Preface: The recently launched International Space Station
Alpha
orbits the earth at an altitude of 249.5. For Captain Cook, a distance
of 1000 miles from land was common. So too for the sailors of The
Race.
The saying "absolute power corrupts absolutely" sums up much
of land based societies attitude towards power.
Not so at sea. Once the lines are slipped, the captain of a
ship is absolutely powerful.
Pete Goss who has twice been around the world will skipper
Team Philips in The Race. Recently he stated, "Every skipper from a
frigate to a day boat carry the same weight. Theirs is 'the sole and
inescapable responsibility for the safety of the vessel and all within
it', they also have the authority to say no."
The rules that govern sailing competition also comment on the
power of the skipper: "A boat is solely responsible for deciding
whether or not to start or to continue racing." Generally, the
decision maker for the boat is the skipper.
People like Captain James Cook and Charley Clerke had on their
shoulders as much power and responsibility as they wanted. The same
goes for skippers of The Race such as: Cam Lewis, Pete Goss and Loick
Peyron.
One of the questions that can be asked is what experiences
prepare these men to lead their vessels into such ventures? How have
the methods of training sailing leaders changed?
Frenchman Loick Peyron is an immensely experienced offshore
sailor. He has sailed across the Atlantic 37 times, and completed a
solo Vendee Globe Race. Combine these voyages and you get 490 days at
sea mostly on large, fast multi hulls.
Peyron spent 110 days at sea alone during the first sailing
of the Vendee Globe. He finished 2nd.
In 1999 Peyron had a superbly successful sailing season. In
August he skippered his 60-foot trimaran Fujicolour to a new record
in the 605-mile Fastnet race averaging 14.96 knots. Starting in
October and finishing in November, Peyron and one other sailed
Fujicolour to a victory in the Transat Jacques Vabre. Here they
averaged 14.81 knots while sailing over 4000 miles. Through this
career path, Peyron has become an expert at high-speed long distance
sailing, which will be the quintessence of The Race.
From Great Britain Pete Goss of Team Philips has one crewed
trip around the world sailing east to west and a solo trip around
the globe from west to east. That's well over 50,000 miles of
sailing. In addition to these voyages, Goss served as a Royal Marine.
He quit his job as a skipper for Chay Blyth's Challenge
Business to raise funds for an Open 50 for the Vendee Globe.
During the 1996-97 edition of this race, Goss gained fame
when he rescued fellow sailor Raphael Dinelli. After that Goss
sailed onto to finish his second circumnavigation.
American skipper Cam Lewis of Team Adventure has accumulated
approximately 150 days of large multi hull sailing and racing along
with mono hull time from dinghies to sleds.
In 1993 Lewis sailed on Commodore Explorer the first boat to
sail around the world in less than 80 days. Lewis was one of 5 sailors
on board.
Captain James Cook began his sailing career in Britain's
merchant marine as an apprentice. After 9 years he volunteered for
the Navy.
One of Cook's major Navy tasks was surveying Newfoundland.
In total he spent 7 years surveying Newfoundland, St. Pierre and
Miquelon off the east coast of Canada.
Charles Clerke sailed on all of Cook's voyages. Early in
his career Clerke saw combat time in the sailing navy. Once as he
was at his battle station on one of the ships masts, the mast was
shot away. No worries, as Clerke survived. He began as a 25 year
old masters mate on the first voyage. Towards the end of this voyage
Clerke was promoted to officer rank. By Cook's last voyage Clerke
commanded the Discovery and had sailed and discovered the Pacific
ocean.
In addition to his sailing crew, Cook took along a specialist
for his voyage, an astronomer Charles Green who had already sailed
across the Atlantic. The catamarans of the Race will also take a
person to perform a specialist/non sailing task. This specialist
will be an on board yachtsman-cameraman. His task will be to send
5 minutes of video footage per day. On Code 1 this will be Stéphane
Peyron who has wind surfed across the Atlantic.
The variety of preparation includes sailing high speed modern
multi hulls, serving in the military, sailing around the word alone
and with crew, serving as a training skipper and more. These ventures
have netted the exploring and racing skippers thousands of high sea
miles. Their eras and methods may vary, but their preparation was
primarily on the water. If an opportunity came to sail they took.
If there wasn't an opportunity to sail they made it.
There was not a lot of academic or on land preparation. For
all, sailing was the thing!
These sailors grew to their positions of power and
responsibility through thousands of hours of mastering an ancient
craft- seamanship. For Cook and Clerke their preparation took them
to unknown parts of the world. For Goss, Lewis and Peyron it will
take them around the world on The Race class catamarans, which are
largely unknown.
Whether the Age of Sail or the Space Age preparation for
fantastic sailing endeavors is the same- take advantage of the watery
planet of earth by sailing on it.
These hours on the water will be especially crucial for the
skippers of The Race class catamarans. According to Team Adventure
crew, Halvard Mabire, "None of the teams knows exactly what is going
to happen....each trying to prepare as best they can for what is in
store."
With minimal preparation time and a narrow feedback loop to
go on, the hours spent sailing will help the skippers develop boats
and crews on the fly.
Inevitably new methods are pieced together from old ones.
Peyron, Lewis and Goss will have a full test in fusing new methods
of seamanship as they sail the watery planet in a new type of vessel.
Racers/Explorers Trivia Contest: Online at:
http://www.torresen.com/therace/trivia2.htm