Focus 580; The Proving Ground The Inside Story of the 1998 Sydney to Hobart Race

Good morning and welcome to focus 580. This is our telephone talk program. My name is David Inge. Glad to have you with us in the first hour of the show today we'll be talking about one of the most challenging races in the world of sailboat racing. It's a race that begins in Sydney Australia and finishes in Hobart Tasmania and takes off the day after Christmas and we'll be talking about one particular race that is the race of one thousand ninety eight which was one of the worst most disaster it races in the recent history of blue water sailing of the 115 boats that started the race. Just 43 made it to the finish after a psych loan hit the fleet. Seven yachts were abandoned five sank. 55 people had to be pulled from the water by helicopters and rescuers. Six sailors were killed. The story is told in a recent book that's titled The Proving Ground the inside story of the 1998 Sydney to Hobart race. It's published by Little

Brown and Company and the author is Bruce Knecht. He's a Hong Kong based foreign correspondent for The Wall Street Journal. He's also written articles that have been published in The Atlantic Monthly and New York Times Magazine and in sale and he's talking with us this morning by telephone as we talk with Bruce Knecht you should certainly feel free to call and maybe you'll have questions as we continue through the hour. The number here in Champaign Urbana 3 3 3 9 4 5 5. Also we have a toll free line good anywhere that you can hear us that's 800 to 2 2 9 4 5 5 so at any point here if you like call in and join the conversation. You would certainly be welcome to do that. Mr Nacht. Hello thanks for talking with us today. My pleasure appreciate it. We should probably set the scene or at least talk a little bit about the place this race takes place because that is indeed the reason that he is so it is so challenging what are these waters like.

Well one of the things that makes the race very challenging is the Bass Strait the past straight as a body of water that separates the mainland of Australia and Tasmania. Those two bodies of land were once connected and you know hundreds or thousands of years ago when they came apart it left a body of water that shallower than the ocean sort of on either side of it. So what happens when you have waves that have been building up over hundreds of miles across the ocean. When they get to that shallow water they get deeper they arch their backs they get taller in the same way that a beach a beach wave does as it approaches the sand. And the other the other thing is that it is just an area that's notorious for fast changing weather conditions. The Sydney to Hobart race almost every year it starts the day after Christmas every year has done so since 1945 and almost every year is marked by a couple of quick radical weather changes. So it would be tough any time even if you didn't have to deal with a hurricane. Absolutely. It has a reputation it's not a bike it's by far not the

longest ocean race in the world at 630 nautical miles. But it has a reputation of being the toughest in spite of that. At today's speeds park proximately How long's it take to run the course it probably takes most folks three to four days. When the race started and the sort of the story of what's happened to you know the sailboats over the years in 1945 it took you know the winter one and six days and the others took more like seven Some took eight. The record holder now is you know a little more than two days. So that's you know that's all about the technology of sailboats. Yeah well it's one of the things that you talk about in the book the fact that now these boats are very high tech they're computer designed. They use exotic materials and all of this is designed to produce a fast boat which is also though going to be a light boat. And if you get really tough conditions then that's likely to cause you problems.

Yeah there's a there's a controversy and yachting that's been I guess brewing for the last 20 years. And you know the trade is very simple if you like lighter boats go faster so but designers have been trading this weight for speed and there are those who think that that's going on too far that that today's. High tech racing boats of today will capsize more easily and also they'll stay capsized longer because they don't have the big full keel that we all know about from just seeing sailboats. Now they're sort of you know fin type keels with with you know a bit of lead at the bottom but they're not they're not as heavy as they used to be you know the idea of the heavy keel that is the bottom part of the boat is even if you've got parallel to a big wave and it slapped the boat over on its side the keel should should right it should should get it back back right up again. Yeah. But the but these are these newer lighter boats they won't do that. Well they do do that but they don't do it as well and they don't do it as quickly because they're just

simply not as heavy. Seems to me in reading about the old days of sail if if you if that happened to you if you were in a really bad storm and you got parallel to a wave in a big wave came along and laid the boat down on its side that was it you were done. Well no I mean you can you can knock down and have your mast in the water and you're going to and you're going to come back upright again I mean not in the book I describe something that's a little bit hard to imagine I describe how a boat did a 360 degree roll in about six seconds I mean that is that it went upside down and kept going around the other way in six seconds. Now that happened so quickly that some of the people who were on the boat who were lying in their bunks they didn't even fall out of their bunks they didn't even know that they had they had done this 360 degree roll that happened so quickly. Just something going to happen. It all went dark and some of them did fall out of their bunks but but it but it can happen quite quite fast.

