'There's no rulebook on how to be alone for nine months'

In 1968, nine men set off on a historic race to sail solo and nonstop around the world for the first time ever. Only one man - Sir Robin Knox-Johnston - emerged victorious (read on to find out what happened to the others). Fifty years on, The Sunday Times - organisers of that first Golden Globe Race - is recreating the milestone event, for which 30 sailors will sail 30,000 miles solo over 300 days, without technological gadgets or navigation aids. At 28, Susie Goodall will be the youngest - as well as the only female racer - to attempt the feat.
Kinda nuts? Not for anyone who knows Susie, apparently. The English adventurer (who was in town for a visit last month) practically grew up on boats, hailing from a sailing family that took her along on their trips since she was three years old. But it was her brother who gave her the racing bug. "When I was 11, my brother began to get heavily involved in racing dinghies," says Susie, whose light blue eyes make you think immediately of clear skies or vast oceans. "At that age, I copied everything he did, so I took up racing too - and I loved it." Even after she left school, she decided to pursue the high seas. "It wasn't an obvious career path - but if my folks weren't okay with it, they didn't tell me!" she laughs, adding they were happy to support her as long as she was doing something she enjoyed.
About two-and-a-half years ago, she heard about the 2018 edition of the Golden Globe Race from a fellow crewmember during an expedition to Iceland. "I knew all about the original race, having read about it in books and always thinking, 'If only I'd been around in the 60s.' So when I heard about the recreation, it was a no-brainer. I used the little 3G I had to send an email to the race organiser - and that was that." Susie has since met Sir Robin - now 78 years old - a couple of times too ("I love his voice; it's so grandfatherly!") and has spent the last two years preparing diligently for the race that will kick off on July 1 from France.
Since the race is a retread of the original, the rules require participants to sail similar cruising yachts and use only the kind of equipment that was available to Sir Robin in the first race. So, while they'll have the latest in safety equipment, all of their navigational tools will be strictly traditional: paper charts, wind-up chronometers, sextants - basically, no GPS or autopilot! For her part, Susie has been gearing up for this "slowest race ever" (as she humorously dubs the 300-day sea journey) by honing her navigation skills - and carrying out a complete refitting of her 36-foot boat named DHL Starlight (after the logistics giant that will be sponsoring her race).
The last couple of years of preparation have proved to Susie how much one tends to miss out on Nature's ways, thanks to the current culture of dependence on GPS (and technology, in general). "In the case of sailing without GPS, you're completely dependent on celestial navigation and ocean wave patterns. You're very aware of the different phases of the moon, which constellations you're going to use, what the sea is doing. Put GPS in the equation and you basically take all that intuition away, because you don't have to think about the weather in the same way.
"It's the same thing on land too," she continues. "I navigate places on land with Google Maps, to be honest! When I don't - those times when my phone's run out of battery - I do end up getting lost. but I always discover a new place I hadn't known about before. So, I do think our overdependence on technology is causing us to lose out in some ways."
Susie is not unaware of the many daunting challenges ahead of her. Like, the elements - what she calls "spicy weather". And contending with "things in the ocean that shouldn't be in the ocean", such as containers, flotsam and jetsam. And possibly hitting a sleeping whale ("it's happened!"). She'll have to catch rainwater to survive and be dependent on freeze-dried and tinned food for the duration of the journey. "Being on the boat for nine months at a stretch is going to be physically exhausting too, because you can't ever fully switch off," she notes. "You can fall asleep, but you'll always have one eye and one ear open."
But over and above all, it's the social isolation that she's expecting to be the real trial. "Mentally, it's going to be the hardest thing when the ocean is super calm for weeks and you're not really moving. To go so long without someone to have a proper conversation with or hug or even see is going to be my biggest challenge. I'll just have to stick up loads of photos in my cabin and talk to them!" The young adventurer has been working with a psychologist to help her prepare for the worst she could be up against. "When I go through the doldrums, I usually need to do something with my hands, keep myself busy, so maybe I'll just look for something to fix or get up on the helm and sail. If I don't feel like doing any of those things, I'll have a few books on hand too. But there's no rulebook on how to be alone for nine months, so I'm going to have to work it out."
While all 30 sailors will be setting sail at the same time and roughly following the same route - from Les Sables-d'Olonne, they will sail via the five Great Capes before returning to the starting point - Susie figures they'll be making individual weather decisions that will probably keep them all about 100 miles apart so they won't really see each other. The race is billed as one for 'those who dare': it's about the adventure, not so much the speed record. Susie agrees that though she can be quite competitive, she wouldn't last "two weeks" if she went pell-mell or all-out for a race of this length. "My number one goal is to circumnavigate the globe - coming in first will be secondary." The accounts of the other sailors who didn't finish the original race are fairly sobering - they went around in circles, sank or committed suicide. In fact, The Mercy, a biographical drama film about sailor Donald Crowhurst's tragic attempt to complete the race, then cover up his failure by fabricating reports, starring Colin Firth, will be out in the UK today. It makes us wonder if Susie is afraid of the ocean at all, despite living out most of her life on it. "The ocean can be a scary place - even brutal," she says. "But other times, it's the best place. There are times when she's just chucking the worst she's got at you, but it never lasts long. You always remember those moments, but there are far more calmer times than there are scary ones. I've never really felt fearful while at sea, because in the moment, you don't have time to think - you just have to deal with the situation." In the end, she says, there's nothing else for it. "Just dream big and whack hard - that's all I can say!"
karen@khaleejtimes.com