Hurricane Michael and the Compassionate Captain

If I suggested that you spend nine months away from home and family and sail 32,000 miles around the world the hard way around (ie against prevailing winds and currents), what would you say? And suppose I then told you that eight of your crew had never sailed before and, by the way, Hurricane Michael would be waiting to greet you?

Well, that’s what happened to adventurer, author and - to some - mad person Manley Hopkinson.  As one of the skippers in the 2000-01 BT Global Challenge, the world’s toughest yacht race, Manley guided his 40-ton 72-foot steel cutter and a part-trained but very spirited Team Large through storms, doldrums and everything in between.  They took everything in their stride until they came face-to-face with Hurricane Michael, an event that would test Manley’s sailing expertise and leadership skills to the limit.

Show notes: https://www.battingthebreeze.com/hurricane-michael-and-the-compassionate-captain

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Transcript

Manley 0:00

And for all of the crew, there are times when you forget just how big it was, the thing that we did. And we raced around the world the wrong way. And eight of my crew had never sailed before in their life. It was the toughest yacht race in the world. My early years were... definitely fashioned by the fact that my father was Navy so every two and a half years we moved, so I don't come from one place. There's no village that is home. And so, you know, even the concept of the word'to settle' I found offensive because... for me, it's just a rolling stone in that respect.

Steve 1:15

This is Manley Hopkinson. He's been on a pretty colourful life journey; adventurer, author, thought leader and founder of the Compassionate Leadership Academy, which is something we'll come on to. The seeds of that journey were planted a long way back...

Manley 1:35

One particular example which my mother likes to share when apparently I was quite a lively child, which I think is a euphemism for being a real pain......and I was slamming a door, she was baking a cake. And she wanted to hit me over the head with the spoon, but that would have ruined the cake mixture. So she just said,"Manly, if you carry on doing what you're doing, you're going to have to accept the consequences of your actions and redeem the situation". I think I was about six or seven years old. So I had no idea what on earth that meant, so I stopped. And later my mum sat me down and said,"Manley, do you understand what I said?" I said,"Well, not really". She said, What I mean is that if you've chosen to do something, then whatever the outcome is, you have to accept the consequences"."You can't blame anybody else. You can't blame the universe. It's you". What I actually heard was,"You're free to do anything you want to do in the world as long as you accept the consequences, and if you're in trouble, you sort yourself out.

Steve 2:36

So by the time Manley had finished at school, the mantra of,"You're free to do anything you want in the world..." was firmly engrained. Following in his grandfather's footsteps, he went to university to study architecture, discovered that he didn't want to be an architect, so left early to follow in his father's footsteps and joined the Royal Navy. After a very fruitful four years, Manley was accepted into the Royal Marines, but just before joining, he couldn't resist taking up another offer... with the Hong Kong Marine Police.

Manley 3:16

It was a really exciting time. You're taught the language, so you can speak Cantonese. Unfortunately, I've lost much of it now. A little bit of law, which is quite handy as a policeman, and then off you go. So I did a tour there, then stayed in Hong Kong and had a marine servicing boat building business, which was called Manley Marine, which actually transliterates into Cantonese as,"Man Lei", which means 10,000 miles......and the Chinese like lucky names, so it meant my work was good for 10,000 miles if I worked on your boat, which is a great thing. So that was a... quite an adventure.

Steve 3:49

By the early 90's, Manley was on the move again via Papua New Guinea, the Royal Navy once again, just in time for the first Gulf War, and then settling into a career as a professional sailor.

Manley 4:03

...and skippered boats all over the world. Some super yachts and some not super at all, with a few near misses here and there, and almost sinkings off Casablanca trying to cross the Atlantic. Lots and lots of adventures, and that actually culminated in me being a skipper in an amazing race around the world called the'BT Global Challenge'.

Steve 4:32

The BT global Challenge, the world's toughest yacht race. 32,000 miles of sailing, nine months in all and set up in 1989 by an amazing chap called Sir Chay Blyth, a Scottish sailor of some repute famous for being the first person to single-handedly sail around the world... the wrong way?

