Not the only photo from onboard Flyer II during the 1981-82 Whitbread Race that launched a career but certainly the one that is best known around the world and that is still most associated with that edition of the race. Taken from the end of the spinnaker pole when peeling in the Southern Ocean, at the time images like this were still very rare and usually taken on a balmy day in the Caribbean, not pounding downwind with the water temperature around zero in a racing situation where a successful recovery would be impossible. Opposite: here at Seahorse we have often featured Onne’s work on our covers (including this month) but we are not the only ones…
the old man shapes up and changes his attitude. ‘They’re exhausted, and there’s no way
in hell we will go up against Ceramco with six new guys. A day later Conny came to me and said, “Thanks for the heads up.” I remember listening to the rumble and say- ing to the guys, “Stick around, I think this is going to be fine.” And straight away there were volunteers to help clean up the boat.’ That gave the sailors crucial time to
rest – and, of course, get into a spot of trouble ashore. ‘Our crew boss got pretty hammered and was walking naked through the parking lot in the hotel and we just grabbed him because we could see the blue lights. We said, “Officer, we’ve got this; I promise you we will lock him in the room and you won’t see him again.”’ Another port, another shoreside memory. And another leery chuckle.
Leg 3: Auckland to Mar del Plata On Boxing Day Flyer II left Auckland for a 6,000-mile battle with Ceramco – and a skipper who took a much less active sailing role. ‘Conny sat under the hard aluminium dodger in his woolies and did his cross- words. Whenever he wanted to chat on the radio I’d fire up the engine to get the amper- age up for the SSB to reach England, and he’d give our position. But he loved chatting with me in Dutch about what I was doing.’ During the layover Onne had picked up
a 16mm film camera that he now calls ‘barely adequate’. He wasn’t allowed to take that camera to the top of the rig,
52 SEAHORSE
though, because the boss was scared it might get damaged – and they’d be left with nothing. ‘Conny was very much a man who loved publicity,’ Onne says. ‘He always gave the newspapers their
interviews and he loved the pictures I was getting. At that point I was also working with Seahorse, The Telegraph, The Times in London and The New York Times.’ It was on that second Southern Ocean
leg that Onne captured his most iconic photos. ‘The daylight was longer, because it was summer. We hit 30kt thundering down these long swells, 300ft apart and 30ft in height. So much momentum you’d then just roll up the back of the next one. We could do three or four waves like that. ‘Of course when you then slowed down
to 15kt in a trough the loads went through the roof and she’d start to rock and roll fairly alarmingly. Just about boom in the water, but you couldn’t risk that because you’d break something. Then water would start to trickle over the bow and you’re like, hold on. ‘She had a very flat forefoot that you
could hear slapping the waves. Just insane.’ Massive arcs of spray hit the boom, which was locked in place by its big preventer; while the narrow IOR transom spouted a rooster tail. ‘I got some pretty cool film, and stills too. It was very exciting. ‘You do your spell grinding, your spell
trimming sheet and the pole brace on the other side. And then it was your turn to drive – that was what you dreamed of.’ After the leg finished the The New York
Times quoted Conny: ‘We’ve had a day of 327 miles and out of that for three hours we didn’t have a sail up because we were repairing them. So even with downtime we did six days in a row of 300-miles-plus.’ Though the official Whitbread history
says that Flyer and Ceramco rounded Cape Horn only five miles apart Flyer’s official photographer recalls that much anticipated moment as completely underwhelming; at night, with winds light enough to fly a three-quarter ounce kite. Onne also doesn’t remember knowing whether Ceramco – or anyone else – was ahead of them (and the official record doesn’t say). ‘In those days you could just keep your trap shut and say “My radio was broken” when you wanted to be quiet about the breeze. ‘We were meant to check in every day,
but what are they gonna do? For four or five days we kept radio silence.’ It was only when they took the Argentine finish gun that ‘we realised, right on! We beat them.’ (Ceramco finished seven hours later). Onne sent his film off for processing and
then joined the younger crewmembers for ‘an absolute blast chasing skirt; because none of us were married’. He shrugs, smiles. ‘My sisters just hated me for that shit, but I had a mission in my life; I wanted to ocean race. And if you have steady girl- friends that doesn’t work. You were heroes when you came in on those ocean racers. It’s just fun and games, good times.’ Halfway through their month in
Argentina Onne told Conny that he had finished his boat work. ‘He says, take a
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