#7 - Whitall Stokes

On this week of Cape Horn to Port, host Ronnie Simpson interviews friend and fellow adventure sailor Whitall Stokes. Whitall Stokes is an avid sailor who has crossed the Atlantic multiple times, participated in a lot of solo racing off the West Coast including the Singlehanded Transpac race, and sailed about 20,000 NM solo including around Cape Horn on his old Open 50 Sparrow. Whitall currently owns a 56' cruising yacht that he is preparing to sail mostly solo around the Americas. 

Also in this episode, the Globe 40 approaches the finish in Brazil after a long leg from Chile. The Beneteau Figaro 3 fleet completes their season opener with the Solo Guy Cotten, Gitana 18 hits the water for first sea trials and Guirec Soudee begins to line up his finish to a record-breaking lap of the globe in a maxi multihull. 

Ronnie shares a campaign update where he introduces new campaign sponsor Sebago USA, as well as discusses upcoming boat upgrades including with sponsor Marlow Ropes. Ronnie recently traveled to Vigo, Spain for a GSC event and is now gearing up for a busy summer of sailing. Stay tuned as try to get back on schedule and drop the next episode in a week's time. 

Feel free to reach out at capehorntoport@gmail.com.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:11

Hello, listeners, and welcome to Cape Horn to Port, a saline podcast. I am your host, Ronnie Simpson. Uh first off, we've had a a another little bit of a gap between episodes. Um, been busy, you know. The spring is starting to spring, snow's melting. We've been busy beginning to get things ready, but also coordinating with some with some guests. So I apologize for a little bit of a gap. We're gonna try to tighten that up. And also took a brief trip to Spain uh for an event with the Global Solo Challenge. So we'll talk about that at the bottom of the show, but uh, we're not gonna waste any time, we're gonna get right into it. Uh, as always, it's a ton going on in the ocean racing world and in the shorthanded racing world. Uh, and again, a lot of that is centered around France or with sailors from France. Um, first off is the solo Guy Cotton. So the first real hit out of the uh Figaro season uh just took place this last week in France. Um and for those of you that are not familiar with the Figaro, that's the uh the solo one design boat. They're 33-foot Beneteaux, they've got little foils on the side, they're not quite flying, but they do add a lot of riding moment. Um if if you want to learn more about the Figaro, go back and listen to our uh previous podcast with Eric Kalush, the only American on the circuit. But uh the solo guy cotton uh underway a few days ago, and that's basically two days of coastal racing and then a major two-day offshore race. First place after four days of racing was Paul Morvin, uh very, very good uh Figaro sa Figaro sailor, maybe not as well known in the U.S. But uh some of the heavy hitters like Hugo Dalin, he did uh round out the podium. He got third. That is uh the skipper Massif 2025. Also, Loey Berhar. Uh probably not the best pronunciation, my apologies, but that is the skipper of Bunk Populaire, which is always a super competitive boat, obviously a very good sponsor. But Lowy took out fifth place amongst some of the Vende Globe skippers in the fleet. You've got Jeremy Bayou, who's uh fantastic Von Day Globe skipper, but also a three-time solitaire du Figaro champion. Uh Jeremy Bayou in 10th place. You also had Nico Lundvin, the skipper of PRB in 11th place. The top foreigner or non-Frenchman was Irishman Tom Dolan. Uh Tom finished in eighth. He won the Figaro a couple of years ago. Uh, and then the top American, or the only American, uh, was Erica, who we interviewed about a month and a half ago. And uh Erica really showed a lot of improvement over last year. Last year she was uh definitely in the very back of the fleet, and this year she was 30th out of out of 39. And, you know, a lot of people don't realize just how incredibly difficult the Figaro circuit is. I mean, anybody can show up to that circuit and and get last place for a couple of years. So uh I I think really big shout out to Erica to see her uh improving her results, and hopefully she can get up to the middle of the fleet this year in the Figaro in her second year. That would be a great accomplishment. And as well, the Globe 40 fleet, uh, this was their leg around Cape Horn. So they started up there in Chile, they had raced far up the Chilean coasts, um, and they were going down the coast of Chile, around Cape Horn, and up to Recife in Brazil. And the first boat is just now approaching the finish line, and that's gonna be Credit Mutuel, uh skippered by Ian Lapinski. He's back, they're back first place into Recife, barring some crazy unforeseen scenario. And then second place, and making it way closer than it looked earlier in the leg, is gonna be Belgium ocean racing. Um they made a uh a technical stop, didn't really talk too much on the website about what it was for, but they made a pet technical stop um into Vivaldiya Chile. Uh very, very quick technical stop, but nonetheless, they fell pretty far behind the fleet and they had to work their way uh through the fleet and through all of the sharp bow boats. Uh the fleet rounded Cape Horn on February 28th. Credit Mutuel was two days ahead of the rest of the fleet, but uh the fleet came around Cape Horn February 28th. And now, while you have the two scal bow boats, uh obviously one and two into Recife, you do still have a thrilling battle amongst the five sharp bow boats. Uh really no sense in trying to call who's in third or fourth or fifth or sixth right now because it's all changing. They're basically gonna be racing shift to shift. So uh really fascinating race going on right now. Um, I think you are gonna inevitably see a bit of a reshuffling of the leaderboard. And then the other big news in the Globe 40 is that um the German boat with skippered by Melwin Fink, you're gonna have the uh next generation boating around the world. You're gonna have the Germans back in the race in their very competitive scal entry. Um, as you may or may not remember, when the fleet was coming through the Indian Ocean, they had to basically go back to port due to uh due to a rigging issue where they had to salvage the rig staying up and they had to head back to port and uh abandon the last few legs of the race. So it's gonna be good to have the whole fleet uh back intact for the last leg of the Globe 40. So definitely go check out Globe40.com, uh watch that finish and get ready for them to start their next leg, and we'll keep you up to date on that. Other big news, but Gitana 18, the most radical foiling boat, ocean boat of all time, the boat that one would think is certainly going to go out and set some records in the next few years. But Gitana 18 is now on the water. Um, doesn't look like the foils are in the boat yet. So it looks like they've just been sailing the boat around uh in displacement, in displacement mode, potentially with some type of uh, or I shouldn't say displacement mode, but non-foiling mode. Um I don't know if they have some kind of non-lifting centerboard or not, but uh they definitely didn't have the foils and the almas, and it looked like they were taking it really, really easy and just getting a feeling for the boat, but still incredible images to see the new Gitana 18 on the water. And then in more Maxi Trimaran news, you've got MACSF with Garek Suddy uh still on the water. You know, we've been following him the basically the entire time that this uh podcast has been alive. Garek has been sailing around the world, uh going the wrong way around the world. So doing a West about circumnavigation. Uh, as many of you that have listened to this show may remember, he did round Cape Horn uh the wrong way uh earlier in the winter, and now he is approaching the end of his voyage. So he is just now starting to hook into the southeast trades that will then take him to the equator and to the northeast trades and then back to Europe. But it's not been all uh fun and games for for Gierek. He did suffer pretty significant damage to his starboard rudder. So the boat does have three rudders, one on each hull. Uh, as long as he doesn't sail the boat aggressively on a port tack, you know, he he should be good. Um on a starboard tack, the starboard rudder is gonna be out of the water and it shouldn't have anything to do with the performance of the boat, I wouldn't think. But on a port tack, certainly you'd want to sail the boat uh just a little bit more conservatively. But fortunately he's gonna be on a starboard tack for uh most of the rest of this trip, although potentially uh a port tack downwind coming into the finish. So I'm sure then he'll he'll definitely want to throttle it back a little bit. But uh yeah, looking like Girack should hopefully uh take a lot of time out of the reference, which was set by Jean-Luc Vandenheed way back in the day on a monohall. So it should be uh definitely a significant reduction in in Jean-Luc's record time, but uh definitely still an interesting journey to follow. Uh, but without much further ado, we're gonna go ahead and get into it with our guest of the week. This was this was uh an interview that I was very excited to record. Uh we had Whiteall Stokes live here in studio in Portland, Maine. Um, Whiteall is an old friend of mine. I met him back in 2012 while sailing in the single-handed trans pack. And then Whiteall is the individual, he's the reason I live in Maine. He's the reason I I did the GSC the first time and ultimately the second time. But Whiteall um is the former owner of the Open50 Sparrow, which which I sailed most of the way around the world as shipyard brewing. So uh Whiteall has also settled down here in Maine, and he's got a cool big new cruising boat, and he's getting ready to go on a lap of the Americas. So we're gonna talk a bit about that, and a bit about Sparrow, and maybe just life and sailing in general. So it was really good to catch up with my old friend Whiteall and uh enjoy our interview. Here with Whiteall Stokes. Uh, welcome, welcome to the podcast, and uh it's good to see you again.

SPEAKER_01 10:15

Thanks, Ronnie. Great to be here, great to see you. Great to have a nice long discussion.

SPEAKER_00 10:25

Cheers. Cheers to uh to going around Cape Horn and sailing around the world and to uh a shared old boat of ours.

SPEAKER_01 10:40

Yeah, there's nothing quite like a sparrow in the southern ocean, is there?

SPEAKER_00 10:45

Yeah. Uh maybe we'll get to that later, but that was uh she was a good boat. She was a good boat.

