OFFSHORE THERE’S NO HIDING WHO YOU REALLY ARE, AND THAT MAKES SAILING FRIENDSHIPS TRULY UNIQUE
As Iwrite this, the first teams in The Ocean Race are crossing the finish line of Leg 3 into Itajai, Brazil, having completed a huge loop of the Southern Ocean from Cape Town. What a sense of achievement they will feel: over 14,000 nautical miles and 35 days at sea (see page 40 for our report on this epic leg). Irrespective of their final ranking, that is one incredible feat.
I was asked recently: “Would you do it if you had the opportunity?” I said yes, but it certainly took some thought – amonth in the Southern Ocean is about as extreme as it gets.
However, watching the incredible footage from the teams on this last leg made me feel pangs of jealousy. Yes, the sailing looks incredible – exciting, fast, challenging.
But really, the envy I feel is for the sense of camaraderie that I know the crews must have after experiencing that race together.
Recently a fellow skipper Alex and I, quintessential seamen that we are, sat on the transom after a week’s sailing, whiskey bottle in hand, reflecting on the intensity of our own friendship.
We recalled the absurd experiences we have shared: flying a spinnaker 100 miles off the US west coast in 40 knots; or how we wept with joy when we finally turned downwind after a ruthless three days beating to windward. Our friendship, like every friendship I’ve made during an ocean crossing, has a type of closeness that is hard to explain to a non-sailor – or to recreate on shore.
While the western world suffers an epidemic of loneliness, us sailors venture out into the most isolated places on this planet and experience a deeper sense of community than most people ever find on land.
There’s an irony to that. I’ve been asking myself why? Why have I built some of the most meaningful relationships of my life at sea?
The magic of offshore sailing is that it strips us bare. It exposes us. It forces us to show sides of ourselves that we normally choose to hide away. Any friendship made at sea is undoubtedly based on true acceptance: of one another’s authentic selves, the good bits and the bad. There is a ‘knowingness’ about my sailor friendships that is different to even my closest land-based relationships.
A mutual, unsaid understanding, that you know each other’s truth.
The challenge of offshore sailing is what fast-tracks friendships. The physical and mental fatigue, combined with an element of fear and danger, means there is no spare energy le