It's really hard to remember reading that and it's it's pretty hard to imagine such a thing experiencing such a thing. Well it is I mean I've I've sailed all my life I've never done this kind of sailing. And and I had never heard into such a thing was possible I mean I I was you know just as you as you read it. I was the same way when it was being described to me I just. I was just you know in wide open mouthed amazed. Our guest maybe just real quick I'll reintroduce our guest is Bruce Knecht. He is a Hong Kong based foreign correspondent for The Wall Street Journal and is the author of a newly published book that looks at the 1998 Sydney to Hobart race sailboat race. The title of the book is the proving ground and it's published by Little Brown and course questions are welcome here in Champaign Urbana 3 3 3 9 4 5 5 toll free 800 to 2 2 9 4 5 5. Well aside from bragging rights and I'm sure some sort of a trophy What is it what is there

in winning this race for the winner. Well the first thing that I should say about the race is that it's a it's a race that unlike any sailing race in the United States in the sense that everyone in Australia seems to watch it. That's not to say everyone's in Sydney Harbor a bit that the day the race starts but but people are glued to their television sets across that huge country and they follow the race in a way that there's there's no real parallel. You know and in our country. So it is one of the it's highly visible and so the reason that one one is in this race and one wants to win this race is for at least within the world of sailing I suppose that that really makes you that makes you a superstar. Yeah I mean in the book you know you can you might wonder why you are called a book about the sea the proving ground and the reason for that is that you know I focus just on three boats and I tried to first of all tell a dramatic story but I also one of my goals which I don't know that I was entirely successful in fact I know I wasn't entirely successful

was in trying to get at this great question why do people do things like this why do people you choose to use their leisure time to do things that are that are dangerous that are difficult. And the answer to the question to a great extent in this is how I came up with the title is that they do it just because it's difficult. They do it because it's challenging. They're looking to prove one thing or another. And the fact that it's the toughest Ocean Race in the world is precisely the reason why people are drawn to it. If you decided you want to enter this race and have some hope of winning what would it cost. Well it really depends I mean on the high end. You know one of the three boats I write about is the longest Larry Ellison's second richest man in the world. His boat you know cost him four million dollars to build it. He ships it around the world from race to race. The 23 member crew almost all of them are professionals. And so for him it was you know it cost him $10000 to provide the food for the rice

for him it was of course an extraordinarily expensive event for most people in the race. It's nothing like that. They already own their boat and they cook their own food they pay. They take care of all their own provisions. Maybe they need a new sail for the race maybe they need to get a better life raft. But basically for them the costs are not so great. Not much more than the cost of doing most of the other races they do all year round. Well let's talk a little bit more about the three boats that you write about in detail and you mentioned the first sign which is owned by this guy Larry Ellison the founder of Oracle and the man certainly who had plenty of money if if that's what we're talking about plenty of money to be able to buy a boat and have a good crew and have the best of everything that money could buy I suppose. Yeah I mean and it's not just a good crew. I mean his crew included. I see three people who had won both the America's Cup and the Whitbread Around the world race. As far as

I can tell there's about five people in the world who have done both who have won both of those races. Most of his crew were from Team New Zealand and the folks that had won the the Americas Cup and so it was it was probably you know I guess there's probably room to argue about this but it it could well have been the most experienced crew. You know you could possibly get on any sailboat so it was an extraordinary extraordinary group and sign are and as you've mentioned what we have here are people who are intensely competitive. One of the people interestingly enough that Larry Ellison was competing against was not only another sailor but another guy in the software business that had a headset and he had set a record year or two previous to that and he was part of a partner. Guy has started a company called S.A.T. which is which is a company that does basically the same thing as Oracle and hasa Plattner also is a

seller and he had won the record for the Sydney to Hobart rice in a year that Larry Ellison didn't compete Allison and competed in the 95 race and he had won it. And part of the reason he came back in the 98 race was because he wanted to get that record he wanted to get it back from from house a Plattner an archrival who had sailed against and that sailing had actually changed the whole nature of their relationship to make it a really kind of a bitter relationship. Neither of them will speak to one another. It's sort of infused the whole business relationship with a sort of added dimension which which has intensified it to a great degree. So you know Larry Ellison is a guy who believes that every moment of every day is part of a great competition to see to prove just how good he is. I mean he's the guy the second richest man in the world and he's unhappy about that. Oracle's The second thing. It's a software company. Microsoft is bigger than Bill Gates is richer