SPEAKER_01 10:55

Um yeah, no, she was the best ocean boat I've had the pleasure to sail on.

SPEAKER_00 11:04

You know, one thing is uh one thing that you said to me when I when when you passed the keys over to me about Sparrow uh aka shipyard brewing, you were like, Yeah, I never got seasick on that boat a single time. And you're like, I think it's because of the long waterline length and uh and the fine entry. And I never got seasick on that boat, not a single time. That's interesting.

SPEAKER_01 11:27

That's interesting. That boat gave me a lot of confidence. I felt I didn't I didn't get stress about weather because I knew that if if I was beating into 40 knots, it was no problem. If it was a gale and I needed to turn down wind, no problem. She ate up the miles, she was smooth, um stable. Really amazing, really amazing.

SPEAKER_00 11:59

Um was a really cool boat, uh but uh everything you said is true, but I feel that way about my new boat. I feel very uh confident.

SPEAKER_01 12:10

Good.

SPEAKER_00 12:10

And um it was extremely I actually I didn't I didn't plan on opening this conversation talking about Sparrow, but I guess we'd be a bit remiss if we didn't, to be totally honest. Um But yeah, my new boat, I have I have really good sensations for that boat as well. I think she feels really uh really stable and solid, confidence inspiring. Um yeah, it's it still really eats me up what happened to Sparrow, but I mean we gave it a we gave it a go. Did as good as we could.

SPEAKER_01 12:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 12:43

Definitely uh you put a lot of miles on her. Yeah, close to 30,000. You put a lot of miles on her too, and uh, I think a lot of the listeners of the podcast are maybe more familiar with uh who I am and and where I've sailed a bit, but I'm here with Whiteall Stokes, who is the former owner of the Open50, formerly known as Sparrow, also known as Shipyard Brewing, the boat that I sailed in the uh GSC 2023, 2024. And Whiteall is a hundred percent of the reason that I entered the GSC in 23. And uh he's really ultimately the reason that I am here in this living room in Portland, Maine right now, um, interviewing you. So what tell me your story a little bit? Like uh I want to get into Sparrow, but how did how did you get into sailing? Because you're now someone who you've you've won your division in the single-handed Trans Pack, you've uh attempted a non-stop circumnavigation on an open 50, you've rounded Cape Horn on an open 50, you're about to go around the Americas. Um, where did you find your inspiration to want to go do these kind of crazy things in boats at high latitudes and and by yourself?

SPEAKER_01 14:07

Yeah, so I uh had the misfortune of of growing up with a father who sailed. And um, so I grew up on his boats. He had a Cal 25 and then a Cal 30 and then a uh Tartan 34, and then he bought a Valiant 40 in 1976, and um in April 1976, he set off to go over to England uh to do the 76 O Star. And uh I volunteered to join him, and I remember this very distinctly. This was uh my god, 50 years ago now.

SPEAKER_00 14:52

50 years ago, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 14:54

I back in the days when you had dinner around the table, um I got up from my chair and I walked over to my father and I asked him, could I go? And how how old were you at that point? 13. I have no idea why I did that. And I remember looking looking across at my mother, and she was making a pretty ugly face. And um I could, you know, there was obviously some communication with the eyes going back and forth between my mother and father, and um uh they acquiesced, so I went I went with them uh over to England to deliver the boat for the O-Star that year.

SPEAKER_00 15:41

And what kind of boat was that? It was a Valiant 40. That was the Valiant 40. So your dad and what was your dad's name again? Francis Stokes. So Francis Stokes, and he did the O-Star in 76 on a Valiant 40? Yes, and what was the name of that boat?

SPEAKER_01 15:59

Moonshine. And he did it again in 1980, and I went with him again in 1980.

SPEAKER_00 16:07

So you crossed the Atlantic double-handed with your dad when you were 13 and 17?

SPEAKER_01 16:12

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 16:13

And how was that?

SPEAKER_01 16:15

It was the unbelievably formative, I think. Um, you know, we had our share. Back in those days, you didn't have VHF, you didn't have weather, you didn't have weather models. You know, you were over the short wave radio, you would hear here's where the low is, here's where the high is kind of thing, and that was it. And you know, you were on your own, and so you the weather systems would come across and you get smacked. You were sort of a sitting duck, and um so we got smacked a couple of times, and uh you just dealt with it. Um there's some stories there, but I don't know how much you want to go into there.

SPEAKER_00 16:58

And how was how was that boat? Valiant 40 is uh refresh my memory, but is that a Bob Perry designed, like really solid blue water cruiser that still has a turn of performance to her?

SPEAKER_01 17:11

Yes, that's right. So it was a a bit of a revolutionary design from Bob Perry because it split the rudder from the keel and had a pretty um deep cutaway keel. So they call it a modified fin keel. Uh canoe stern, so it had a very traditional look, had a lot of flair in the bow for buoyancy. Um, you know, comfortable comfortable cruising boat, heavy, you know, underpowered by modern standards. Um but a fine seaboat.

SPEAKER_00 17:42

Would she would she surf?

SPEAKER_01 17:46

Well, we got her up to 12 knots surfing down a wave um in a in a storm once, yeah. Um, but no, she's very displacement oriented, very heavy. I'm trying to remember her displacement to length. I want to say it's like maybe 300 something kind of thing.

SPEAKER_00 18:06

I I always forget those those numbers. Um but yeah, very cool. And so, you know, so you cross the Atlantic a couple of times, and and just uh I think uh fill in fill in the listeners, when I first met you it was back in 2012, and we were both competitors sailing against each other in the 2012 single-handed Trans-Pack race, and that's where I got to know uh Whiteall, really mainly on the shores in in Kauai, more so than um than in San Francisco beforehand. But how how did you get from being a 13 to 17-year-old kid crossing the Atlantic twice with his dad who raced the O Star? How did you get to the single-handed transpact?

SPEAKER_01 18:54

So we did a lot of racing uh off of New Jersey and a little bit of cruising up and down the East Coast uh when I was uh in my formative years. And uh in college I did some college racing. Um, so um, you know, I guess I I learned a little bit about how to make a boat go fast there. And then um career school uh intervened and uh you know, buying a house and starting a family and that whole thing started up, and I went I didn't I wasn't sailing at all until uh I got an itch and bought um a Coronado 25. Where where was that? This was in uh Los Angeles. Marina Del Rey, or yeah Del Rey. Cool. Uh and then uh I dumped that and I got a Tartan 10 and uh joined the Pacific Single-handed Sailing Association where uh gee whiz, what an amazing experience that was. Very experienced people there, and an amazing racing curriculum there. Um and a couple of people who were smarter and better sailors than I was mentored me quite a bit. And I really learned how to take care of a boat uh there to get it ready to beat myself up and beat the boat up um uh at the PSSA. And um yeah, so I did a a bunch of uh offshore winter races there. The races there are anywhere from 650 miles to you know 12 miles on a day race. Um and after three years of that, I three or four years of that, I uh did the single-handed transpact in 2012.

SPEAKER_00 20:47

And now when when you say 650 miles for a PSSA race, um, and that's the PSSA, I believe that's the Pacific Single-handed Sailors Association.

SPEAKER_01 20:59

That's right.

SPEAKER_00 21:00

And that's out of the LA area, and so they put on some pretty cool races, but what was that 650 mile race? Was that Guadalupe?

SPEAKER_01 21:07

So, right. So they they run a Guadalupe Island race. Um when I was doing it, it was 635 miles run line. Uh so there's an island off of Mexico called Guadalupe Island, and so it's a sleigh ride going down, uh kind of a delivery, but then on the way back, you got to beat back up 300 miles, uh, back up to Catalina Island. And um so it's not a typical, not a typical race, but it's very it's like a crucible, right? So you have to have the boat in shape, you have to be in shape, you have to know how to handle thirty, forty knots on the nose and beat into it for days on end. Um and your boat has to be set up uh to be able to handle that. And so Yeah, that's um a g a good lesson.

SPEAKER_00 22:00

How did the how did the tartan tend you on the Guadalupe race?

SPEAKER_01 22:04

So uh I did that race three times, I think, um, on that boat, and the first time it was uh I finished, but it was it was uh it was tough because I had a lot of deck leaks, I had a lot of gear failures, um there was a lot of misery. I remember being in my bunk uh in complete fallies, soaked, freezing, shivering, and um yeah, very hard to fall asleep. That's a tough race. That's a cat won. That's a tough race.

SPEAKER_00 22:41

Yeah, that race um has actually been on my kind of my bucket list for a very long time. And uh there's been a number of changes in plans with uh U.S. Patriot Sailing has a class 40 out there. It's actually a pretty cool boat, and shout out to them. They just did the uh the islands race about a month ago and actually put in a really good performance. Uh, but I've definitely thought about doing some maybe some PSSA racing or or some sailing on that boat. But the Guadalupe race has been on my radar for a long time, and I knew you had done that a few times.

SPEAKER_01 23:13

Yeah, I mean I I can't I can't recommend it enough because it is so tough. Because you know, you get yourself ready, you get the boat ready, um, and then you know, a race to Hawaii is it's a vacation, you know. It's yeah.

SPEAKER_00 23:30

I remember just the on the single-handed trans pack, you know, it's just uh out and out and back, 200 out, 200 back. I got beat up more than I did on the way to Hawaii.

