News Around the World
Not a particularly pretty sight but the one that greeted 48 year old Scott Donaldson every day for almost two months as he paddled 1,500nm across the Tasman Sea going from Coffs Harbour in Australia to Ngamotu in his native New Zealand. As well as the record, the tough Kiwi also picked up honorary life membership of the Lord Howe Island Aquatic Club, having stopped on the island for a week shortly after the start of the voyage while he waited for a powerful storm to pass through
SH: What do you think of the Bic’s freestyle rounds? RC: I like it, it’s great fun and it’s a way of not making the regatta too heavy when they are young. They will have enough pressure in their future lives and not just in sailing! Sailing for young people should entertain them – but to do that we should focus on teaching them techniques that let them have fun in all conditions. That’s far more important than the detail stuff. For example, try to get the kids out more in strong winds – of
course in a safe environment – to experience the sea properly and learn to respect it and get to know how to be comfortable in really harsh conditions. To be confident and safe and less dependent on other people. That’s so important if they are ever to progress properly in the sport as a whole – not just in dinghies. They can do it in an O’pen Bic because it does not fill up with
water, you can sail safely (and much faster) in big wind conditions, big waves, and if the child capsizes it’s easy for him or her to straighten up and move on. This makes the coaches’ task much easier because if you take
a group of six kids and one dumps, it is much easier to stop the other boats, right the Bic and carry on. On the other hand… using the Optimist, when one boat capsizes the coach has to pretty much ignore the rest of the group for 15 or 20 minutes while he helps sort out the boat and looks after the sailor. I think that kids need that heavy-air confidence to really enjoy
sailing. Confidence with speed in strong conditions: the worst that can happen to them is falling overboard! Once they have overcome that fear they will start to really enjoy and love the sport. For sure that’s the goal of our junior programmes at home. SH: And will we have the pleasure of seeing you racing again? RC: I have competed a lot, as you know… especially when I was younger, and I always enjoyed it immensely. But now I get more pleasure from helping with the junior programmes. I get a lot out of helping the kids make progress and build a solid foundation as ‘real sailors’, not just junior sailors. For me it’s much more fun now than going out there to race.
Especially if you go out to compete without being prepared… which I would not do. I raced at a high level and racing ‘badly’ for me is not fun. I have a better time these days helping the kids. And the going’s usually a little easier! Carlos Pich
20 SEAHORSE
NEW ZEALAND Readers of this column may recall February’s feature (issue 456) about Scott Donaldson preparing for his third attempt to be the first person to make a solo crossing of the Tasman Sea by kayak… It is sometimes said that if criminals were subjected to the living conditions of offshore racing yachts the punishment would be out- lawed as a breach of human rights. By comparison the self-inflicted ordeal Scott Donaldson endured on his solo kayak expedition across the Tasman would excite condemnation as brutal torture. Cast upon an unruly expanse of ocean totally at the mercy of the
elements, alone on a tiny craft with a coffin-sized sleeping pod, made to work at huge physical output for 16-20 hours a day on a minimal diet of cold, tasteless calories, with no relief from the con- stant noise and motion and with a real and present threat of death. As a job description, it would not attract many applications. And Scott did not have the excuse of ignorance. By painful per-
sonal experience he knew exactly what he was in for when he pushed away from the shore at Coffs Harbour, Australia and started paddling east, bound for New Zealand on a mission that had already claimed human life and had never been achieved. He had already tried twice before. On his second attempt he came within 45nm of success before he had to give up in a rising storm after a week of battling headwinds and counter-currents in a compromised kayak within sight of the snow-capped cone of Mt Taranaki. On his third attempt Mt Taranaki remained hidden behind heavy
cloud for the entire approach, until at last on 2 July Scott gave one final stroke of his paddle to propel his kayak through the surf onto Ngamotu Beach. It was just after 9pm on a mid-winter night, but hundreds of wellwishers waited patiently to applaud his landing on the dark beach. He had been at sea for 61d 10h. The straightline distance is 1,120nm but he covered more than 1,500, an average of just over 24nm paddled each day. Heavily bearded, he hugged his wife, Sarah, and his support
team. ‘You stink, Dad,’ complained his son, Zac, with unabridged frankness. Scott laughs: ‘Kids! Their honesty is just fantastic. I wish we could all be like that. Brutal.’ Shortly after addressing the media – ‘I am knackered’ – Scott
was at Zac’s side in New Plymouth Hospital. Hours of waiting on the cold beach had culminated in the eight-year-old having a severe asthma attack, bringing into stark relief one of the objectives of
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SCOTT DONALDSON!
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