crew is divided into two halves, one is awake and sailing, the other is sleeping or doing things like eating, hygiene, reading, writing emails. In the two-watch system, two crew members share a bed – when they are replaced, the mattress is turned over. This follows during the day Changing of the watch after six hours, during the night – which is sailed completely – after four hours.

In the three-watch system, the crew is divided into three groups: one watch sails, one takes care of the logbook, cleaning and cooking as a “stand-by team”. The meals are completely planned and kept as simple as possible: For each day there is a dry bag that contains all the food: bread, cooking ingredients, spices, cakes and the menu. It repeats itself every six days. Everyone gets their turn to cook at regular intervals. Dinner is at 8 a.m., 12 p.m. and 8 p.m. Anyone who starts their watch at 12 eats at 11:30 a.m.

More time to sleep

The third team, the off-watch, has eight hours off in a row and therefore the chance to get more sleep than in the two-watch system. Each guard team alternates between two waking rhythms with long sleep phases one after the other – which makes a big difference. Because: Working on deck requires a lot of concentration and physical effort. It can be very energy-consuming, especially if you haven’t had enough sleep. People also tend to become irritable – and the risk of mistakes increases. Just two hours more free time and a little more sleep can be crucial.

Initially, it became apparent from small work processes that the team was developing: the crew managed to change a sail in six minutes, something that had previously sometimes taken them half an hour. Communication went better, everyone offered to help. Besides the rules, that were set up, the crew members also mentioned things that could have gone better. I call these discussions “cleansing thunderstorms”, although on the “Ha Long Bay” they were not thunderstorms, but constructive conversations that ultimately brought everyone together.

Different motives, one mission

The shared mission also promoted solidarity – although I was first able to learn that not all crew members took part in the race for the same reasons. I want to race, be at the front, win. Others take part because they want to experience an adventure or enjoy nature. That was a learning experience for me in the team building process – to take a step back and accept that not everyone came on board with the goal of winning “Clipper Round The World”.

We managed to reconcile our different motivations. In the first and second legs we sailed under the motto “We don’t want to come last”. This sentence was too negatively worded to program a team for success. People usually overlook the word “not” – what sticks is “become last.” At the beginning, the first goal was to manage the sail changes without any problems and not break anything. As the collaboration improved, “We don’t want to come last” became “We have a chance to win it!”

On the leg from Cape Town to Fremantle in Australia, it became particularly clear how much better the crew worked together. The “Ha Long Bay” and the other crews sailed along the ice border for part of the route. It was cold, wet. Even putting on damp clothes was uncomfortable and took up to half an hour. Only the body heat made things warm again. But it was precisely this challenge that brought the team together even more. The crew fought – and fought their way to the top in the race.

Winner on the leg to Fremantle

The “Ha Long Bay” won the Ocean Sprint, sailed in first place and was the first crew to arrive in Fremantle. While the “Ha Long Bay” had sailed towards the bottom in the previous stages, it was now at the front. A success that gave our crew further impetus. Pure motivation.

However, winning the race is not the only motivation. Swearing together a common goal, following all the teams on the “Race Viewer” and the daily, physically demanding work also bring people together – and there is plenty of it: changing a spinnaker, a large, bulbous headsail, takes time It takes an hour for it to roll up again. Think of it like folding a parachute – a laborious task and just one of many.

A particularly nice team moment

For me personally, there was another particularly nice team moment on a stage that arose from an unfortunate situation:
The compressor on our water maker broke. However, the crew urgently needs the water maker to process 200 liters of water per day. Seawater is forced through a filter under very high pressure.

Treating the water is my job – and so I spent 36 hours straight tinkering with the device and finally repairing it. As a thank you for my efforts, the team let me sleep through two watches in a row – a great gesture! I found it extremely team-oriented that my work was so rewarded by all crew members.