SPEAKER_01 23:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 23:39

So uh what about the Guadalupe? Did you probably saw some pretty crazy wildlife, I would imagine, on a race like that?

SPEAKER_01 23:47

Um you well, you get your share of of dolphin and porpoise, uh, occasional whale, not often. Um there is a there is an albatross um variant off of Mexico there, Grayson's, I think it's called. Um, but not not not extreme. Um no shark sightings? No, no shark sightings. There is this fun thing where you get down off the island because the island's 4,000 feet high and it's got these funny shapes to it, where uh if you you know you can be 15, 20 miles off the island and you will get a spinnaker rep.

SPEAKER_00 24:26

Interesting.

SPEAKER_01 24:27

You will get a spinnaker rep.

SPEAKER_00 24:29

Interesting, yeah, yeah, very interesting. And so um, and then after that, you did the the uh single-handed trans pack in 2012 because that's that's where I met you. Yeah, so you you delivered up to San Francisco and then you raced solo out to Hawaii.

SPEAKER_01 24:47

Yeah, yeah, and then sailed back.

SPEAKER_00 24:49

And you sailed back solo to LA?

SPEAKER_01 24:52

Yeah, yeah. Um supposedly you're not you're not supposed to do that in a tartan 10. It's a lake boat. And the owner's manual specifically says, do not take this boat offshore.

SPEAKER_00 25:02

It's funny when you said you had deck leaks. I was like, oh, imagine that. I was on a 40-year-old flush deck little lake boat. Oh, believe me.

SPEAKER_01 25:10

So what I did, I shouldn't have done this, but I did it. I clamped a camera on the inside of the, on the interior of the boat. There's they have uh what a vertical pipe goes up to try to hold the deck up. I clamped a camera to it while I was going upwind one time. I couldn't believe how much that boat was flexing and moving. I was like, okay, that's enough of that. I don't want to know.

SPEAKER_00 25:37

Yeah, I've I can definitely relate to that. There's times when you're, you know, on a reach in 40 dots, and you don't even want to look at the rig, you know, like when you're racing offshore and you're like, that's actually kind of scary. Things are moving around, and then yeah, eventually it goes. Um well, yeah. So I I raced against Whiteall. Uh I had a Moore 24 back in 2012. He had a Tartan 10, so we both had a couple of flush deck racers and got to know each other, and and then during our time in Hawaii and especially getting to know each other, you know, I think that he knew I wanted to do the Von Day Globe, and then and then he uh heard a podcast about me on Latitude 38, and uh uh we'll touch on that later, and that's how we got to end up being connected for the for the Global Solo Challenge. But um what was the origin? I always found it interesting. What was the origin of your boat's name, Slacker? Because you don't you're like a successful businessman, you're a sailor, you're a highly motivated individual. I always found Slacker a bit ironic.

SPEAKER_01 26:45

Yeah, it's a good question. So I uh I don't anymore, but when I of course I was I was in the toil of midlife at the time, uh, kids and wife and business and the whole thing. And whenever I would go out on the water, I would feel like, oh, I'm not doing all these other things that I'm supposed to be doing. AKA I'm a slacker. So uh the other part of that is there was another boat in the fleet, another Tartan 10 in the fleet, whose name was Thriller, and I thought that it made a nice um doublet there to have a thriller and a slacker pair of tartan tens.

SPEAKER_00 27:27

And um, that's a great story, but also uh shout out to Whiteall. He did uh win his division in the 2012 single-handed trans pack on that boat, and uh I also won my division that year as well. And then shout out to Jim Quancy, who won the overall on a uh beautiful green Cal 40 and had a more 24 rafted up next to him once we got to Honolulu.

SPEAKER_01 27:51

Yeah, I Jim Quansey schooled me. He was uh he was unstoppable.

SPEAKER_00 27:56

Yeah, yeah. Great sailor. Um, you know, Jim just recently he's he's one of the guys that actually helped sponsor me into the CCA. Oh, excellent. Which I uh cruising club of America, which I understand I believe you're gonna be joining in the near future, we hope. But oh yeah, shout out to Jim. He just raced in the Sydney Hobart on an Express 37.

SPEAKER_01 28:21

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 28:22

There was a Pacific Northwest boat that I think they like did Pack Cop and they went all the way down to Sydney. And then I was looking and I was like, who's on this Pacific Northwest Express 37 and the Hobart? I was like, oh, Jim Quancy. Quansey shows up.

SPEAKER_01 28:37

I thought that. Yeah, yeah. I was threatening to get a Cal 40 and have a rematch with Jim, but it didn't. I ended up with Sparrow instead.

SPEAKER_00 28:48

It's funny, you know, I'm only I'm only 41 now. Um, but it's like the Cal 40s are so timeless because I even think about, oh yeah, 20 years down the road, maybe I'll just get a Cal 40 when I'm like 60 and call that my forever boat. But I was thinking the same thing when I was 25, and like the Cal 40s, they're just so timeless.

SPEAKER_01 29:10

Yeah, yeah, they're amazing, they're still amazing boats. Um, of course they're all soft now, the fiberglass is microfractured to the point where they're just noodles going through the water.

SPEAKER_00 29:26

So um, so after Slacker, after your Tartan 10, you wanted to get something a bit more extreme.

SPEAKER_01 29:35

Yeah, so uh how did I how did that work? So um geez, Ronnie, are we really gonna go here? So my boat after Slacker was a uh custom wooden boat out of Nova Scotia. It's basically a fast cruising boat. Gorgeous, gorgeous. Um naval architect uh naval architect up there built it and uh uh I ended up buying it from him and sailing it around Nova Scotia for six months or so. And the plan was to sail it back to California. Um, but I was gonna sail it to Texas and then put it on a truck and ship it over to California where I was gonna use her. And for me, that was my last boat. You know, I was I was when I drive bought that boat, I was like, okay, I'm done. Uh trying to make a long story short here, um I left Nova Scotia on a way down to on a way down to Florida, the first stop to get over to Texas.

SPEAKER_00 30:47

Where in Nova Scotia were you?

SPEAKER_01 30:49

I was in um St. Margaret's Bay and then Chester, Nova Scotia. Sparrow went to Chester. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's right. That's right. So I left Chester uh one day and uh yeah, about 24 hours later, uh lost the rudder and she sank.

SPEAKER_00 31:12

It's funny. I actually uh I I had totally forgotten about that until I was referring to Sparrow, and I had totally forgotten about that uh that vessel. I think I was scrubbing my own traumas out of my mind, and I scrubbed some of yours out as well. I had forgotten about that.

SPEAKER_01 31:28

Yeah, that was that was what year? I I want to say 2015, might have been 16.

SPEAKER_00 31:37

Yeah, tough day. Yeah, very sorry to hear that. Um and and then what kind of boat was that again?

SPEAKER_01 31:45

It was a custom 43-foot cruising boat, fast cruising boat. Fast cruising wooden boat, yes, so it was a wood epoxy um light, it was like I want to say 15, no, 17,000 pounds. She would go up to eight knots, like nothing, boom. Uh without any trouble at all, very easily driven. Um a lot of interesting features that I really liked, and um yeah, it was sad.

SPEAKER_00 32:17

And so I can I can fully relate to the unfortunate experience of losing a boat at sea, uh, but that clearly did not diminish your desire to go sailing. And so did you purchase Sparrow after that?

SPEAKER_01 32:31

Yeah, so it's sort of interesting. While I was looking at uh this custom 43, I also looked at uh Sparrow and I passed on her. I said, well, you know, this is this is really only for one thing and one thing only, and I'm not sure. Um I'm not sure if I'm up for that. And uh the previous owner wanted too much money for it, so I passed on it at the time and ended up with this boat in Nova Scotia. Uh, but then the boat in Nova Scotia disappeared, and there I was without a boat, and uh yeah, maybe I don't do that well without a boat. Uh so I went back and looked at her again and um ended up making a deal on her. And so yeah, that's how I picked up Sparrow. And once you have a boat like that, you're committed, right? It's like, okay, this boat is designed and built for one thing, and I guess I better do that one thing. And uh so that's when that whole plan hatched to go from San Francisco around um around the globe and then back into San Francisco. Um in retrospect, that whole venture was foolhardy. I had kids, I had a wife, I had a business in the middle of everything. It was insane looking back. It was insane to try to prep that boat properly and debug it to go off on a on a trip like that. But that said, I'm glad I did it. You know, nothing ventured, nothing gained, right?

SPEAKER_00 34:13

Yeah, and um it was it was it was really interesting that that you did do that. There were a lot of times when I was down there in the GSC. I used to think about you all the time, and I'd be on Sparrow on the Southern Ocean, and I was in a race, and I was like, this fucking guy Whiteall just did this for fun.

SPEAKER_01 34:37

Yeah. Look, I'm an outlier, right? I admit it. Yeah, it's a funny thing. There's no organization, there's no social pressure, there's nothing. It's just like a dude going sailing.

SPEAKER_00 34:51

You just you just sent it, and so rem remind me again, you I saw the photos of you leaving out the bay with the same same sail plan I always had up, which was a reef in the main and a stasel, so you could short tack the boat.