and that's that's that makes life for Larry Ellison very unhappy. He believes that you know the point of life is to see how good he can be and as many things as possible and that means business but it also means selling it means flying acrobatic planes it means writing poetry It means teaching him how self how to cook and to play the piano. He believes that it's all one big contest to see you know how much he can do in a lifetime. The next of the three boats that you read about is a boat called the Sword of Orion which was owned by an Australian someone who he had never sailed in the Hobart before so right now it's actually done with just one hour before the 97 Hobart. His name is Rob Cozzi a at the time was a 54 year old entrepreneur. He grew up hearing about the race. He was very interested in winning the race for sort of the glory of winning the Hobart but he didn't have much experience sailing. He bought his first boat not many just a few months

before the 97 race and he and the 98 race was the least experienced sailor on his crew of 10 people. So he was in some ways not very well equipped to be a skipper and he didn't. In some ways appreciate what it takes two to have a winning crew. One of the things it takes is managing a boat is actually quite complicated. And one of the keys is to have the same group of people with you race after race and to have them have the same jobs as they have over and over. But also to give them a chance to communicate with each other the kind of communicating that you do without even really speaking. The sort of understanding about who can do what who's good at what who's not good at what. That's what it really takes to run a boat well and Rob Kofi because he didn't really have the appreciation for some of that was probably not so well equipped to to run a boat and this kind of extreme weather which they ran into on the second day of the

race. Yeah. And he what he did was he brought two two crewmembers on right before the race that were that had not been on the boat before they didn't know the other members of the crew and that there seemed to be a lot of jostling or. Sort of struggle or competition over just who was running this boat. Yeah and that actually began. I mean the problem was the skipper was not someone that and many of the other members of the crew had a little and a lot of respect for. So the dissension and some of the disagreements about you know who is going to be making the big decisions began actually before the race started and just in the hours before the race started and that dissension intensified on the second day when the weather got worse and and it became you know it it became it became a serious serious problem for all of them. The third boat that you write about is interestingly enough a boat that was in the very first Hobart and compared different at least in the respect that we're talking about

these other boats that are they're very modern They're high tech they're computer designed they're made out of these exotic materials. Winston Churchill actually was a wooden sailboat. Would the once and that's part of the reason I chose it for the third bout the Winston Churchill was built in the 1940s. It was it was named for the former prime minister because it was completed just after the war and the builder of the boat who was actually it's for Stoner wrote a letter. And got a response saying that they handed him to Churchill himself would be honored to have the boat named after him. They both competed in not only the first Hobart in 1945 but 17 subsequent Hobart's added circumnavigated the world twice. It was one of the best known boats in all of Australia and it was one of those sailboats that you don't have to know anything about sailing and you just sort of see it and just say you know gosh that that's a beautiful boat. This is the man who said that what he was going to be doing was gentlemens ocean racing. What exactly did.

Does that mean. Well Richard winning is the honor comes from an old line wealthy family from Sydney. He his idea he was competitive. He liked the race because he you know like the sort of man against nature aspects of it but he recognised that the Winston Churchill which came in third in that first race when there were just eight votes was not going to be a contender for one of the top top positions in the race. So his idea was that what was important about the race was was doing well but also to do it in a certain style to do it with old friends and to enjoy the camaraderie of the whole event. You know selling your 10 people in a relatively confined space camaraderie is one of the great things about sailing you get to know people quite quickly and that was a crew that included old friends one of whom was an investment banker one of whom was a garbage truck driver I mean it was a diversity of mostly middle aged men and this was a this was a way they sort of kept connected to one another.