Manley 4:57

...makes you sound like an idiot,"What do you mean the wrong way"? What we mean by that is, we're heading west. So leaving the UK, going west across the Atlantic towards Boston and the States, so against the Gulf Stream, against the prevailing winds. And when we go round Cape Horn, we're going west about. I mean, more people have been into space than have raced round the world the wrong way. It's something you just don't do. In Nelson's era of square riggers, they'd actually rather spend months sailing round the whole of the underneath the Indias going east about than trying to go west about. It's such a hard thing to do.

Steve 5:32

So you set out from Southampton, across the Atlantic to Boston, then down towards South America?

Manley 5:39

So.. then you're going through the hurricane belt and hurricane season and then Buenos Aires round Cape Horn deep into the southern oceans......all the way to Wellington in New Zealand, then to... Sydney in Australia. It's a short leg, only about a week, and then deep in the southern ocean for a second time going through the Bass Strait, the top of Tasmania a brutal bit of sea all the way to Cape Town and around the Cape of Good Hope. And then from Cape Town coming back up the Atlantic to La Rochelle. And then the final leg was a short sprint; four days from La Rochelle back into Southampton. You know, an extraordinary journey in its own right. And again, always going around the world the wrong way. It was just, yeah, totally life changing.

Steve 6:20

Yeah, an absolutely gruelling and risky nine month trip. They must be pretty tough boats. Tell me a little bit about them.

Manley 6:29

There were 12 absolutely identical 72-foot, 40-ton steel yachts, even down to the number of knives and forks and spoons and cushions and bowls and plates. There was no difference from one boat to the next, an equal playing field and a pretty aggressive playing field too.

Steve 6:46

So uniquely designed with this race in mind?

Manley 6:49

Yeah, they were designed to take on the world's oceans in the hardest possible way, going against the wind, against the waves. So, they were strong, they were steel, they were designed to protect, but also they were designed in many respects to be as simple as possible. There's no fancy hydraulics and no electric winches or assistants. So everything was'mandraulic', if you like. It was only through the human power of the crew that we could trim the sails and work the boat to its best ability. And because it was a race, you're obviously trying to do that all the time. You're trying to push the boat to its limits. And in a race, which is the world's toughest one, you need a really, really strong boat. And this was that. She was an absolute beauty. Brand new, of course, fresh out of the box, which is always very nice too......and with some brilliant navigation and satellite equipment on it. But strong, strong and fast.

Steve 7:49

So that's the boat, but of course, to sail a strong, fast boat the wrong way around the world needs a strong, resilient crew?

Manley 7:58

Yeah, so one of the things that was a real honour was my crew. So each boat had... 17 crew on the boat at any one stage. You have 15 crew that went all around the world, and they were called the"core crew"... and then two crew who came on and joined for one leg of the race and left, and two new people came on board, and they were called"leggers". So 15 core crew, 12 leggers. They come from all walks of life, from all over the world. The youngest was 21, I think, when he joined. The eldest should have been 60, but lied about his age and he was 62, but no one spotted it......and literally from Australia, from Canada, and every port in between. But what was amazing, bearing in mind they're going to take on the world's toughest yacht race, Steve, is that eight of my crew had never ever sailed before in their life. And that's just brilliant. And this was Sir Chay Blyth's premise, that it's all about attitude, not ability. And he wanted to prove to the world that, you know, if you've got the people with the right attitude, ability can come. And I absolutely agree with him. The crew were extraordinary, the learning was...exponential, it really was quite fascinating.

Steve 9:06

Extraordinary indeed. Eight of the crew sailing the tough way around the world having never sailed before. And another fascinating fact about the crews is that you don't pick them. They're given to you.

Manley 9:21

The crews were selected centrally. So basically, anyone who was a crew volunteer, and they were volunteers, all walks of life, did some basic training. And then the race organizers put them up into 12 equal crews. So you had the same number of... males and females, boys and girls... people from different parts of the world......trying to look at the ability to make sure they're a balanced crew and the age, all the crews were balanced. There had to be somebody on there that... if there was a problem with the skipper, if I fell overboard or died or there was a mutiny, could take over the boat if need be. So there had to be somebody else with a qualification. And there also had to be a medic on board. We were very lucky to have a fantastic doctor on board clearly called"Bones". But one of the boats didn't actually have a doctor, they only had a vet. But, you know, it's the same thing isn't it, at the end of the day?

