The Quokka crew came up with a question over the weekend of the Eddystone Race, compounded maybe by the fact that we had to retire 15nm from the finish: why do we do it?
Why do we sit, cold, wet and tired on a rail for 16 hours? Why do we lose sleep, and use the precious weekends away from work pushing ourselves to the limit in unforgiving environments? Why do we put up with the stress, the night time sail changes, the discomfort of living aboard on a damp, cramped boat where the heads have been designed to make you wish for constipation?
What makes us love our s
port? And love it we do! Lavishing time and money on it, both when we’re on the water sailing and off the water, preparing for races, exchanging ideas, working out issues, ensuring that anything, however minor, that was not as efficient as it cou
ld be last time is revisited and planned for next time.
It’s not an easy question to answer, but I believe that it’s worth looking at our retirement to get some pointers.
First, we broached. The reasons for broaching are the same as they are for the whole fleet, but more interesting was the reaction: previously we were all a little tired, rotating by 10 minute stretches on the winch, slumped
at the back of the boat for those not actively engaged on the sheet, guy, helm or winch. Suddenly the team came alive and came together: there was help on the foredeck, the S4 came down. Not fast enough, and we need to improve there, but the team worked together and was beginning to show, especially getting the No 3 up, plugging in the A3, hoisting it and bring the No 3 down to the deck again.
Then we broached again, and once more the team swung into action: I remember opening the hatch to jump down with the sail as sewer rat, but the off watch were already out of their bunks, dressed and waiting to take it: one more person on the foredeck makes a huge difference in controlling that much sail area, and in a relatively short time we had the No3 poled out.
I went off watch at that point: call me presumptuous, but my thinking was that with the jib poled, I was more use with my weight at the back of the boat and de-cluttering the cockpit. The next I knew, the mainsail was coming down, and we had abandoned.
The despondency on the boat lasted for about 40 minutes. Most of the crew were sitting in the cockpit, just reflecting on all the effort that had gone into... well, gone into what? And hence the question of why we do it.
My personal belief is that we do it for ourselves, for each other, and for the team. Our achievement was fantastic and as a ‘Quokka’, I’m proud to be part of a team that can see its hopes dashed, and then go for a beer.
To quote Kipling, ‘If you can meet with triumph and disaster / And treat those two impostors just the same...’
I believe we did just that.
