Warmer times and Van der Wal shoots the ID48 fleet in Miami in 1999. The ID48 was an early and, in retrospect, successful attempt at a big one-design capable of both regatta and distance racing – designed by Reichel-Pugh, the boats were even fitted out with a water ballast system, but this did add weight and was rarely used. They delivered very close racing, were strongly built and are still to be seen competing under IRC and ORC. Team Seahorse still has a prized trophy won in the class at this regatta – though later forced to grovel to ID48 manager John Bertrand for thoroughly destroying his mainsail in the final race on our expensive (and borrowed) yacht
Kodachrome couldn’t be processed in
South Africa so all the pictures he’d snapped en route were shipped back to the USA. Once they were safely despatched Onne ‘put my overall on and helped clean the bottom of the boat’. When SAIL received the photos ‘it was
just raves… “Holy shit, beautiful stuff, we got a cover out of it straight away!”’ And then they sent me another brick of
Kodachrome and said from now on “you have to shoot 20 rolls every leg”. I said, it’s impossible. It’s the same boat.’ But those instructions helped him to develop what is now a legendary eye for the distinctive sail- ing shot. The 20 rolls were filled without difficulty.
Leg 2: Cape Town to Auckland Onne had already experienced the South- ern Ocean, and he’d logged a ton of miles on Flyer II, but this was the first time the crew had really pushed their boat hard downwind. Onne remembers trying to sleep, ‘thundering down these bloody waves, often doing 25-30kt.’ He compares the noise to a train blasting by, deep within the London Tube. (The official leg sum- mary states: ‘Flyerwas forced to slow after two violent broaches in the Southern Ocean weakened the rigging.’) There were no ice gates in those days so
the boats dipped well south. ‘We saw a lot of big bergs. Snow on deck, and the South- ern Lights – pretty exciting shit. And that
50 SEAHORSE
cold. When you had to do a peel you couldn’t wear gloves because of the shackles.’ But Flyer II did sport several innovations designed to ease sail changes… ‘including being the first Whitbread racer to go with a luff groove instead of hanks’. Out of 14 spinnakers (sic) Onne remem-
bers the smallest one best; it was ‘a chicken chute, narrow shouldered with wire luffs; balls to the wall! We always had a kite up, no matter what the breeze was’. They also had two bloopers – and a
sewing machine that slid into the main saloon table, operated by a young Grant Dalton… ‘I became very good mates with Grant; you sort of click with certain people, and he and I spent hours on the rail chatting. He was on the [sewing] machine a lot. Funny, to see where Grant is today…’ It was a stressful leg for the entire crew –
especially the skipper. ‘The old man was driving a lot and not sleeping well. He didn’t stand a watch, but he was floating – always around.’ It was when Onne was sitting down below off-watch, reading and trying to stay warm, that the doctor came down ‘in an absolute tizz and says “the old man’s had a heart attack”.’ Fortunately they were able to stabilise Conny and keep him alive… After about five or six days of rest,
Onne continues: ‘The old man was in good enough shape to chat. He called us all together and said, “I’m not doing so well. And nobody talk about this to anybody. When we get ashore, when we’re on the
radio… we’ll keep quiet.”’ Conny didn’t want Peter Blake (sailing his third Whit- bread on Ceramco, their toughest line- honours competitor) to find out that ‘we’ve got a handicapped old man onboard, because he’ll push even harder’. They did contact an Australian doctor,
who told Conny he’d have to get off the boat in Auckland. ‘And the old man said, “Over my dead body. If I die you throw me over the side. And that will be the first Peter Blake knows of a problem onboard: when the old man goes flying by, face down.”’ Conny stayed in his bunk for the rest of
the leg. The rest of the crew? ‘We just kept hammering down. We knew the boat so well – he didn’t have to say “time to gybe, or put a reef in, or go to a smaller kite.”’ Remembering the skipper trying to bark
commands from his bunk, Onne shakes his head: ‘Crazy stuff. But we just beat Ceramco [into Auckland] – and she was a very fast boat.’
Crew revolt Flyer II won line honours again, though Peter Blake’s team took the corrected time win into their home town. Conny was in pain, and he took it out on his tired crew; Onne claims half were already planning to get off the boat as soon as they hit the dock in Auckland. When Conny refused to hire any outside help Onne reached out to Conny’s girlfriend. ‘I told her we were going to lose the core of our crew unless
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100 |
Page 101 |
Page 102 |
Page 103 |
Page 104 |
Page 105 |
Page 106 |
Page 107 |
Page 108 |
Page 109 |
Page 110 |
Page 111 |
Page 112 |
Page 113 |
Page 114 |
Page 115 |
Page 116 |
Page 117 |
Page 118 |
Page 119 |
Page 120
