Left: Bernard Moitessier’s decision to sail on to the Pacific rather than complete the original Golden Globe is the most famous case of ‘re-entry aversion’, but a more poignant example is that of 47-year-old British carpenter Bill Vincent, who dived off Heath Insured (opposite) in perfect conditions during the final leg of the 1992 British Steel Challenge and then swam away from his yacht before disappearing. Various possible reasons were cited at the inquest but it was widely accepted that the prospect of returning from a life changing experience at sea to a mundane (and possibly complex) life ashore was the main driver behind his tragic decision
jams of daily living. Booze will probably enter the picture and, just like the soldier back home from the battlefield, they will be looking for their next battlefield. Is it any wonder some of these sailors
and watch the water slip past the hull. Then one day, around two weeks into
the leg, I noticed something different. There was an empty ringing in my brain. The clatter and banging and the traffic and jams of life that had stuffed my brain with clutter were no longer there. Two weeks at sea without anything but the sun and wind and water, and the noise that I had not really noticed before had finally receded, and the silence was deafening. I could not remember one single advertising jingle. There were no annoying songs bouncing around up there on an endless loop. There was just silence, a kind of purity that I am sure only infants experience regularly. Suddenly the idea of sitting in front of a
TV being battered by the evening news was abhorrent. I had no clue if there was a war going on (I was pretty sure that there was) or if the famine in Africa was getting worse (I was pretty sure that it was) or if some corrupt politician was going to be indicted (no comment here). I didn’t care about any of it and the feeling was addic- tive. It’s very rare that we get to clean our own brains out and have clarity of thought for a change. The sailors competing in this current
edition of the Volvo Ocean Race are expe- riencing clarity of thought. They may not know it but they are. For the past eight months they have been on a single mission. To sail around the world. There has been a focus, a plan, and each and every day each and every sailor knows what to focus on and what the plan is. It’s simple. Their lives are stripped bare.
There is sailing, eating, sleeping, trying to keep reasonably clean and that’s about all of it. There are no meetings, no office politics, no pretty co-workers flirting, no traffic on the freeway and no evening tele- vision full of bad news. Very few people get to experience life stripped bare but a race around the world does that and the feeling is incredible. Also, how many of us have lofty goals?
Many probably, and working toward a goal is another exhilarating experience, especially as you get closer to reaching it.
The Volvo Ocean Race sailors, they have a pretty lofty goal. They need to race their boat hard around the world and each and every day they get closer to attaining the goal, until the boat crosses the finish line of the last leg of the race and the goal has been reached. Pretty cool stuff, if you ask me. There is something else to add to this.
No matter how hard we try to live clean and healthy lives on land it’s a tricky busi- ness. We pass the local bakery and looking back at us through the glass window are an array of delicious-looking foods, none of which are good for us. Further on we pass a pub and hear the merry clinking of glasses and the pull to stop in ‘just for one’ is hard to resist. You know what I mean? There is ice cream in the freezer after all, and it needs to be eaten… If you are a sailor in the Volvo Ocean
Race there are no such temptations. You eat good and nutritious food and plenty of it because you need the energy. Unlike most of us (well, some of us), who hit the gym for 45 minutes a day to get our exercise, the sailors are exercising pretty much all day every day. Even if you are not on watch grinding a winch you are down below hanging on in your sleep, and all of it accounts for you getting fitter and stronger each day. My mother used to say that there was
nothing like some sunshine and fresh air to make you feel strong and healthy. Let me tell you, one thing is for sure. The Volvo sailors are getting plenty of fresh air, if not as much sunshine as they would like. Plus, and this is a big one, there is no booze to cloud one’s mind. So let’s go back to re-entry. When it’s all
said and done these sailors will have had close to nine months of fresh air, exercise, a focus and that one ingredient every soldier who has been in battle knows and craves: the Brotherhood of Camaraderie. When they cross the finish line a lot of that washes away. For many of the sailors it will be back to the grind just like the rest of us. They will need another job. They will need to reintroduce themselves to their children. They will need to deal with the traffic and
have done numerous Volvo Ocean Races? That’s their battlefield and the addiction is the same. Their wives and children won’t be able to relate. How can they? How can they know what it’s like to be in the deep south, the moon glistening on a steely gray ocean, a wave coming in from behind, the boat rising then falling as you careen down the face of a cresting Southern Ocean swell? They can’t and there will always be that gap in the relationship. It causes problems. I speak from experi-
ence. My own marriage ended after an around-the-world race but I think it was not so much from us not being able to relate. I think it was because my wife got sick and tired of me being around so much. Perhaps the greatest example of re-entry
aversion was when the French sailor Bernard Moitessier, sailing singlehanded, non-stop in the Golden Globe Race, decided that returning the France was not for him. Instead he sent a message to The Times in London by firing it with a sling- shot onto the deck of a passing ship which stated: ‘parce que je suis heureux en mer et peut-être pour sauver mon ame’ (‘because I am happy at sea and perhaps to save my soul’). Instead of finishing the race and returning to France he abandoned and stayed in the south, once more passing under Cape Town, Australia and New Zealand before finally stopping in Tahiti. There was a comment made by Duran
Duran lead man Simon Le Bon at the end of the 1985/86 Whitbread. Simon and the two managers of Duran Duran raced most of the way around the world on the maxi Drum. This was 1986 and Duran Duran were at the height of their fame. It had been a meteoric rise from bar band to international superstars. The Whitbread was over and a reporter
asked Simon for his impression of what he had just accomplished. ‘For the first time in my life I have something to measure my life against,’ he said. ‘Something honest and pure by which I can measure every- thing else that I have already done with my life, or will do in the future.’ These sailors will also have something
by which they can measure their lives but, as I said, re-entry is going to be a bitch. q
SEAHORSE 47
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