Simon Walker
Simon Walker
across bags below change covered deck dry due four grab guys half high hours immense lay lost means people seven side sleeping wake walk watch waves wind
There's a watch change at two in the morning, ... So seven people who have been on deck for four hours in immense waves and windchill get to go down below. They're covered in sleet. They're bruised. They're exhausted. And they've got four hours before they're due back on deck. They clamber out of their dry suits. They lay out their moldy sleeping bags on the bunks on the high side of the boat, and they get in. They've already used up 30 minutes. After another half hour, the wind shifts, and the guys on deck need to tack the boat. That means the guys down below have to wake up, grab their sleeping bags, walk across the boat, and lay out on the other side. Now they've lost even more sleep.
blow finish goal later race realistic sail setting sooner
But I also had to be realistic -- and setting a goal like 'win the race' just isn't credible, ... So I said to the all-or-nothing guy, 'To finish first, first we have to finish. We have to sail smart. If we go for broke, sooner or later we'll blow up.'
boats evolving exactly operation race single start
Some of the other boats did everything exactly the same way, from start to finish. On our boat, there wasn't a single operation at the end of the race that we did the same way as in the beginning. You were learning, changing, and evolving all the time. If you weren't, you were dead.
barely mike race talked
Mike and I barely talked during the race,
handle loneliness thank
No one was getting the whole picture, thank God, ... But confiding in each of them was the only way for me to handle the loneliness of command, which is very, very real.
club determined factor last left motivating ride season team throughout
Somerset is the only club that I ever wanted to ride for this year. Being left out of the team last season made me even more determined to get my team place back, and that was the motivating factor throughout last year.