SPEAKER_01 35:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 35:04

Um, you left the bay and then you went, did you go around Hawaii and then towards the horn?

SPEAKER_01 35:09

Yeah, so the I uh I decided to go out around Hawaii to add miles because I was told that uh I wouldn't qualify as going around the world unless I added miles um to compare with the folks leaving out of Europe. Uh there's apparently world sailing has uh some rules about covering distance. So I added distance to go around the big island of Hawaii. Um how is that sail out to the big island? Uh it was kind of wild. So uh this was 2020, the end of 2020, uh, COVID. Flights were still grounded. The weather models were terrible. The weather models said exactly what you would expect it to say. There was a Pacific high, and I got down with sailing and all good. I'll be down there. I'll be I'll get down there in 10, 11 days, no problem. Light headwinds. I kid you not, light headwinds. And uh anyway, it it took much longer than uh it should have for an open 50 to get to Hawaii. But um uh after rounding the island, then it was uh close reach, 20 to 30 knots for I don't know, at least three weeks. It was kind of wild.

SPEAKER_00 36:31

Uh so did you you rounded the big island?

SPEAKER_01 36:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 36:35

So how is the Ali Nui Haha channel? It was howling. It was 40 plus. I've seen 40 in there like every time every time I've gone. Yeah, I was expecting I was expecting that. Yeah, that channel gets windy. Yeah. Um, so through the Alanui Haha channel between Big Island and Maui, and then um, did you get a huge wind shadow off the island? Of course, yeah. So when I was uh a young man, when I sailed my little engineless Cal 27 to the South Pacific, I left Kauai, went straight south. It was 250 miles to leeward of the big island. Really? And I got fully becalmed right at the latitude of the big island. Really? Yeah, 250 miles west of the big island. I was fully becalmed. Wow.

SPEAKER_01 37:23

Yeah, I didn't have too much trouble. You know, Sparrow's got so much, it's got that big mane, and she's a she's a good light airboat. Yeah, I didn't have any trouble, you know, powering through it. It was uh actually a nice respite after the channel.

SPEAKER_00 37:38

Yeah, but then you had like uh I mean a lot of breeze on a close reach. Yeah, you're just a close reach.

SPEAKER_01 37:45

You're eating up miles, thousands of miles. Yeah, I was going nine and a half, ten knots for weeks. Eating up miles, yeah, yeah. Uh but it wouldn't let up, and squalls would come by and I'd be slammed with 40 knots. And um, yeah, it was I couldn't believe how long it lasted. It was just weeks and weeks. How'd the boat do? The boat was fine. Yeah, it was I remember one evening I was for I must have been cracked, it must have been cracked off the wind a little bit. It was she was doing 14-15 knots on a close kind of a close reach. It was like in the and it was dark, right? And I'm looking at this and I'm going, the autopilot screws up and the boat is just like crash and burn. It didn't, and we just rocked on, and like I said, it was a great boat. But the wind didn't really come back astern until I was like at 40 degrees south. I don't know, just the conditions I I ran into.

SPEAKER_00 38:47

Big trade wind belt.

SPEAKER_01 38:49

Yeah, I didn't hook into the I didn't hook into any westerlies until I was basically basically there. Um but the I mean I got I got at least three weeks, you know, below 40 south and a couple of weeks below 50 south, and that's really what I was planning to do. I wanted to I wanted to go and experience the Southern Ocean. I wanted to see the gray beards, I wanted to see the everything she had to offer. Um the cold, the hail, the the wind, the albatross, the bleak, dreary Southern Ocean that's actually quite beautiful.

SPEAKER_00 39:34

Yeah, you know, I have a pretty similar feeling because before I went down there, I was I was terrified of the South. And then once I went down there, I just couldn't wait to get out of the south. And now I'm back here in the real world and I just want to get back there. And it's just it's this weird, it's weird the the draw that it has on you, but but kind of like you said, just to experience that level of wilderness, but um, yeah, just be that far off the grid is kind of insane.

SPEAKER_01 40:03

Yeah, it's unlike anything else. Yeah, it really is.

SPEAKER_00 40:06

It's a weird fascination, it's a weird fascination to have. But I know a lot of people that have that look in their eye, and I'm like, oh yeah, you've been down there.

SPEAKER_01 40:13

Yeah, it's funny. You know, I was double-handing racing back in SoCal after I got back, and you know, off I'm looking at looking around at the water, I'm going, this is not the Southern Ocean. And I'm with this guy, he's like, he's never been down there, he has no idea.

SPEAKER_00 40:30

He's like, I guess it probably isn't. I remember I was so traumatized after the after my dismasting and the whole thing I had in the south, that right when I got back, I flew to Puerto Vallarta and hopped on a Rio 100. I hopped on this hundred footer to deliver it back from Puerto Vallarta.

SPEAKER_02 40:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 40:50

And the forecast was like 15 gusting 18 upwind, and I was just like kind of shitting myself and and and and uh I was nervous. And then we got out there and I was because I just been so traumatized by the South. Oh, and just even seeing like wind upwind. I and I then I got out there and I was like, oh yeah, this is California and Mexico, this is not the Southern Ocean.

SPEAKER_01 41:15

Interesting, yeah. I okay, so I'm gonna take you back to 1976. So that first crossing was by far the worst weather I have seen since. And uh I was really scared as a 13-year-old. I was really scared, and I thought I'd lost my father overboard. There's a little bit of a little story there, but I was I remember standing in the standing in the cabin below the companionway, thinking what the hell am I gonna do? Because I didn't think my father was on board anymore. And since then I'm not sure I've ever been rattled by weather or anything else in life. I don't know what it was like. I had it squeezed out of me. It's a weird thing. And so the Southern Ocean, yeah, I saw 60 knots. But it was always it was always behind me, it was never a big deal, it was never scary. But boy, that that night, that storm in the Gulf Stream. There was a 60-foot trimaran that pitch-poled right near us that night.

SPEAKER_00 42:47

Yeah, the uh, you know, the east coasts and the Gulf Stream, but for that matter, right off the west coast, I mean, you can get gnarly conditions. And uh that's kind of one of the takeaways I've had from ocean sailing is you can be right off the coast of the place where you're from, relatively speaking, and you can get into the worst conditions of your entire life. So I mean, you and I both have been around Cape Horn, and you know, and I I know that you were less experienced and you were 13, so everything maybe seems a bit bigger, but uh it it doesn't surprise me to hear you say that like one of the gnarliest things that you ever saw was like right here off the Gulf Stream.

SPEAKER_01 43:28

Yeah, yeah. Well, you know how it is with with storm conditions and then a and then a Gulf Stream current at work. Um yeah.

SPEAKER_00 43:39

You know, the boat I did the single-handed trans pack on in 2010, that Mount Gay 30 called Warriors Wish, uh, that boat, I did a race on it called the Gulf Streamer race from Daytona Beach, Florida, up to uh from Florida to I want to say like Charles. I think it was like 220 miles or something, but we ended up pulling out, and that was with Don Gray, a single-handed TransPact veteran. And we ended up pulling out because we had uh damage to our mainsail. But the fleet got into this tropical storm called Tropical Storm Barrel. Oh. It was in like May, I think maybe 2011, but the seas got so gnarly and quite honestly terrifying. Like 40 miles off the coast of Florida in May.

SPEAKER_01 44:33

Yeah. You know what I'm saying?

SPEAKER_00 44:35

And it was it was so humbling to see just the wind against current. They stood up the same way they did at Cape Horn for me. Uh, which I was going downwind at Cape Horn. We weren't going downwind, you know, we were going right upwind or something. And it was it was absolutely horrendous. It was like five hours offshore of Florida.

SPEAKER_01 44:54

Yeah, it was it's tricky in a race because you feel like you gotta stay on course and do what you can. But um, you know, if if you're just some dude who goes out of San Francisco, you just turn down wind and it's no big deal. Um so yeah, it's funny, Ronnie. I never saw the Southern Ocean as being scary than the three weeks or so I was down there.

SPEAKER_00 45:19

I mean, I guess I I could I I spent a little bit longer down there since I had gone a different route and went around all three of the capes, but uh we didn't have the same experience. I saw the southern I saw the southern mission get pretty scary a few times.

SPEAKER_01 45:36

Well, but to be fair, right, I didn't go through the Indian.

SPEAKER_00 45:40

But again, then I had the worst part was for me was right after the worst part was trying to come back up the Atlantic. That was um, I just got the the opposite luck of the draw, just a really unfortunate scenario. Um you had told me before, and I'd forgot it, it was a good story, but why did you name Sparrow Sparrow? I believe that was something to do with your father, was it not?

SPEAKER_01 46:04

Yeah, so on that trip when I was 13, uh, guess what? We picked up a sparrow going across the Atlantic, and the sparrow hung out with us for at least a week sitting there on the transmith of the Valiant 40. And um, and then sadly one morning he was gone. Um, but you know, it was just one of those things. And then um my father had a J35 many years later, he named her Sparrow, and uh yeah, I thought the name was very fitting for that open 50.

