Another day another record… Honey (centre) celebrates with the rest of the crew of Groupama 3 after setting a new round-the-world record in 2010 to win the Trophée Jules Verne. Honey concedes his command of French was much better at the end than at the start
Persistent shift But instead of cruising around the world with his new wife Stan co-founded Sportvision and brought out his most famous gamechanger: the yellow first- down line for American Football. Over the next six years similar Sportvision innova- tions would also help TV viewers follow baseball and then Nascar. By 2005, when Mike Sanderson needed a
navigator for the Volvo Ocean Race, a 50- year-old Stan was finally able to say yes to racing around the world. ‘I’d been asked a number of times before, and I’d always had to say no… we’d just raised venture capital, or just founded a company, and I couldn’t responsibly take off a year and a half. ‘It’s like joining the army, you’re gone 14
months. But Sportvision had got to a point where I could leave. And this was a once in a lifetime opportunity; the last time I was ever going to get asked. That was great, to win it on the first go. A fabulous team.’ As navigator he had too much to do
during the stopovers to travel home, so Sally flew out to join him – even though she didn’t sell her own business until 2008. She also put together an all-female team for the 2005 Transpac and skippered/ navigated their Cal 40 to second in class. After winning the Volvo Stan kept on
saying yes and helped set a slew of records: fastest Transatlantics on both multihull and monohull; fastest 24-hour run on the monohull Comanche (which broke the record previously set by Stan and team on ABN Amro). In 2010 he joined Franck Cammas on Groupama 3 and set a new circumnavigation record (48 days and change). And he also joined the World Sailing Oceanic and Offshore Committee, putting his rare combination of technical savvy and communication skills to work improving the sport.
Down the final run In 2014 Stan and Sally took off from San
64 SEAHORSE
Francisco Bay for several years of ‘com- muter cruising’ down the west coast of the US and Mexico. In the spring of 2019 they transited the Panama Canal and hurried up the east coast all the way to Newport, arriv- ing just in time to haul the boat and fly home for the winter. The plan was to sail the 2020 Newport Bermuda Race, but when that blue-water classic was cancelled they rein- stalled several hundred pounds of cruising gear (including that anchor windlass) and headed down east to Maine for two and a half happy months of gunkholing. They are full of cruising plans for 2021
too – despite pandemic uncertainties. ‘We’re hoping that the Canadians will have us,’ Stan says. ‘If so, we’ll go to Nova Scotia and Newfoundland – we’re really looking forward to that.’ Asked what they are most proud of, Stan
first differentiates between the two halves of his life: ‘On the technical side, the birth of vehicle navigation and the yellow first- down line… it’s fun to have been involved in things that had a big impact on people. ‘In sailing… the Volvo is certainly a high-
light. And setting the Jules Verne record.’ The dimples reappear when he adds: ‘And sailing with Sally is a wonderful thing.’ Sally is justifiably proud of her work
with the Safety at Sea committees at both US Sailing and World Sailing. ‘But I don’t consider myself completely over the top about safety; when we sail we do the rea- sonable thing, but we’re not crazy. But I like communicating things that I think are important.’ (Did I mention her master’s degree in creative writing?) Helping sailors learn from sailing fatali-
ties requires tactful but firm editing, because the easiest out for coroners is to tell survivors that, as Stan puts it, ‘Oh, he was dead when he hit the water,’ because they don’t want people to feel terrible for the rest of their lives. ‘But in fact boats are a deadly weapon. Sally was the first one who wrote an incident report that had the
balls to say “they’re being hit in the head with the bow”. To say “you killed him”. It’s a whole new understanding of how these people are dying.’ Stan’s also working on safety issues,
including a long overdue update of indus- try specifications for keel attachments. ‘We [World Sailing] have got to take this stuff on – because who else is going to do it?’
Post-race debrief When I ask about regrets, they are both – for the first time – at a loss for words. Then Stan remembers asking his retiring father that same question; ‘He said he should have said “yes” more often. I took that to heart. There’ve been times when I thought, this might be crazy… like setting out to do the Jules Verne with nine French guys that I’d never met, and I don’t speak French! But invariably I would think back and say, yeah, I’m glad I said yes.’ Sally wishes she’d been able to accept
more invitations too. But then she switches gears to something much more specific: that time ‘at the start of the [505] Worlds, when I went between the mark and the extension of the line…’ Stan claims what he calls his ‘senior
tour’ as a professional navigator is coming to an end, and then casually mentions that he plans to navigate Wild Oats to Hobart next time around – ‘if they let Americans into Australia,’ he qualifies. ‘I’ve beaten them four out of six for first
to finish, so they finally said… OK!’ There’s another maxi project too. But
what deepens those dimples again is more cruising with Sally – where he can continue to admire her helmsmanship. ‘We both respect each other’s skills,’ Sally replies. ‘I navigated to Hawaii, so I know Stan’s way better than me and respect how hard it is.’ ‘Having sorted out how to compete
together in a dinghy at a worlds and not kill each other…’ Stan shrugs, ‘it makes the rest of your marriage and life easy.’ q
FRANCOIS VAN MALLEGHEM/DPPI
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