One we know and we've talked about what happened that people have read anything about the book they know what happened is just after the race started a very big storm came up. And hit the fleet and damaged and a lot of boats and some boats were lost. They have meteorologists who are keeping track of the weather to provide that information to the people who are going to be sailing in the race. At what point did those guys who were watching the weather realize that this big storm was headed right for the boats. Well two days before the race they they knew that there was going to be some difficult weather in the hours just before the race started. They do the weather bureau put a gale warning in place but the weather models you know the same big supercomputer pewter models that everybody uses every forecaster uses to predict weather we're in some disagreement about how bad the storm would actually be. About an hour after the race started two of the models agree that it was going to be much worse than the gale

warning would have indicated. And on the basis of that an hour after the race started they put out a a storm warning. Now a storm warning in that part of Australia is the most serious kind of warning there is. They do not have hurricanes in that part of Australia but that that's only because of what it takes for the science of what it takes to create a hurricane. It doesn't mean they don't have hurricane force winds which is ultimately what they had but one of the problems is that the the sailors in the race most of them thought that the storm warning with a lesser warning than the gale warning they thought a storm warning is what happens on a you know on a summer afternoon when you see the dark clouds rolling in. They didn't realize that it was the most serious warning so and so for that the sailors you know what they can be faulted for not knowing something that they clearly should have known. Well certainly the. Wouldn't the Australian sailors and the New Zealanders the people who are from that part of the world have known that they shouldn't but that most of them didn't. Well once the race started and then they knew for sure

what a what a bad storm there was. No actually they weren't sure because the forecast was what it was for weather that was predicted 24 hours out. First of all they they knew that they had a long gap to make. You know they they didn't have to decide what to do certain as soon as they heard about the storm warning. They knew they had some time to decide. They also knew that you know as we all do the forecasts are not a certainty. And and some of them I think probably had a view that that you know the forecast was probably overstating the the severity of the storm. Will did I guess one of the question. Did the people who are sailing in the race have good enough information on which to make the decision. Do we keep going or or do we try to turn around or do we do we abandon the race on the second day of the race when the weather really began to worsen and it gets steadily worse than from 7:00 in the morning right through the day and a stair step fashion the wind just kept building and building and and because of the wind the waves continue

to become taller and taller and the sort of rime Rob who I described to someone who who wanted to win the race for all the glory it can bring. He wanted to continue racing even while almost everyone else on his crew wanted to quit. Now it wasn't just because he wanted to win the race that he continued to want to continue to he wanted to continue racing. He also wanted to find out precisely where the storm was and where it was moving because he wanted to make sure if they did change their course they wouldn't go right back into the worst of the storm. Alternately he bowed to the pressure of the rest of his crew and agreed to turn around and it was the worst possible thing to do. In the end because they did go right back into the worst of the storm. So for that I do fault the weather bureau they should they they could have conveyed more information they knew more about where the storm was than they conveyed. And so that's that's what happened on the sort of run and that led to a rather tragic results because it was an hour after that that sort of Ryan did that 360

degree roll that I that I described a little bit earlier and that led to a 33 year old limp excel and I'm going Charles being lost from the boat. The organizers the sponsors the race the cruising yacht club. Sydney they said and I gather this must be or perhaps the. I guess I should ask if whether it is a policy in the world of sailing for the sponsors essentially to say to the sailors it's up to you whether you go or not it's not up to us to say you should turn around. Is that pretty much the way it is and the rules of international sailing it sounds odd to non sailors I know. But the idea is if there's very bad weather at the start of the race well then the race organizers are are very happy to postpone the start of the race. But once a race starts the rule the sailing and this is true of every race around the world. Say that the decision as to whether you continue sailing or you abandon the race is up to the individual skippers. Now there's the three basic reasons for that. One is that the skippers are the ones that should know where they

are relative to the worst of the weather so they're the ones that know at least theoretically whether turning around would take them away from the storm or put them back in the way of the storm. That's number one number two. The skippers are the ones that know what their boats can withstand what they can take in terms of weather and ways. And number three they're the ones that know most about their crews and know most about the you know their the skill of their crew and the mental sort of attitude of their crews. So the idea is they're the ones that can make it better in the best position to make those decisions after racing has begun. Well and you do a guest have to feel in a way for Rob Coffey. Yes it seems like it was a tough call to make once if if you're going to decide that you're going to be on in the race and knowing that there's really bad weather and not being quite sure where it is I can imagine the difficulty of that. That decision where you ask yourself well which way do we go. Is it really. It sounds like it really would

have been a tough call. It was an extremely tough call and ultimately what led him to make the decision to go back was really the will of the crew and his his recognition national recognition. Some would say belated recognition that the crew would feel better even if it was not the best course but just that sort of. The notion that they were going someplace else that they were you know attempting to quit the race to get away from the weather and weather even if it was wrong would have such a positive impact on their on their mental state which. And that I thought point was you know they were that was a worried crew. They none of them had seen you know they were at that point in 40 50 foot waves. You know which is just very hard to imagine I mean I think the biggest wave I've ever seen is probably 15 feet and 15 feet is enormous and 40 to 50 foot waves or are really kind of unthinkable for me.

