SORC

Why on earth do they do it on their own?

For most of us normal yachties the prospect of spending 20 to 30 nights alone at sea is so far off the scale as to be impossible to contemplate. A recent gathering of single-handers provided an ideal opportunity to study these rare creatures in their natural habitat before they dispersed for their hibernation. How exactly do you spot a solo sailor amongst the crowd at the bar? Clearly they are possessed by a serious affliction and you are right to be worried about contagion. Do they have any distinguishing features that would help to identify and avoid this very rare breed? It is certainly not easy. In my experience they come in all shapes and sizes.

 
For example take the slim young lady skipper, blonde hair worn high and formal. There is a hint of ballet training in the light frame and balanced poise. She brings to mind an image of Clare Francis, the famous sailor turned author of a bygone era. Or the gentle giant from Holland who towers head and shoulders above the scrum, 6 foot 5 inches, 200 pounds of best Dutch beef, if the Dutch played rugby he would be in the team. Both are clean-shaven.
 
For sure the skippers are not the ones wearing the blue reefers, club ties and cream slacks: they are the committee members, vital to the running of the race. These enthusiastic, very hard working and unpaid volunteers cruise majestically among the throng of garrulous competitors sipping large gin and tonics and thinking up new rules for the next race.
 
Is it a macho thing, this solo ocean racing? If so why is it that two of the biggest boats were sailed by the two most petite lady skippers? And the Dutch giant raced the smallest boat? They will claim that solo yacht racing is a cerebral sport like chess or stamp collecting, brawn is not required and if it is you must be doing something wrong so have a nap and try again. Soloists have raised napping to an art form, the best at sleeping wins. What other sport is there where the contestants out sleep each other?
 
What motivates this excessive risk taking? There is no prize money and very little publicity, the rewards are all internalised, their skill and exceptional sailing achievements are recognised only by a small band of fellow sufferers. The understanding is that risks to life and limb are in reality quite low. There have been few fatalities and safety standards are always improving. It is not up there in the high mortality rates with Equestrian Six Day eventing or motor cycling’s Isle of Man TT racing but the novice may feel like that on the first night.
 
Undoubtedly the cost of entering races is considerable. Being owner-drivers, funds drain out of savings accounts at an alarming rate as the invoices arrive. Houses are re-mortgaged, great aunts hasten their own demise, lottery ticket sales surge. Begging letters by the hundred are binned in potential sponsors shredders as the sailing business predictably turns it’s back on one of its most marketable assets.
 
Young skippers have to give up good jobs to compete and there may be others aghast to discover, on their return to work, they have been ‘down sized’ after 2 month’s absence in the middle of the recession to end all recessions. It is a common theme suitable for a country and western song lyric, ‘he lost his dog, his job, his house, his money, his wife took the kids….. but he kept his yacht!’ 
 
The overriding qualification for solo sailing is advanced age, being a paid up member of the ‘Last Chance’ brigade. Time is running out as the years of procrastination accumulate towards a crisis. Bus–pass holders make up almost half of most solo fleets. This makes economic sense of course, as yachts are so expensive that it takes many seasons to trade up to a boat big enough and strong enough to take on the ocean. Grandpa, casting off the responsible years of family and school fees, enjoys a financial second wind. The prospect of dying and not knowing becomes more scary than the prospect of going.
 
Chasing a dream, to be part of the legend, brings this band of rookies to the oceans edge to do battle with the North Atlantic. As if the North Atlantic could be less bothered? It just goes on being its usual enormous, awesome, indifferent self, doing what oceans have done for millennia, that is keeping Scotland free of pack ice, what else?
 
The legend of the oldest race goes back 49 years to 1960 when men were made of sterner stuff and by gum they had to be. The first Trans Atlantic race took between 40 and 60 days to cross the Atlantic solo. The stated objective of this sporting event was to advance the techniques and equipment of solo sailing so now the youngest ever male (18 years) and female (23 years) skippers can cross in half that time. That’s the trouble with young people, no respect, they just toddle across like it was a Sunday school outing. Where is the drama, the passion, how are they going to get a book deal out of 21 days and no problems? 
 
What would the founding fathers make of this lot, they seem to have it too easy these days? Not for them the sextant juggling, chasing the sun through storm wracked clouds and the logarithmic gymnastics of the spherical triangle. Ex president Bill Clinton is not well known for his services to yachting but he did the sport one big favour on his way out of the White House when on Mayday 2000 he switched off the deliberate ‘selective availability’ error in the global positioning system (GPS). Yachties ever since have navigated with the precision of a surface to air guided missile, and at 6 knots you can see how that would be useful.
The art of tuning a cat’s whisker on the wireless has been lost in the mists of time as the Iridium phone connection brings Mum and Dad into the cabin with the clarity and convenience of normal conversation. There’s not even Test Match cricket on short wave of the BBC World Service to endure, all gone! What about enjoying a pipe of Condor ‘ready rubbed’ and a glass of fine claret under the spray hood to celebrate a good day’s run? You can forget that. We are all athletes now.     
 
Jerry Freeman

 

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