Steve 10:12

So the challenge for the crew... nine months and 32,000 miles of sailing. The challenge for Manley...

Manley 10:20

...was around the leadership and bringing a team of people from all over the world, different expectations, different experiences, recognizing this as a life changing odyssey for them all......and then bringing them together in a really strong team to... to do something truly, truly remarkable.

Steve 10:36

It's race day, 10th of September 2000. Day one. The new fleet of 12 72-foot steel cutters were ready. The crews were ready. Southampton Water was packed with spectator boats while helicopters with camera crew watched down from above. Emotions were high.

Manley 10:58

For many of my crew, you know, they're leaving their friends and families behind for the very, very first time in their life. And as we sail down the English Channel out of the Western Approaches into the Atlantic, you then get to a place where there's no sight of land at all. You're just surrounded by sea. Personally, I love it. But for many, it was deeply unnerving. But this first leg, a lot had to happen. It's a three week sprint across the Atlantic, against the wind, against the currents to Boston and the team had to come together. Many of the crew were learning even the basics of sailing still at this stage. But you still have to be competitive. Remember there was a film... The Perfect Storm, I think it was called with... George Clooney. And that was aired literally a week before the race started. So I said to the team,"You can't go and watch it because that's going over the Grand Banks and the Flemish Cap, which is exactly where we're sailing". And they all went to watch it, of course. And then, you know, expecting a George Clooney moment....

Steve 11:52

In case you haven't seen George Clooney's 2000 film, The Perfect Storm.... spoiler alert: things didn't end too well for George. Anyway, Manley, you were saying...

Manley 12:04

We actually had a massive storm on the Grand Banks where we hit one of our fastest speeds doing 23, 24 knots, which is almost 30 miles an hour. They're surfing down these massive waves in a 72-foot boat on the edge of control. And this was the beginning of the race. Fantastic. But we got into Boston with high expectations, actually, of coming in on the podium. With three days to go, we were lying in fourth place thinking this is just magnificent and the intent to come in first. But as it happened, we had a slight little fracas with the Gulf and an eddy that had broken off, and a bit of low pressure. So instead of coming in first out of a fleet of 12 boats, when we got there, there were 11 other boats already on the dockside, ready to receive our lines. So we ended up coming in last, but we weren't demoralized. We were now, think about it Steve, we are now the most experienced team in the race because we've been out longer than anybody else. And that experience would come to play later on, it really would, because we knew the next leg was going to be tough.

Steve 13:04

Exhausted, but with spirits high, the crew docked in Boston. The two-week break meant time to repair the boat and prepare for the next leg... to fulfill some corporate duties, keep the sponsors happy, but also to enjoy a little bit of hospitality. But very soon it's time to set sail again, heading south towards Buenos Aires. Manley mentioned that the next leg would be tough, and there was a reason for that...

Manley 13:33

We'd pass through the hurricane belt in hurricane season, and it was only days out of Boston as we approached the area that we got a first bit of warning that the hurricanes were building. There's one coming across the Atlantic. You know, a hurricane starts as a really hot day in the Sahara Desert. And the Sahara Desert gets too hot and it spits out this little burst of energy. And because of the Coriolis effect of the spinning of the earth and whatever, it just builds more and more energy......and the temperature of the water.... it's the biggest energy system on the planet. You know, one hurricane could power the whole of the United States for 24 hours if you could tap that much energy. It's absolutely extraordinary. The power of hurricanes is extraordinary. And what it does to the sea in your boat... it's a 72-foot boat. It weighs 40 tons. It's pretty big in the marina. And you need a chunky crane to lift it in and lift it out. But, in the ocean you're like a cork, you really are. You are totally at the mercy of the power of the winds and the waves, and getting that right is absolutely critical. And then we had a forecast telling us Hurricane Michael was in our path and I'm thinking,"Okay, right". So check where it was, where it's going. And you think,"Ah, we are not going to miss Hurricane Michael". And inside the hurricane, it had winds of 90 miles an hour, and the hurricane is moving at 30 miles an hour. You can't sail that fast. You can never avoid it massively.