Well they're just a people to visualize it here with a 50 foot wave. That's you're talking about a five story building correct there. So maybe that's just one way you can imagine yourself you can imagine self in a boat and being next to a wave that's the that's a. The height of a five story Bill and I guess there were some waves that were even more. There were even bigger than that. Well there were helicopter pilots who were involved in the rescue who have radar altimeters and they by judging the distance between the peak and trough the waves are it would seem in a good position to know exactly how high the waves were and some of those helicopter pilots said that the waves must have been 70 80 feet high. Wow. Our guest in this part of focus 580 is Bruce Knecht. He is writer for The Wall Street Journal he's a Hong Kong based foreign correspondent for The Journal. He's also written for the publications The Atlantic Monthly condé Nast Traveller New York Times Magazine sale and his new book is out just now it's about the in 1990 8 Sydney to

Hobart sailboat race and the title of a book is the proving ground. It's published by Little Brown and your question certainly welcome someone to call in three three three. Wy allow toll free 800 1:58. W Well I think that you do. Pretty good job in the book describing what it must have been like to be out in the storm on these boats. Can you for people who haven't had the opportunity yet to read it can you talk a little bit about that and give us some idea of just what it must have been like. Well you know the first to the first interview I did on the day for the book even before I had sighted whether I was going to write it was with Richard winning the owner of the Winston Churchill. And that first conversation he described what it was like to look at a wave that he thought was about 60 feet high. Now this is someone who sailed all life. It's everyone sort of exaggerates wave heights in races they encounter but I don't think he's the kind of person who would exaggerate waves.

But so he described to me what it was like to be at the wheel of his great old vessel and to be looking at this wave and to be sort of plotting his strategy. He knew exactly what he had to do and he had to steer into the way that something of an angle so that they'd have enough momentum to make it over the top. But not so much that they go flying off the other side because either way he knew that this was timber construction and one plank if it sprung in the course of of an impact that was too too sudden would be enough to sink about very quickly. He described to me what it was like to be about halfway up the wave when he realized that he wasn't going to make it over the top that the wave was too big and he then described how the boat was turned sideways to the way and then on its side and then how the wave kind of threw threw the boat off off the wave and into the trough. He said the impact when they landed at the bottom was as if as if somebody had you know taken a boat up to the top of a five story building and dropped it.

And so the. The next person I talked to John Gibson was a 65 year old lawyer who was it was below at the time he described what it was like to be to be below decks when when the impact came he was lying in his bunk. He was thrown across the cabin. He landed with his head hit what he thought was maybe a bolt. There was blood coming down his face. Both of his contacts fell out and he saw immediately that even with out of context that there was water entering the hall quite rapidly and then he describes something that was actually sort of heart breaking he described how his first instinct was that he should turn on the engine because he knew the engine was what drove the building pump and he knew the bilge pump was necessary to evacuate the water and then he told me that his his second instinctually it was the better weight. Until Richard winning made the decisions because Richard was the was was the real decision maker on this boat. Richard was at the wheel but when he fell off the wave when the boat fell off the wave he was literally wrapped up in the

backstay by a safety harness harness that was attached to the deck to keep him from falling off the boat. But as they came off the wave it wrapped him up in the rigging in a way that his his his feet were actually suspended off the deck. It took them six mean minutes to get on Todd from that mess. And by the time he did he came below. First thing he wanted to do was turn on the engine. Only six minutes passed but it was six minutes that's how long it took two for the water to cover the batteries. And and as a result the engine couldn't start. So that's that's sort of a description of you know six minutes in the life of the Winston Churchill that it hopefully creates a picture of just just what it was what it was like. And Georgia was one of the boats that that sank. It sank very quickly as a matter of fact it sank. It sank within 60 minutes after after they fell off this wave. And at that point ten men got into to life rafts where they spent the better part of 28 hours so they were out on these the same waves that we've talked about in life rafts a

