Growing in the wind on epic odyssey
‘Just do, because the world is changed by doers.’’ That’s a quote from a TV ad. It’s maybe a little lightweight as inspirational quotes go, but it did some heavy lifting for Australian professional sailor Lisa Blair.
She was undecided whether to sign on for the Clipper Round the World yacht race. ‘‘It was a lockedin contract and an all-or-nothing situation. I remember coming home and turning the TV on and an ad came on. The punchline was ‘Just do, because the world is changed by doers’.
‘‘I signed the contract that night, and it set me on this path.’’
Blair completed the Antarctic trip on July 25 last year.
That journey took a little over six months but 31⁄2 years to plan.
‘‘My heart and soul went into it. I always said it doesn’t matter what I do with the record – as long as I get to the start line, that is the achievement.
‘‘That was huge. Just getting to the start and being able to push off from Albany and start sailing, that was pretty amazing.’’
She says she misted up a bit at that point.
‘‘I spent all my time visualising the worst-case scenario. I hadn’t thought what I would do or how I would feel when I left port.’’
Blair discovered sailing when she was 20. She fell in love with it while working a summer job as the cook and cleaner on a charter yacht in the Whitsundays. After this came the opportunity to sail with a group of friends, and ‘‘it just sort of fell into place from there’’.
‘‘I knew I liked sailing and I knew I wanted to do something with sailing, but didn’t know you could turn it into a career or that you could turn it into these amazing global adventures.’’
She knew she would have to get some experience, and be able to fix a boat, the engine and the mast and rigging. So she started hunting for opportunities.
She discovered the Clipper race, 40,000 nautical miles (74,000km) and 12 months at sea. ‘‘I signed up with $20 in my account and 12 months to raise $80,000.
Blair then put a campaign together to compete in the transTasman yacht race as her first solo experience. She says those trips taught her a lot.
‘‘I had to ask myself how would I cope on my own, and I learned that sailing 2500 miles to New Zealand and back.’’
In January, she set out from Albany in Western Australia on a latitude of 45 degrees south. From the start, the conditions were cold, wet and rough. The waves averaged 10m high. Most of the storms would give her 8m to 10m swells and 50-knot (92kmh) winds. She describes the waves as being like mountains coming up and over.
‘‘And it only takes one rogue wave to rip you off the boat. The Southern Ocean is dangerous, terrifying and beautiful, but so remote. And it’s this incredible place that you get to see something that a very small percentage of people ever get to see.
‘‘I don’t think anyone could sail the Southern Ocean and not be terrified.’’
For the first threequarters of the trip, Blair was sailing in summer, nothing dramatic had happened, and she was happy with the boat and comfortable. But on rounding Cape Horn, she hit a storm that snapped her mast in the middle of the night.
She spent four hours trying to cut the mast free. She was 1000 nautical miles (1850km) from land and 600 miles (1110km) from the nearest ship. Rescue was not an option.
She jury-rigged a sail using her boom and limped to South Africa, where she spent the next two months getting the boat fixed. By then, it was winter – and, as she puts it, no-one sails in the Southern Ocean in winter. ‘‘It’s just a little bonkers.’’
Blair looked at the forecast and made her own assessment. The swell was going to be bigger, but the wind was going to be pretty much the same. But it was going to be a lot colder, and would mean sailing through storms rather than travelling with them.
‘‘I got my arse handed to me several times,’’ she says. ‘‘I got knocked down 170 degrees.
‘‘There were numerous times during that phase where I almost quit, where I felt it was too much, where I felt that next wave would be the one that did me in.’’
But on July 25, she sailed into Albany and the record books.
She describes the next trip, circumnavigating Australia, as a different challenge but potentially more dangerous than Antarctica.
Part of the thrust of her next trip is to carry an environmental message.
And to drive the point home, she is asking people to send her Post-it Note messages of environmental action they’re taking, which will be wrapped around the hull.
‘‘The idea is to show that as individuals, we have the power to create change.’’
❚ For more information on Lisa Blair’s speaking engagements or how to donate, visit her website LisaBlairSailstheWorld.com or Facebook events page: www.facebook.com/pg/ LisaBlairSailstheWorld/events/? ref=page_internal