Steve 14:59

And if there was a time for your leadership prowess to shine through, it was right now I guess?

Manley 15:05

Sometimes I hear leaders say that they always call it as it is, you know,"A spade's a spade", and you've got to say it as is. Now, I don't think that's clever. I think you have to be conscious of the language you're using. So I could have said to my crew for example,"Team, this is my first hurricane, let's attack it". But that would not have worked. It was my first hurricane, but I've been through many storms, but not actually a hurricane before. So even for me it was a first, which meant the responsibility was even more. So because I sounded confident and I came over with a bit of an idea and a plan and,"Let's attack it", my team never said to me before the hurricane,"So Skip, how many have you done before we go into this one"? Otherwise that would have been tricky.

Steve 15:48

And what's the most important thing to get across to your crew at this moment?

Manley 15:53

The most important thing to me, Steve, was that I didn't want my team to be afraid of Hurricane Michael. If you're afraid of something, then you're no longer motivated to fulfill, you're now motivated to protect. Your ability to relate and communicate is severely compromised. So somehow I had to prepare the crew mentally for the right mindset. Preparing the boat is quite simple. It's, you know,"Batten down the hatches", which is an expression that everybody understands. They're preparing the sails, preparing food. You know, you're going to be in a hurricane for some 30-odd hours, so you've got to live in it too, which is a key thing. But getting the mindset right I felt was the most important thing.

Steve 16:31

The hurricane was approaching. It was time to get that mindset sorted out.

Manley 16:40

The sea state was called'phenomenal'. Not rough, or extremely rough. It was known as'phenomenal'. What on earth does that mean? That's massive. Its breaking crest is millions of tons of water. It's confusion. There's everything like that. We were known as Team Large, and that was our name. We were known as the Large Ones. Everything we did, we gave it large. And so I spoke about the hurricane. I said,"Look team, this is a large hurricane. But we're team large. It's a marriage. What do you think?""Other teams are running away. We are going to attack Hurricane Michael. What do you think?" There was silence. But there's a real strong rationale behind that. And that's if we are going in with positive intent, then it puts our mindset in a positive way. And we had a certain strategy to do so, of keeping the wind at a really strong angle on the boat, at 90 degrees to the boat......which means that we'd come in on the side of the hurricane, no matter what the hurricane did, which was safe......and then as we come close to the eye of the hurricane, we'll tack out and it'll go past us. And the wind turns, and we get a kick in the pants, and we'll come out in first place. And that was the principle, but I had to sell it to the team.

Steve 17:46

And'sell it' Manley did. By now he knew his crew pretty well. He knew their personality types. He knew what made them tick. So he spoke to different crew members in different ways; To some, he emphasized attacking the hurricane to come out in first place. To others, he reinforced the need to look out for their fellow teammates... and for a final small group exhibiting perhaps the most fear, he gave full responsibility for sailing the boat out of the hurricane.

Manley 18:20

I told my crew before we left, I said,"Team, you can only panic if I panic first. If I'm panicking, then you're welcome to do whatever you like.""Because if I'm panicking, we are in serious, serious trouble...so, you know, if I'm cool then you're cool." And they sort of bought into that, which is rather good too. I got the commitment to attack Hurricane Michael.

Steve 18:45

So with the talking over, hatches battened down, mindsets firmly in place, the crew were ready. And just for a moment, there was an eerie silence.

Manley 18:57

As you approach the hurricane, there's a stillness, an almost oppressive stillness in the air. It's sort of the weight of the air, it's almost flattening the sea and flattening the ocean. And you can see the light changing in the horizon, just getting darker and darker. And you see flashes of lightning high in the clouds, knowing that this is coming towards you. So it's almost those little teasers of the power and scale of it all. I mean, this is a cloud the size of Brazil. You know, it's not a small thing. Then as you approach it, so the wind picks up, and it picks up and it's staring... and the noise gets bigger and bigger, the whistling in the winds. And then almost imperceptibly, the waves are just getting bigger and bigger. It's almost like watching a tree grow. You can't see it grow, but you come back a year later and it's grown. And it's exactly the same thing as a boat as you approach it, you're thinking,"Right, it's all fine". And then you notice that, you know, the waves are now crashing over the boat. Is everyone ready? Are they all strapped on? We have a harness. Let's keep on board. Because Steve, to be honest, if you fall over in those conditions, then you are dead and you endanger the life of the crew going with. And I did have a statement to my team saying,"If you fall over team, I'm not going to go and get you. It's a Darwin moment, you weren't meant to carry on......of course I would, of course you would try, but you stay on board, just stay on board.