SPEAKER_00 46:37

Well, we've got a Hobie Cat Hobie 18 right here in the driveway, and it's the Hobie 18 with the wings. Yeah, and so since we bought that right after I got back from my race, because the boat had wings, we named it Sparrow 2. Oh, funny. Well, there you go. So uh um, yeah, Sparrow is uh was a good boat, it was a cool name as well. It's really interesting that before I had Sparrow, I had a Doug Peterson designed Serendipity 43 in Los Angeles that had the name Puffin on it when I got it.

SPEAKER_01 47:11

That's a good name too.

SPEAKER_00 47:13

My boat now is a class 40 called Colomeoli, which was named after uh actually a variant of Hawaiian penguin that Dame Dave named it after. But my last like three, and I should think back, but uh yeah, my last three boat names when I inherited the boat, they were all named after uh after birds. Yeah. So there must be something interesting to that.

SPEAKER_01 47:36

It's kind of a mariner thing, birds or um stars.

SPEAKER_00 47:44

So once you sailed from around Hawaii, around the big island, you said you were close reaching for weeks, the wind finally went behind you once you got to the south, but uh you did eventually go around Cape Horn, correct?

SPEAKER_01 48:02

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I was uh well you know you must know Ronnie, that's that's um the most day uh one of the most amazing days of my life is is passing Cape Horn. I mean it's just it's just an uh an amazing experience. I had been at sea for what 48 days or something like that. And um yeah, it just it's just an amazing feeling to finally get there and finally get around it, and then of course you get out of the waves, and it's like life's amazing, right? Um but it's it's an incredible experience rounding the horn, it really is.

SPEAKER_00 48:43

You know, people always say they they ask me what Cape Horn was like or something, and I say, you know, it's it's not Cape Horn that's the hard part, it's getting there that's the hard part. You know, unless unless unless you just go some coastal route, which doesn't really count. But like if you're if you're coming in from California to Hawaii to the Cape Horn, or if you're coming in the traditional way from at least Australia, New Zealand to Cape Horn, it just takes so long in a very unhospitable part of the earth to even get there.

SPEAKER_01 49:12

Yeah. Uh well what struck me is it's a long way down there. I mean, even coming from San Francisco, it was a long way down there. And it after spending so much time at Porto Williams, I can tell you it really does feel like the end of the world. It really does.

SPEAKER_00 49:31

Yeah, so tell us a bit about that. You you rounded the horn, but then you you went into port, and why was that and and why did you choose Porto Williams?

SPEAKER_01 49:43

Yeah, so um I had I had a series of of gear problems getting down there. Um I had some structural issues on the deck. Uh I had a number of um mainsail cars ripping off the track. Um I had a um one of the cars on the on the on the mainsail traveler ripped off. Uh so she was she was um hurting by the time I got down there. And I had this funny thing on the gooseneck. Um and then I uh was trying to get through the strait there. I was tacking up through um I'm sorry, uh you've been up through through there, I can't remember the name. The one just west of uh Estados de Inudas. The La Mer Strait? Yeah, the La Mer Strait. I was tacking up through La Mer Strait and I had uh the turning block rip straight out of the deck, leaving a nice hole. And I thought about it and I said, you know what, I'm gonna throw it in and I'm gonna head over to Oshuaia and get this thing fixed, and then I'll head on my way. So uh sailed off and then the wind died, and I was motoring up the big old channel towards Oshuai, um raised uh Argentina on the BHF, and uh they would not let me anchor off Argentina because of COVID. And um luckily the Chileans at Puerto Williams were listening in on the conversation and they said, Yeah, come on over. And um so I ended up going to Puerto Williams and then having a lot of parts shipped down to me to to do the repairs. How was Puerto Williams? So Puerto Williams is a is a beautiful small town there um in Chile. Um the McCauley uh yacht club there. I mean, they're very welcome, welcoming to yachtsmen. Um interesting, it was during COVID, so I was the first boat to get there within like nine months. The last boat had arrived nine months before I showed up. It's kind of wild. Um, but it's uh you know, it's a beautiful little town. I made made a number of friends there. Uh there's always interesting boats and interesting people there doing something interesting. Um they uh they rolled out the welcome mat for me. Um I had I had lunch with the captain um there on his warship. And um, they were they were amazing, and I couldn't be more grateful for having for them taking in a mariner and in mariner in distress.

SPEAKER_00 52:54

Yeah, that's uh it's really interesting, just the experience. I mean, we were all in different places. I was still in Fiji back at that point, um, which is crazy to think about only a few years ago. But it was really interesting how all just the different responses to COVID where one country, you know, on one side of a canal would say, No, you can't anchor here, and the other country on the other side of the canal is kind of more welcoming. It's really it's really interesting the difference in policy.

SPEAKER_01 53:22

I had I had I literally had six people on board Sparrow the next day getting me a visa.

SPEAKER_00 53:32

Super spreader sparrow.

SPEAKER_01 53:33

Yeah, it's um like I I'm uh to this day I'm incredibly grateful to the Chileans and that's how I feel about my pit stop in Tasmania and the GSC, you know, those guys checked me in.

SPEAKER_00 53:45

The Australian Customs checked me in at 6 30 p.m. after hours on New Year's Eve, yeah, which is a holiday, yeah, on a Sunday. After hours on a holiday on a Sunday, yeah, they came and checked me in and they were like, Welcome, mate, how could we help you out? And just they knew I was in a race. I could not be more grateful because if if you had run into some, you know, dumb bureaucrat who didn't care, you could have just been host. Yeah, and they were so cool about it. I'll always be grateful. It's amazing how you uh as a sailor sometimes dealing with with bureaucracies, you could be so um still fill filled with venom or rage for the ones that treat you wrong, but so full of gratitude for the ones that treat you right.

SPEAKER_01 54:31

Yeah, I I I will never forget that call with the Argentinian Argentinians. I I've never fallen fallen to my knees before, but I was I was in down below in Sparrow's cabin on the VHF, and I just fell to my knees when they said they would told me I couldn't even anchor. I felt like what the hell was I gonna do?

SPEAKER_00 54:59

Yeah, well, um really glad the Chileans were there.

SPEAKER_01 55:05

Yeah, yeah, me too.

SPEAKER_00 55:08

And so you spent some time in Chile.

SPEAKER_01 55:12

Yes. I don't know, how long were you there? A month? I was there a month, just about exactly. And um not a lot going on there. There wasn't a lot of traffic going in because it was COVID. So it was basically a lot of us were just more or less stranded there. Um but you know, we were able I was able to get the parts, and they uh I had I had a lot of help from friend here stateside to pull all the parts together and box them up properly so they get through customs smoothly. No, no. Uh I don't think he wants his name known, but um but that was went very smoothly, and uh a couple of days later, after I installed everything, I was um ready to head off. And then the question was where do I go off to? And um I debated a lot mentally, of course, should I keep going or should I do something different? And uh because it was COVID, everybody was closed. South Africa was closed, Australia was closed, New Zealand was closed, all those South Pacific Islands were closed. Basically, every almost everything on my route back was closed. So I thought to myself, well, the United States has to take me back. So I ended up just going up the Atlantic and landing in Charleston.

SPEAKER_00 56:44

Well, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but Fiji would have taken you. We were the only country that really was the I was in, I was living in Fiji, I had a business there. Fiji was the only country that was open. Uh French Polynesia had opened and then their cases spiked and they closed back down. But then Fiji, because they had uh basically the number two guy in the government, um was a really, really intelligent guy, and he was the uh the minister of of the economy as well as the attorney general, and he established what they called the Fiji Blue Lands Initiative, and they were allowing yachts to come in and they could quarantine in route. So if you were if you had a negative COVID test from where you left from, yeah, and then you spent say so they were rational about it. Yeah, exactly. They were like the only ones that were rational about it, and it ended up being a great thing because the rest of the world was shut down, and then all the yachts went to Fiji and had a good time. And they'd come up from New Zealand and they'd they'd sail 10 days from New Zealand and they would anchor out for four more days to get their 14, and then they would clear in. And they would so if you came in from if you came in from Chile, they'd say, Oh yeah, you're like 51 days at sea, like you're good, mate. Like as long as you had a negative COVID test, you know, on each end. So it was actually a pretty cool way of managing it, but that's neither here nor there. Um how was the trip up to Charleston?

SPEAKER_01 58:06

It was lovely, I gotta say. Uh again, Sparrow was amazing the whole way up. Um I didn't have the event that you had, obviously, and I didn't have horrible weather. There was one low pressure system that was rolling off of Argentina. I could see it there, and I what I did was I just slowed it, slowed the boat down, let it pass over me, and then and then proceeded.

SPEAKER_00 58:32

I wish I could have done the same.

SPEAKER_01 58:33

I mean, yeah, because mine was coming off Argentina as well. Yeah, I mean, I wasn't racing, right? So I didn't have to play chicken with it. And uh so I just slowed down and it was fine. And then uh geez, after Recife, you know, in the trade winds, right? You just you just you know, you're doing 13s um all day long. Yeah. Um I did get a nasty uh front came through off the east coast when I was approaching Charleston, but you know, it's okay.

SPEAKER_00 59:03

Yeah, yeah, that was a cool boat when you could definitely let her stretch her legs on a reach. Yeah. So and that's one thing I think I'll miss in the next race is the class 40, is uh it's it's a lot lighter. So it'll kind of light up more aggressively downwind.