life raft were not so good I have to add. So just the technique if if you were trying to sail in weather like this is as you describe it that. Roughly speaking that what you try to do is head the boat actually into the wave go ahead onto the wave cup up over the crest and then surf sort of a sideways on the way down so you don't go straight and straight down so you can sort of cushion cushion the impact into the trough which is going to be it's not you're not going to be really question I mean you see you know CNN made a documentary based on the book which is also called the proving ground and focuses on the same three boats in this footage in that sign are up which is Larry Ellison's. You know boat it's 80 feet long and. And when you realize that this 80 foot boat when you watch it fall off these ways it it it's just enormous I mean just just the impact I mean there's no way to make a gentle but the point is you try to make it as gentle as possible because all of that intact intact this happened on sign are

the impact tends to break things. Things come apart in the case of sign are the bulkhead the sort of structural members that attach one side of the hole to the other the bulkheads are actually separating from the hull and the actual surface of the hall which in the case of sun are was made out of carbon fiber which is which is in theory much stronger than the timber of Winston Churchill. The carbon fiber was was going through a process called the lamination which is I compared a little bit to what happens with plywood when you get it wet. You know the surface is sort of you know sometimes bubble up and begin to separate Well that's what was happening on an aura. And Larry Ellison was watching that he could see the bubbles. And and that's when he realized that carbon fiber you know carbon fiber is very strong. Until it isn't. And when the the lamination continues to a particular point hard to say when it's going to come it just completely buckles that could and the whole would at that point collapse like a paperback. He finished Not only did he finish the race he won sine our center came in

first. Was that was that a matter of luck. Was it skill was it the fact that they just were far enough away from the worst part of the storm so that they they meant. Just to get through I think it was mostly the latter. Oh well it's faster boats go bigger boats go faster. It was ahead of worst of the worst of the storm. Larry Ellison and the crew didn't know that but they were ahead of the worst of it so that's probably the main reason that they they avoided. You know the waves that would have potentially you know done them in as well. They won the race but it didn't feel like winning I mean Larry Ellison was you know crying and emotional when he got off the boat and and he you know he said he would never do the race again. He said the same thing actually after the 95 race but after the 98 race I've spent quite a lot of time with him with him at this stage and I can I can say with great confidence that he this is not a race he'll be Hill ever do do again.

No one on the boat felt like they had won. By the time they they were arriving by the time they reached Hobart they had through the radio heard what had happened to the rest of the fleet. The initial reports suggested that there might be as many as 20 sailors that had been lost and presumed dead and that which they turned out to be erroneous but but they they knew that this race was it was not about winning long before they reach the dock. And we shouldn't. Best bows under undercount what that boat went through there certainly were times apparently during their race when Larry Ellison was wondering what in fact whether they were going to make it or not. Oh yeah I mean when you see a book coming apart as he did when he saw the volcanism in the lamination when he saw that damage I mean and he knew how far away they were from landing he knew that a boat wouldn't reach them before they sunk and he knew that it would take a long time for a look up to reach him so you know I think I think probably most people you know sort of thought through the possible scenarios of everything going horribly wrong.

We talked a little bit about what happened to the Winston Churchill and the science. What what ultimately happened to the Sword of Orion. Well the sort of Orion after a thing dates its dramatic 360 degree roll. GLINK Charles the Olympic sailor from Britain was at the wheel when that happens. He too had a safety harness around his chest and a tether that connected the harness to the deck so that he would he would maintain its position on the boat no matter what happened. Unfortunately though the tether was burst it broke during that roll and so that when the guys who were below deck came came above After the role they saw Glenn was in the water. Initially he was 20 30 feet away from the boat but the distance of annoying the boat and expanding quite rapidly because the boat was being pushed away by 60 mile per hour wind. And Anglin with his head just exposed to the

to the wasn't wasn't really moving you know any faster than that and the current. So the two separated quite quickly. The sort of run lost its mast the engine wouldn't work there was no the way they could. They could bring the boat to Glynne. There was no way they could. They could swim to Glen and there was there was no way they could effect a rescue so that 20 minutes after. After that they couldn't even see Clint anymore and that's the last anyone saw. Yeah that must have been a terrible experience for them knowing that they could see that they could see him that he was there but they couldn't get it couldn't see that he could see them. They actually thought each of them individually if that plane was looking at them and you know although he wasn't speaking he had obviously been injured when this happened because he could only swim with one arm. They they each of them had this thought and it's a thought that continues to haunt them is you know going through his eyes was he was saying well why are you coming to get me. Yeah.