Steve 20:23

As Manley said, the hurricane is going to be relentless for something like 30 hours. So that must mean that at some point you're battling the hurricane at night in the dark. Now you can't see.

Manley 20:44

You just hear it all. And you hear the rolling, breaking... massive wave coming towards you. And you just suddenly notice a bank of white over to one of the sides of the boat and you have seconds before it hits you. And then you get a bolt of lightning that hits the water in front of you. When it hits, everything is in stark contrast. You see absolutely everything and all you see around you are mountainous walls of waves. Then it goes pitch black because your night vision has just suddenly been blown apart too. And in that pitch blackness, you're trying to focus on getting the boat in the right angle to the wind too, so keeping disciplined. You want to keep the bow of the boat, the front of the boat, on the right angle to the waves, so you don't get knocked down and capsize.

Steve 21:34

There's a lot going on just to keep the boat upright, to avoid being consumed by the towering waves breaking over the boat. But there are other kind of pressing matters to consider as well.

Manley 21:46

There are people down below who've got to eat. They've got to go to the toilet, for goodness sake, Steve. Even that's a tricky old thing. And you want some to get some rest. And so they're in their bunks, in their cabins, and they've got straps over their chest and their legs to keep them inside their bed so they don't get thrown out of the bed. And then the next dawn comes, and you're still in this storm. But then when the light comes, it doesn't seem to be quite so fearful. The wind may be stronger, but it looks easier to go. And then again, almost imperceptibly, you change direction, the wind turns around, it's more behind you. And it's not a stillness or a calm because it's still a storm, it's still gale force, but you know, when it's only 50 knots, you think,"Oh, that's a breeze now, we've got through it". And then it does peter out and as is a reality in life before and after every storm, there's a calm. And it's in those moments that you pick up the pieces, you congratulate yourselves. The crew are on fire mentally and physically and energetically and spiritually. They've just tamed a hurricane. And we came out in first place. So last into Boston. When the weather got large to attack the hurricane, we came out of Hurricane Michael in the lead. You're thinking,"Right, team, that's it. The weather got large. We got large". It really was a fantastic moment and it's something that stays with you all your life... without any doubt at all. And, it's very special, very special.

Steve 23:21

You mentioned the calm after the storm. Tell me a little bit more about that.

Manley 23:26

After the storm, and it does go quiet, and the wind drops down, and invariably you get to a bit where you're almost no wind at all, and it's... you're almost just stationary and sitting there. After Hurricane Michael, we actually had a nice breeze for a couple of days before we had another hurricane, or Tropical Storm Nadine it was actually... and in those times, it's a lovely period just to sort of get things out and dry things and eat well and do repair, check the rigging, telling the stories......because everyone is then full of stories and full of buzzing, so you're able to sort of decompress, if you like, from the... intensity of a hurricane. And those are really important moments too.

Steve 24:02

And presumably after an experience like that, everything looks just a little bit different? And everybody?

Manley 24:10

As you're sitting around the cockpit together, the boat is calm, you're all there, you all look at each other in the eye and you're different people. You've changed, all of you individually, and you can see it in people. There's a different steel, a different strength to them. There's also a different level of connection and trust that goes on. They were brilliant. They shone, they did it. You know, the team supported each other. And those are precious moments.

Steve 24:34

Well, once the relief, satisfaction and elation had died down, so did the wind. Straight after the hurricane around the equator come the doldrums. And the crew then endured hours on end of just floating. It's hot. It's stuffy and uncomfortable, with occasional bursts of wind being hungrily consumed to try and gain some forward momentum. Of course, eventually the wind picks up on your off again, circumnavigating the globe; Round Cape Horn up to New Zealand, up further to Sydney. Then across the Indian Ocean, around the Cape of Good Hope in South Africa and then north towards home via La Rochelle, before the sprint back to Southampton. And after the paraphernalia of arrival and a period of rest, Manley could look back with a wry smile.