SPEAKER_01 59:22

Yeah, you might hit higher speeds, but as far as just kind of loping along, yeah, the reaching and the close reaching 50-foot water line was nice to have. Yes. I think something magical happens when you get a 50-foot water line. I just uh I'm not sure. Sorry, I I just my 43-footer had like a 39-foot water line, and and she was light, not as light as a class 40, of course, but I just think something happens when you go from 40 to 50 feet.

SPEAKER_00 59:54

Well, you know, it's interesting you say that. You know, it's around the world, the around the world in almost all the big yacht races, you know, Sydney Hobart or or uh Caribbean 600 or FastNet or whatever what have you, TP52s and their various ilk have won a ton of the trophies over the last 10, 15 years. Yeah. And I was reading a really, really interesting paper by one of the big naval architects, I forget who it was, but basically he was kind of boiling it down and he said that that honestly 50 feet is just the right length to fit between the waves. That 40 40 was too short and 70 or 80 was actually too big. Something like that. To sail to the you know, potential of the boat, or to sail to a higher percentage of the boat's potential, actually being 50 50 feet long was was actually ideal.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:49

And so after sailing sparrow so many miles, and like Santa Cruz 52s, you sail a Santa Cruz 52 across the ocean, which I've done several times, you know, you you get to the other side and you say, Wow, that boat just moves through the water so well. Yeah, and I think so. I can see what you're saying, that the 50-foot boat really does move very well through the ocean.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:08

Yeah, well, I mean, especially if you're going around the world, you know, you you want a little bit more load carrying ability. But yeah, I just uh I just remember there being a significant difference between that fast cruiser, a couple of different fast cruisers I've been on, and Sparrow. It was just yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:32

And so after Charleston, you took Sparrow up to Portland, Maine to undergo a refit.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:40

Yes. So uh um Maine Yacht Center is the place is is the uh I had you know Rich Wilson had his work done there, and uh someone told me that uh that was a good yard, so I called Brian Harris and arranged to um go in, go up there, and couldn't be more satisfied with them.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:07

Yep, that's the spot. Don't let the secret get out though.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:11

No, my lips are sealed, man.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:13

I guess we're sitting here on a podcast talking about it. We both have our boats at Man Yacht Center just hemorrhaging money, but what a what a great boatyard to to give your hard-earned dollars to. That's uh really, really good humans, and it's just such a good boatyard vibe, but they do incredible work and they have the the wealth of experience they have in in handling the the offshore boats and the short-handed boats. It's just it's uh second to none in the U.S.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:37

Yeah. So anyway, they did a great job uh repairing Sparrow so that I could properly hand her over to you.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:46

Yeah, you know, a lot of people don't know the story, but uh when Whiteall and myself became reacquainted was in uh late July of 2022, I was I was working as the media director of the Pacific Cup yacht race at that uh point in time. I had a bunch of other things going on, but at that point in time I was uh in a very intensive month of back to back to back-to-back media work for 30 days covering the Pack Cup and managing their media. And I got this very cryptic email from from Whitehall, and he's like, Hey, can you give me a call? And I gave him a call and he asked me if I wanted to do the the GSC on his Open50 Sparrow, and I immediately agreed to it in like one second, um, and said, Yeah, I gotta go do that. And so I remember the first thing was that you sent me some photos of sparrow being worked on at Maignacht Center, and they were just such cool photos, just to see a yard of of that caliber that really takes uh the amount of of attention to detail they make and just doing everything right.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:56

Yeah, well, so the the the workers there they race also. Um so they they have an intuitive sense of what how strong something has to be if they're doing some composite constructions um and they know they know how boats are supposed to be, and so that's reflective in their work. Um but yeah, to to to close the sparrow handoff story, um I was thinking about doing the GSC in Sparrow and of course I realized, oh geez, I have kids, I have a business, there's no way I'm gonna be able to do this properly. There's just no way. And I scratched my head because Sparrow is such a great boat. Somebody's gotta do that race in this boat, and so I reached out to Ronnie, and um yeah, he responded to my email in about 30 seconds, which was which was interesting. And um, yeah, here we are.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:10

Yeah, I was like going 24 hours around the clock uh during that particular month of of work, and I got your email. It was like morning in Hawaii, and I was like, what does Whiteall Stokes want? And so I said, Yeah, what's up, man? Uh, emailed you back, and then you called me and you you offered me the boat, and uh at least per my recollection, I pretty much like said yes immediately. Yes, that's what I remember also. I was like, is this guy really offering me this? Like, I gotta go check it out, of course, and verify what but but the but again what stuck out in my head was the you you sent me these cool photos from Man Yacht Center and and uh I could just tell the work was being really nicely done on the boat, and it's just uh really, really cool boat yard. So huge shout out to Man Yacht Center. They're uh certainly uh very supportive of my campaign, and and I quite honestly wouldn't be uh where I'm at in regards to the GS GSC 2027. If if I didn't have my boat base there. So uh thank you again to MYC. Really great boat yard. And on that topic, you now have a new boat at MYC having some work done, and you're getting ready to go on another big journey yourself.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:19

Yeah, that's right. So I bought a Mercurdian Rhodes 56, an aluminum cutter. Um it's really set up for high latitude work. Um it's been up to Greenland, it's been around South America, um, and I don't know why I'm drawn to cold, dreary places that I just find them beautiful, and I don't know why they touch me, but they do. And um so uh I've named her Marjorie and um this year I went down to the Bahamas and um up to Newfoundland, uh getting to know her a little bit. Um, and now I'm getting ready to go back down to Patagonia and the Beagle Channel and spend some time in the Chilean archipelago. I was uh it's a beautiful, stunning area down there, at least to my eyes. Um I'm uh also trying to put together a little stint to go down to the Antarctic Peninsula while I'm down there, because I'd not like that I'll get back down there again. And um the other objective is to go spend some time in Alaska and the Prince William Sound and hopefully the Aleutian Islands. Um and then I have to get the boat back to Maine somehow. So I thought I would just go over the top. So I'll be leaving early November this year.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:03

So you leave here early November, yeah, and then you go south, clockwise, right?

SPEAKER_01 1:08:16

Right.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:17

So you will go the wrong way around the horn on a good weather window, obviously.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:22

Um, but you'd go to Antarctica before the horn?

SPEAKER_01 1:08:26

Uh well I would probably just stop in at the objective is not the horn. Been there, done that.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:33

Or I actually think it's so you'd stop into Yeshua and then go to Antarctica?

SPEAKER_01 1:08:37

Uh yes. Yeah, or Porto Williams. Um and then go to Antarctica. Um I'd I uh I can't do that leg alone, so I would need some crew because of ice. I don't I don't want to screw with ice by myself.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:54

Um you mean like physical frozen ice or you mean immigration and customs no no, I mean ice, like physical not that ice frozen water.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:07

Um you know, because of anchor watches 24 hours and yeah, uh it's not tenable to do it.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:14

But that boat's a that that boat's aluminum, so you could conceivably bounce off something and probably Yes, you could, but you don't want to get trapped in it. You don't want to try to, yeah. Um so what's what's the magic number? You need you need uh you know, two people total or four people total?

SPEAKER_01 1:09:32

Um oh for crew. Uh so uh two to three would be either it would be great. Uh could do four even, but you know, it just depends on how much room we want. Um and again, that's just for that leg. So the us the assumption is they would fly into Ushuaia or Porto Williams, and then and then we'd spend a month getting down to the Antarctic Peninsula and um Yeah, and then back up, and then they would fly off, and then I would head up.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:10

You plan to go solo up the Pacific into the Northwest Passage?

SPEAKER_01 1:10:14

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:15

And would you do the Northwest Passage solo?

SPEAKER_01 1:10:19

That one I would do solo. That one I don't have any qualms about doing solo. It's been done solo a number of times. Um there's you know I think the ice there is a little bit easier to manage. Um and you're generally buddy boating through there. So um I prefer to have some company, but I'm not I'm not um I'm not worried about it, I guess.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:50

You know, some guys from the actually, I believe it was Pavlin, the the guy from Bulgaria that took the Corral 45 in the global solo challenge in the last race. Yeah. So, you know, if if you remember, he actually had mass track problems. He was ripping cars off the mast as well. But he stopped in the South Island of New Zealand. The boat was down there for like a year and a half.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:12

Um, made a few trips down there, sailed his boat, enjoyed it in New Zealand a bit, and then fixed the boat up and uh and took off again. Uh-huh. But they just sit he just sailed from New Zealand over to uh maybe it wasn't Poblin. I thought it was, but one of the guys in the GSC group, they just saw some icebergs like 45 degrees. So like way east, so like under South Georgia. In the Pacific? Oh, out oh, under South Georgia. Yeah, I could believe that. Under South Georgia, I could believe that. But it came up to quite a low latitude, technically speaking.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:46

So as you get way east of the horn, the ice ice goes way far up. Yes, it does. And it was like on my cell phone on a text message in the morning, and I'm like, what is that, dude? Massive, massive iceberg. Yeah, yeah, big piece. I never saw that.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:02

Yeah. Well, you know, all the races now, they got those um ice limits and for good reason.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:10

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:11

Yeah, for sure. When my father went around, they didn't have those ice limits.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:14

Yeah. I mean, yeah, we never we never saw it in our race. I mean, of of the 16 boats in the GSC and how everybody got to the horn, none of us reported ice. Yeah, yeah. You know, I never saw any ice. And I had the radar on all the time as well. Right. So that's a good thing. Yeah, yeah. Speaking of which, just put a new radar or putting a new radar on Colomially as we speak. Um, how long are you expecting the journey to take? So if you leave in November from Portland, Maine, when do you I won't be back until late September, the earliest, probably October.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:52

So eleven, twelve months, I think this trip's gonna take.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:56

And then you'd be coming back in the winter, going straight into the yard for the winter, or what?