It's another that were those things that just really hard to imagine what that would be like seeing as your fellow crew member there and and perhaps also imagining will that could be me. But anyway all had their chance to imagine that long afterwards because the DI they were rescued by by helicopter. And some of them of the rescue process didn't go smoothly not surprisingly given given the conditions and there were two. Two of the people who were rescued by helicopter who were at various points not attached to the boat not attached to the cable from the helicopter just just being thrashed by these waves. Thinking just that thinking I'm exactly where Glyn was a couple of hours ago how difficult was it for the rescuers to determine where the people they were trying to rescue where. Well both have emergency positioning aid indicating radio beacons which are called the perp's. Now the problem was that the kind of papers that they had in the race were the kind that said

I'm in distress and I and I and it sent a signal about where that I was. The problem was that there were so many of these e probes going off and some of them had become separated from the RAF. Some of them separated from boats and so they they weren't leading the rescuers to any person. And there were so many probes going off that that caused a lot of confusion for the rescuers. I mean one of the good things that came out of out of the bad things that happen in the race is a lot of recommendations and one of those recommendations is that they in future races and this is been adopted by by races around the world. They should use the kind of probes that doesn't say you know I'm in distress whoever I might be it says I am the Winston Churchill and I'm in distress. So that after inside the crew the Winston Churchill was rescued. You wouldn't have a decon confusing the rescuers because they would know to disregard that one. We have about 10 minutes left in this part of focus and want to do our guest again we're talking with Bruce Knecht. He is a Hong Kong based foreign correspondent for The Wall Street Journal

nominee for the Pulitzer Prize hasn't written for a lot of publications. In addition to the journal and has a book that's been just a little bit now officially published on the first of the month which is about the 1998 Sydney to Hobart sailboat race and the title of the book is the proving. Ground It's published by Little Brown in bookstores now. If you want to look at it and again questions are welcome three three three. WRAL toll free 800 1:58. Well in addition to. A provision for a better these better emergency beacons that will be on the books where there are other changes have other changes been made as a result of the experiences of the 1098 race. Yeah I mean I want to tell you what happened on the Winston Churchill's leg press but I already did mention that they were sort of falling apart and they ultimately became more like inner tubes than in life raft future races they're going to be required to have a much better life raft. The weather bureau when it issues its forecast won't be relying on vocabulary like storm

warnings to indicate precisely what kind of wind they expect they'll have the specific numbers in terms of knots. No one under 18 can be in the race that actually was one of the more controversial decisions. They're in the race and the communications among the fleet and the administrators of the race will be improved. Lots of changes. No one of them will will will make the race safe or really change in the nature of the risk. But I think it is also safe to say that in the sum sum total of the changes will will make a difference will make racing the Sydney to Hobart as well as other races. Say for one thing I probably should mention with the rescue you know six people dying in this race as you know it is terrible. It's a tragedy but to me the fact that the number wasn't higher is almost a miracle. I mean 55 people came down from helicopters at the end of metal cables and went into these enormous waves and successfully found and brought

back up sailors who were in trouble. To me the idea that that happened 55 times and in each case successfully is something close to a miracle. Well in addition. Mourning the dead were the rescuers appropriately acknowledged for what they did. Absolutely absolutely. The rescuers and I think I was one of the aspects of what happened that I focused on a lot and in the book. I certainly acknowledge that because you know they are a very important part of the story. And so I I did my best to sort of describe them as people and describe how it is that they came to do that kind of work. And and certainly they the people who were rescued I know some of them have become personal friends with the people who rescued them. You talk about the fact that when after having completed the race and survived the experience Larry Ellison said I'm never going to do this. Again but also then you said you've talked enough with him and gotten to know him well enough to know that in fact he

most likely will. What what about the other people that were in the race and particularly those members of these other crews of these other boats that were lost. Well they had they sailed again will they sail again in this race or up because you're from the sort of horizon. He he was one of those who was lifted from from the sort of run by by helicopter and. And one day after what Charles was last he was flying back to Sydney on that flight he was already thinking about his next boat. And one one week after that he invited the surviving members of his crew to his house for dinner and he at that time told them that he had picked up the boat he was going to buy he was going to get it he was going to call it sort of Orion. He planned on racing in the next Sydney to Hobart race and he expected everyone from his crew. Survivors anyway to be back within the next year. In fact just one of them. One of them did. But but Rocky did

