Trial By Water

Adventurer Learns What Life is Like on the High Seas While Crewing on a Round-The-World Yacht Race

Story by Matthew St. Amand 
Photography courtesy the Clipper Round the World Yacht Race

The oldest evidence of a boat constructed by human beings dates back approximately 10,000 years. Some fringe archaeologists believe people sailed in boats as far back as 700,000 years ago. Such facts and imaginings were far from the mind of Windsor resident, Sarah Jane Robinson, as she stood at the helm of a 70-foot ocean racing yacht called Team Power of Seattle Sports, in a very cantankerous stretch of the Pacific Ocean. It was early April and the clipper she steered was more than a thousand miles from land.

“We were beating into the wind,” Sarah recalls. 

This was one of her first stints at the boat’s helm, early in her leg of the Clipper Round the World Yacht Race, which she joined in China. Sarah and eighteen other people who comprised the crew were en route to Seattle, Washington. At her side stood an experienced “round-the-worlder”—just in case. 

“We were going into a huge wave,” Sarah continues, “and I felt him grab me by the shoulder, holding me to the back of the helm cage. As we came to the top of that wave, we looked down into the trough, and the guy said ‘Oh sh—!’”

They survived the wave, and many others, but it was a harrowing moment, indeed. A snapshot of life onboard a racing clipper.

By the time Sarah stepped onto Team Power of Seattle Sports, she was already a seasoned adventurer. Born and raised in Windsor, Sarah has always looked to challenge herself in unique ways, usually through travel.

In 2022, she embarked on a solo drive across North America that spanned ten months. Inspiration for the adventure came after hearing about people living on the road in vans.

“I was driving a 1984 van that was totally built-out inside so I could live in it when I wasn’t driving,” she says. “I am not handy. An uncle helped me do that. It was my first time using power tools.”

Her journey took her through Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, South Dakota, Wyoming, Montana and up into Alberta. By the time she reached the Yukon Territory, her van was in need of repair. Due to the remote location, it took a month for the part to come in. Although Sarah spent more time there than she had first planned, she embraced the adventure and made the most of it, meeting new people and soaking up life in that far-flung locale. From there, Sarah ventured through the Northwest Territories to the Arctic Ocean. 

“I cut my driving trip short at ten months because it was getting cold everywhere,” she says. “I proved to myself I could do this. When I got home, I still had some money left. I’d slept in the van for free. I paid for camping three times.”

Sarah came away from the journey with one thought: “I wanted to travel full-time.”

She heard about the Clipper Round the World Yacht Race on a podcast about offshore sailing called On the Wind. One could be forgiven thinking that Sarah had previous sailing experience that was roused by this story on the podcast. She did not. 

The Clipper Round the World Yacht Race is a biennial sailing event. Amateur crews—often with no prior sailing experience—pay a fee to crew one or more legs of a circumnavigation of the earth in eleven yachts owned by Clipper Ventures. 

Sarah signed up in 2024.

“I flew to England for training that year,” Sarah explains. “Each crew member has to complete four weeks of training. The first three levels of training are done on ‘old’ race boats, working as a team with the other crew members.”

The training is tough. After all, circumnavigating the earth by sea, or even crewing for one leg of the race, is no easy thing.

“I went back to England in 2025 for levels three and four of my training,” Sarah says. “By that time, we were working with the skipper and first mate—the only two professional sailors—and it was around then that we started to feel like an actual team.”

Sarah says that being out on the open ocean is not as intimidating as it may seem to non-sailors, though they encountered rough weather and harsh conditions.

“My socks got wet on day-two,” she recalls, “and they still weren’t dry by the end of the race.” 

The ocean and the weather never stop, both require tremendous attention, which meant the crew never stopped. They worked on deck in shifts: six hours on, six hours off, and then four hours on, four hours off.  They dressed for the weather, which was often clear. When it rained or winds doused them with ocean spray, the crew wore bright yellow, waterproof, foul weather gear. They also wore thin, inflatable life jackets at all times. 

One of the many surprises Sarah encountered onboard was how much she enjoyed the food.

“It was really good!” she says. “Crew members rotated doing the cooking. Every eight days we were each in charge of making the food for twenty-four hours. We baked fresh bread every night for breakfast. I was on ‘the cold leg’ of the race, so meals involved a lot of soup and wraps, bangers and mash. Good meals were a priority because when you’ve been on deck for hours, cold and wet and miserable, it really boosts morale coming below deck for a good hot meal.”

The clipper is equipped with two bathrooms, but there is no shower. The crew dressed in layers and changed their clothes once a week.

“You’d hear people, excited, saying: ‘I get clean clothes today!’” Sarah recalls.

“This kind of sailing isn’t for everyone,” she says. “The boat was built for speed, not comfort. It’s not insulated. It’s cold and damp, but nobody complained about that. I was surprised how much I enjoyed being part of the team. I never did team sports when I was younger. When I signed up I thought the hardest part would be being on a boat with so many people. That wasn’t the case. I made some great friends.”

As it turned out, Sarah also crewed the winning boat—Team Power of Seattle Sports won 2025/26 Clipper Round the World Yacht Race. 

“I loved it, everyone on the boat was so different,” Sarah says, “but we all got along. Everyone really enjoyed the experience.” 

To learn more about the Clipper Round the World Yacht Race, and to see photos and video of life on a racing boat, visit clipperroundtheworld.com. 

Published in the Summer 2026 Edition.