SPEAKER_01 1:13:00

I don't know. I gotta talk to Brian. I don't know how a lady can take me. Uh yeah, I'm not sure how to handle Marjorie for that winter.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:11

I was pretty much the last boat to haul out last year, and it was what was the date? Like November 9th. Uh, okay. There's my deadline. Well, they told me I mean, worse can worse, they could put me outside, right? They just told me before Thanksgiving. Yeah, I mean, I'm outside, but they just said before Thanksgiving you gotta haul out, and then we shut down the travel lift, and you know plenty of time. Um, yeah, and so uh so tell us a bit about Marjorie. Um what are you doing to her right now?

SPEAKER_01 1:13:47

So she so she is the uh ex Morgan's cloud. Uh John Harry's up in Nova Scotia, had her for 30 years, and um loved her to death. Uh everywhere you look on that boat, you can see the thought and the love that went into taking care of her and keeping her properly maintained. Um so I I'm I still sort of can't believe that uh she fell into my hands, but she did. So um last year we did a fairly large refit doing um electrical and electronics and some winches, um, new standing rigging, new furlers. Um so she was she was gone through pretty extensively last year. This year it's pretty light. Um we dropped the rudder, um, new cutlass bearings, um some minor electrical work, I mean really kind of light stuff that's going on this year. Um rebuilding some pumps. Um, but that's it. She's ready to go. She could do the GLC. Have you given that any thought? You know, it's funny you say that. It it flashes across my mind once in a while. It's like, yeah, I can do it. But uh she's not the right boat for the southern ocean. She's um her stern is just too fine of an end. She'd get kicked around by the waves down there. Um so it's not it's not that attractive. Um but I guess what? So when I get back from the from the Northwest Passage, I'll just head over to Spain. Is that is that the thing?

SPEAKER_00 1:15:37

Come into the yard for the winter and fix whatever you broke and go again.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:41

Yeah, there you go.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:43

Never say never. Well, cool. Well, uh Whiteall, it's been it's been really great to catch up with you. I haven't uh we haven't managed to connect as much as as as I would have liked in the last couple years since you've been back. So it's definitely uh it's been great to catch up over the last couple of days and to to see Marjorie. She's looking great, looks like a very well-founded vessel. And um, yeah, great to catch up and and I and I wish you all the best in in your next voyage. And certainly uh I I thank you for the opportunity. Sometimes I curse you for it, but I thank you for the opportunity of of uh placing sparrow into my hands and and and I have a lot of very unfortunate emotions of how that ended. Um but uh yeah, it's great to see you again.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:37

That's all right, Ronnie. I know I I know it I ended up choosing the right guy to hand her over. And uh I love the way you're continuing to push into long distance offshore sailing. I'm I've been disappointed over the years at the lack of Americans in long distance offshore sailing. And um I would like some way of trying to reinvigorate it. Um there's some there's some seeds being planted out there. You're one of them. Um there's some others, but there's not very many. And yeah, I'm not sure what to do about it.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:20

Yeah, well, well, that means a lot. Um that you think I was the right guy to give the boat to. I certainly uh I gave it my I gave it my all and did the best I can. And um looking forward to uh hopefully a better result with Colomioli and a in a in a better better uh resolution. But uh definitely it's always great uh to catch up with you and in given our personal history, but also your own history of rounding Cape Horn solo, race into Hawaii solo, preparing to go around the Americas mostly solo, uh, and and all of the racing, the open boat sailing, the adventure cruising, you know, that's kind of what this podcast is all about. So uh to chat with with sailors that are out doing big things and sailing cool boats and going on grand journeys and uh and sharing the story. So thank you again for your time and thank you for coming over, and it was it was great to catch up with you. Thank you, Ronnie. By the way, I forgot to ask you one question. You sat there and you told me, you're like, my dad did the O Star twice in 76 and 80, and I wanted to hear about some of your other stuff, but like, how did your dad do in the O Star?

SPEAKER_01 1:18:34

Uh in 1976. Well, okay, let me back up. We got to uh Plymouth, England, uh, the Mill Bay docks there, and we uh picked up a mooring right there off the docks. There were three moorings before you go through the locks into the into the mill bay area area. We're in this valiant 40, right? And we get up the next morning, and on one side of us is a 55-foot French trimaran, and on the other side of us is a 60-foot American trimaran. And we're sitting there in a Valiant 40 going, what the heck are we doing here? This is crazy. This is crazy. You know, back in those days, the boats were just, I mean, I think that was the year Elaine Collat did have a 256-foot monohol. And uh, you know, Eric Tabberley had a only had a 73-foot monohol. And there were a bunch of trimarans, and they were still trying to figure out should they go south, should they go north. I mean, it was those were the the romance years of short-handed sail, long-distance sailing. But um, so 1976 was a very rough year. Uh big low pressure system went through the fleet and wiped out a lot of boats. I'm not sure how many finished, but I maybe two-thirds, 60% of the boats finished. Um my father got third in class that year. He was like 11th across the line, which is unbelievable for a down in 40. It's unbelievable. And um, yeah, it was he did really, really well. And then in 1980, he was out of the money, but uh he also did pretty well. He was he he sorta had this knack for keeping the boat moving twenty-four hours. It's um he he always kept the boat moving in in a reasonable direction while he was out there and I think that was the secret to his success, because he's he wasn't really uh you know, he wasn't a hot shit racer or anything like that, but he was tough and he knew how to keep the boat going. And I think that's you know, especially when you get into a bad storm or something that's um comes in handy. And you know, you obviously have to have seamanship to make sure things don't break and get out of control.

SPEAKER_00 1:21:22

Man, it's just crazy to hear, you know, even 50 years ago, just how how quickly a race like the O-Star became such a big deal where you had triple-digit entries, you know, back in the 70s to race solo across the Atlantic.

SPEAKER_01 1:21:37

Yeah, yeah. It's a different era for sure.

SPEAKER_00 1:21:40

And it's so wild now with all the you know 60-foot fully foiling ocas and the hundred-foot trimarans, but just to put it in perspective, you show up in a boat like mine, you show up in a little 40-foot fiberglash fiberglass model hole from America, and then you're you're between a bunch of big trimarans, even back in 1976.

SPEAKER_01 1:22:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:22:03

It's just it's it's crazy how how quickly it became such a big thing.

SPEAKER_01 1:22:08

Well, I will say sailing offshore has become incredibly more safe. Um back then trimarans were catamarans were flipping over all the time. All the time. I mentioned earlier the um that 60-foot trimaran pitch polled in that storm. I mean, they were flipping, they really were. And so um, you know, technology has come a very long way. Yacht design has come a very long way. Um the Amoka class is unbelievable. They're not even losing that many boats when they go around anymore. No, they're crazy reliable. Um almost all things. Von the globe used to use half a fleet easily. Yeah. And you know, you few people have died down there. You hear about people being upside down and standing next to the keel for days. Um you don't see that much anymore. So yeah. It's become a lot safer, more doable now, but sadly a lot more expensive.

SPEAKER_00 1:23:21

Well, let's let's hope we can have a big fleet of boats get safely around in the in the next GSC.

SPEAKER_01 1:23:28

Yes, yes, for sure. Um I'm excited for, of course, all the American entries in the GSC. And um yeah, maybe I'll even see you guys off.

SPEAKER_00 1:23:40

Oh, I hope so. I hope so. You know, last time we were over there, uh Whiteall showed up with a huge, huge bag of rope for one of my sponsors. Uh, shout out to New England Ropes. Um, even though I'm with Marlowe for this campaign, New England helped me out for for many years, and Whiteall brought over a big Crete duffel bag full of uh a bunch of cordage from from New England Ropes and uh Peter over at New England Ropes. So shout out to him. Uh but we were we were like physically working on the boat the last night of the race and then going to my dinner and then showing back up at 6 a.m. to get going. So uh yeah, hopefully we do see you over there.

SPEAKER_01 1:24:22

Yeah, thanks, Ronnie.