Manley 25:38

We had some extraordinary adventures. You know, it's... a life changing race. I'm not gonna tell you whether we won or not. We didn't win, actually. But, you know, for everyone in my crew, we're still together now. There's a little WhatsApp group. We chat regularly. For all of us in our own special way, it changed so much about who we are and our... idea of what... what life is about. And for all of the crew, there are times when you forget just how big it was, the thing that we did. And we raced around the world the wrong way. And eight of my crew had never sailed before in their life. It was the toughest yacht race in the world.

Steve 26:24

And it wasn't just about the sailing, was it? You were visiting some amazing places along the way?

Manley 26:30

You know, every harbour we were so well looked after. When you sail to a country, you didn't just fly, you're not a flight number and a hotel number, we've raced an ocean. And in New Zealand, for example, the Maori, which are the water folk from the Pacific islands, the skippers are given freedom of the city. There's a beautiful ceremony to welcome us... they were truly special in many respects, you know, they recognized what we've done to be there.

Steve 26:56

And for Manley personally, that moment was a real turning point in his life.

Manley 27:02

It was the end of my sailing career as a professional, because how do you beat it? And it fed me all the stories, the images, the power, the strength to go out there in the world and... share what I've learned on leadership, not just from the race, but also from the Navy and my other experiences too. So it set me up if you like, for the stage of my life now.

Steve 27:21

And that stage of life has seen Manley become a leading expert in the field of Compassionate Leadership. And that came about as a direct result of his experiences in the BT Global Challenge and most pointedly... from that hurricane.

Manley 27:43

I was really lucky in the race because It wasn't just like a bunch of professionals doing their job......because if it's just a bunch of professionals doing their job, whether it's football or sailing, whatever, then did you win or were you the first loser? It's as simple as that. That's the end of the story, almost. But because it's ordinary folk from all over the world, it makes the story very human. And fortunately for me, it makes it timeless too.

Steve 28:04

So with the'perfect storm' of an amazing collection of stories which are human, real, tangible and very personal, Manley founded the Compassionate Leadership Academy......and consults with industries around the world looking to increase performance or make significant changes within their businesses.

Manley 28:24

70 percent of corporate transformations fail and what a massive waste of energy. And it comes down to the concept of commitment. So if you're committed to a journey, Steve, I can't stop you. But if you're not really committed, you're just compliant to the journey, it's easy for me to knock you off your path. And this is the principle. And so where does commitment come from? It's not intellectual, it's emotional. And that got me into the work of the Dalai Lama; if empathy is to understand, compassion is to work with that knowledge with positive intent. In other words, compassion is understanding with positive action. And that was the basis of all the work I do now. We need to tap into people's self worth and gain their commitment, rather than forcing them to be compliant. It's not enough just to beat people and say,"Hey, you're being paid, get on with it". No, we need to inspire and motivate. So we're still on another exciting journey, we've just got lots of hurricanes ahead metaphorically now, which is different. But it's all now very much around the purpose of getting compassion and compassionate leadership out to a wider world and making a fundamental difference too.

Steve 29:29

Manley's packed in quite a few experiences since 2000 and he's making a real difference with his Compassionate Leadership Academy. And so for more reasons than one, he'll always look back fondly on his BT Global Challenge experience... and that dance with a hurricane.

Manley 29:49

When I look back at the race, the biggest thing is actually learning about yourself and being kind to yourself. Because it's easy to beat yourself up. I made loads of mistakes. I got things wrong. I got things wrong from a leadership perspective and I got things wrong from a sailing perspective. And then the second thing I learned is about trying not to judge other people. It's easy to judge. You know, you judge a book by the cover, but it's so wrong. And so many times I am just always surprised and enthralled and inspired by people who I may perceive to be in a different space, but actually are hugely positive people. So drop the judgment, look beyond the cover, look beyond the front, and recognize that everybody's trying to do well, everyone's trying to make themselves feel good, everyone's trying to add value......understand first, be compassionate.