SPEAKER_00 1:24:24

Well, I hope you guys enjoyed that much as I did. Um really, really fun to catch up with Whiteall and just some some fantastic stories as well. Uh easily could have gone on for uh a couple more hours, but we were already over an hour for our interview, so I had to uh cut it short there a little bit. Uh we're gonna move into some campaign news though. I do want to announce a big new sponsor announcement. We're still working out some uh exact details, but Sebago USA is gonna come on board the campaign. Uh I've been waiting to um announce that for quite a while. Uh really stoked to have Sabago USA on board. Um, I think a lot of people will remember, you know, the Sebago racing catamaran back in the the early 80s that did the O-Star. That was one of the first American solo, you know, sponsored racing campaigns ever. So it's really cool to have such an iconic sponsor that's been around the game for so long. I mean, they've they've supported U.S. sailing and the America's Cup, and you know, they they support local races here in the main area, and they support junior sailing with with sail mains. So really, really cool to have such an iconic and classic sponsor with a brand that is known globally but was started right here in Portland, Maine. Uh, so it's a really, really interesting sponsorship and it's a really interesting connection and something that could potentially grow. Uh, right now we're being sponsored, uh, getting a lot of support from Sebago USA. Uh potentially we'll get corporate on board, which is now owned by a major, major Italian fashion uh holding company over in Spain called or in Italy, excuse me, called Basic Net. They own a bunch of different brands, but uh Sebago USA is sponsoring us and we're we're really grateful to Sabago USA. And another shout out, we've got Marlowe ropes coming up tomorrow to Man Yacht Center. So I've got my guy Chris Manson Hang coming up tomorrow. We're gonna be fitting some new running rigging onto the boat. We're gonna swap out a couple of halyards and also plan out uh a bunch of our running rigging upgrades that we'll do for this season and then plan out and measure and spec some exact stuff that we'll do over the winter and and then before the race next year. So uh Marlowe is a great sponsor. They make a great product and um yeah, really happy to have their support uh during this campaign, really helps us get dialed in. Anyone that's ever done any kind of sailing, let alone sailing for over a hundred days nonstop, knows that you need to have really, really good running rigging that can that can go the distance. So I'm really excited to uh continue to work with Marlowe and Cyclops Marine, which is an English company that makes load sales, but Marlowe is the US distributor for those. So uh excited to work with Marlowe and Cyclops Marine as well as we continue to dial the boat in and get things ready to go. Uh we did just get back from a trip over to Spain. I mentioned it at the top of the show, but uh two weeks back, Marissa and I flew over to Portugal and then took a train up to Vigo, Spain. Vigo is the new host port of the Global Solo Challenge. Um really, really excited to I think it's a great move. Uh shout out to Marco Nanini, uh, the organizer of the GST, and and really uh props to the whole community there in Vigo, you know. Um Unfortunately, the city of Ocarunia and local politics, I guess, were at play, but the city of Ocarunia didn't really quite embrace the GSC and the opportunity of having the GSC in in their port. And I think it's a good move to move over to Vigo. A lot of big advantages. One of the big advantages is geographic. You know, Vigo's got a couple of islands right outside the harbor, and those actually break up the swell. So one of the issues with Carunia, fantastic city, amazing place. But one of the issues with A Carunia was like right before we started, massive, massive swell was breaking over the break wall into the marina. And the marina was really, really surgy. And basically, as soon as you left the marina, you were kind of out in the out in the ocean, basically. Um, whereas in Vigo, it's it's really quite different. It's a bigger, more expansive, and significantly more protected bay. And not only with that, but now we have the the support of a real yacht club. And so it was a major, a major dropped ball with the last GSC start. Was that we didn't really um have the coordination and the cooperation of the yacht club, but now we've got the Real Nautico, Real Club Nautico de Vigo. Really big, cool, super classic Spanish club. Great facility. Uh looks like they've got a fantastic junior sailing and small boat program. They've got their own marina, they've got a big clubhouse, they've got like an Olympic-sized swimming pool where there were training swimmers in there as well. Uh, really, really cool yacht club. And uh Vigo is a is a really, really neat little town. It's a lot like Acaruña, which makes sense because they're both in the same region of Spain and up in Galicia. So it's similar weather and you know, similar seafood, food, culture, language, architecture, etc. But uh a really cool coastal town, beautiful architecture, a lot of history, fantastic seafood, uh great restaurants, and just everything that makes Spain so cool. Uh, not to mention they're they're passionate about yachting, and so big yacht clubs, marinas, etc. So really excited to go check out that event a couple of weeks ago. It was fantastic to catch up with uh Marco, the race director, but also to catch up with most of the skippers. Um almost all of the finishing skippers from the last race were there. So it was great to catch up with uh, you know, the winner, Philippe Delamaire and Ricardo Tosetto and Alessandro Tossetti, uh both the Italians, and Andrea Mura, who I never got to meet in the last race, but we were racing for position close. It was great to meet Andrea. Uh, also got to to see Dave Linger and his wife Lillian, the former owners of my boat, Koloa Maioli. Um got to see Louis again, Louis Robin, but also got to see the guys that did not finish, uh, such as myself and Juan Meredith, the Spanish skipper, and uh Ari Konsikoski, the Finnish skipper who dismasted and went into South Africa. So it's good to see that we have a lot of skippers that did not finish the last race that will be back for the next race, such as Juan and Ari. Um got to see Daffid Hughes from the SNS 34 Bendigadig. He uh will not be back in the next race, but great to see him. I actually never got to meet him the first time. And um got to see Francois Gowen as well, and his boat he finished fifth in the race. His boat was sold to an American named Brian Gray, and it'll be on its way back to Maryland this year, but he'll be doing the next GSC as well. And but on that note, we also got to meet a lot of the skippers of the next edition. Uh, we've got a Japanese skipper named Hiroki Nakayama. He's a mini transat sailor and mini transat veteran, and now he has a class 40 over in Japan. Uh, got to meet him. I think it's great to see the race um expanding into having an Asian entry. Also, a couple of guys from Italy and England and France. Uh, there's uh a skipper from Czechia as well as Pablo. Pablo has a class 40. He's half American, half Uruguayan. So great to have a South American skipper as well. Um, Pablo's a super nice guy and gotten to know him in the Annapolis boat show last year, and really excited to uh reconnect with everyone. And yeah, just uh really looking forward to the next GSC and very cool to see the the town of Vigo, Spain, and get to know that place and just do a little bit of recon. Uh, really looking forward to spending a couple of months there next year getting ready for the race. So um yeah, thank you to Marco and the Real Club Nautico de Vigo and everyone who helped put that event together. So um great to great to catch up with everyone. Working on the boat, we do have some things going on. Uh working on Class 40 Kolo Maoli. I did just put a new BNG chart plotter on there and also picked up my new radar dome. So now we're gonna be having a BNG radar setup that goes to two chart plotters as opposed to the previous owner, Dave. Just had a Feruno radar that went to a laptop. And I don't want to have to have a laptop on all the time to look at my radar. So a little bit just of a different preference and setup there. Um, we are gonna start working on the keel. I'm gonna do some cleanup and prep work on the keel just to get it ready to put back into the boat. I'm also gonna start working on the bottom. Uh I've got to knock out a bottom job in the next uh in the next several weeks. So we're just gonna do a pretty quick coat, but I do want to try to get that on there and and be able to actually sand it and burnish it and work around the weather and get it as fast as possible. Again, shout out to Seahawk Paints and Axo Nobel, who are sponsoring all of our bottom paint. Thank you very much to them. We also just got our sales back in hand. Um, huge thanks to Mark Washeim of OneSales North Atlantic. He went through our sales. Honestly, the sales are looking great. Uh, they're in incredibly good condition for having one lap of the globe. They could probably go around again and not fail. But having said that, I really, really, really hope to have the the budget to get a new suit of sales. And, you know, there's a very good chance that we will go with one sales North Atlantic again. Um, definitely not the not the cheapest place to buy sales, but uh it's a fantastic product built here in the USA, and you get fantastic service from Mark Wash. I'm really unparalleled. And we're now looking at uh potentially putting the boat in the water at the very end of April. I've then got a trip right after that, but then we'll probably stick the rig back in the boat early in May. And hopefully we're we're sailing by mid to late May is the goal and and trying to go do my qualifier, my 2,000-mile qualifier, um, late June into July. So plenty happening on the boat prep front, and then getting ready to go do a lot of sailing again this summer. And then final announcement here on this episode of the podcast. Uh, we've got three speaking gigs coming up. So if you wanna, if you want to come, want to come check me out, listen to some stories and learn more about the campaign, uh, we'll be at the Northeast Ocean Racing Summit that's in Waltham, Massachusetts. That is next week on March 21st. Uh do an online search for that if you want more information. And then on March 25th, that's a Wednesday morning in Newport, Rhode Island, I will be speaking at the Sale America Industry Conference. So if you happen to work in the marine industry and be attending that conference, uh look forward to linking up with you. And then also on April 12th, we're going to be doing a speaking presentation at my former sponsors um headquarters, downtown Portland. That's Shipyard Brewing Tasting Room on April 12th. And that event is put on by the Cruising Club of America. So hope to see you there if you're in the Portland, Main area. And by then we'll have the boat maybe even with the keel back on it, getting ready to be bottom painted. So um things are definitely falling into place here. And want to thank everyone for all their support. Thank you for listening to the podcast. If you did enjoy the podcast, please do give it a positive review on Apple and Spotify. That really helps us uh work the algorithm and uh show up in in more people's feeds. So please do give us some positive feedback and feel free to send me an email to korntopport at gmail.com if you've got any questions, comments, or even ideas on potential future guests. Uh, we do have some fantastic guests lined up. I'm actually doing another interview tonight, so we'll have a couple episodes hopefully in the can here and and no more three week delays. Uh, but please do get in touch. And if you want to learn more about our racing campaign, please go check out Ronnie Simpson Racing.com and check out my uh 2027 Global Solo Challenge campaign. All right, thank you very much. Aloha.