race in that race and for a while he was actually winning it although there were there was and it was in the 99 race like in every race. Dramatic change in the weather which which knocked him down to a great extent and they ended up finishing seventh. But I would say most of the people that I write about were are of the view that they'll do the race again. So in the end the former members and the members of the crew of this sort of Orion that was lost they just didn't have enough confidence in coffee to want to sail with him again. I think that's probably fair in most cases. Some of them also were of the view that they wanted to do it if they did it again they wanted to do it on a bigger boat. The sort of ride was that more than 40 feet. And after their experience they felt that they would have been better off if they had been on a bigger boat. Yeah it would they have been. I think so I think so. Bigger boats are they are in a better position to be

to to handle the worst of the weather. Bigger boats a bigger cruise too which will put them in a better position to to you know react to react to extreme conditions. What what is the average size of the crew for. These boats Well they the Winston Churchill in the sort of run each had 10 members. The Sinai had 23. There's not too many boats that have you know I think they must have more than more than seven or eight. Most of them probably average probably around 10. You would I think I've read in some of the material that came of the book you're saying that you would like to sail in this race yourself. Well it's not the kind of sailing I've ever ever done or ever really wanted to do. What I'd probably like to do it just once. And I think that's mostly because as you know I spent two years you know writing the book. I took 10 trips to Australia I got to I'm pretty immersed in this race and and I think it would be you know from a just a

personal standpoint it would be satisfying to to to do it just once to see it to see if you know it's it's it's as I've described it as I've imagined it. I don't I don't think that I'm going to be the kind of person I would want to go back and do it year after year. That's that's for sure. So you have done this. Have you done. Open ocean sailing like this I don't know just one ocean race I've done. I do a lot of racing but it's on small boats and relatively sheltered waters and I race every Saturday afternoon on a 28 foot boat but it's in Victoria Harbor obviously a protected body of water. But I did do one ocean race we went from Hong Kong to St. John ocean on. And west of Macau and that qualifies as an ocean race but it but the conditions were were very calm and it was nothing like the race I've written about and brewing around. Well I don't think I have not had the experience of sailing but I think that I can understand the appeal at least of being out on a nice sunny day

when things were relatively calm and the winds where there were enough to get you where you wanted to go but we were talking about 80 foot waves and a 40 50 knot winds. I guess I'm not really quite sure I understand the appeal of wanting to be out in that. Yeah no I couldn't agree more. Sailing on a beautiful day I can think of nothing I'd rather do but going out and you know I mean the moment to moment reality on these boats and this includes you know people people I think a lot of people think the word yacht means someplace luxurious and you know. They're just sipping martinis or something. I mean even on Larry Ellison's boat there was nothing comfortable about it. No one was eating nobody was even able to drink. Everyone was seasick. You couldn't sleep. It was absolute misery misery. So I think you know if if people if people actually remember what it was like when they're thinking about if they're going to do it again they wouldn't do it again. But you

know this is the way I guess we all react to the bad experiences we tend to remember the good parts and remember the sort of you know the great sense of satisfaction that we have at the end. And that's what probably drives us to do that to to do something like this again even if even if it's not such a great experience that when you're actually doing it. And it's the same I suppose the same thing that drives people to do well whatever it is they do if it's mountain climbing or. Deep sea diving or surfing or whatever extreme sport is that you participate in it seems to be that same thing and it goes back to the title of the book this idea of just seeing what it is you're what kind of challenge you're up to. Yeah I mean you know people who were Richard winning very successful in business. That was Rob Kofi. So is Larry Ellison. But for one reason or another is it wasn't enough for them. I mean Richard winning talks of it in terms of being part of a generation that had never really been tested in the way that people have

had to go off and fight wars and or you know provide food for their families when you know providing the food required you know more than than than holding a job. I mean he he he you know takes it back to so the elemental challenges that he thinks that you know on some level men are supposed to have but we don't have enough of those challenges anymore. We're going to have to stop there we've used the time want to say Mr. NEC thanks very much for talking with us we appreciate in well thanks I've enjoyed it. Our guest Bruce Knecht he's Hong Kong based foreign correspondent for The Wall Street Journal. And if you'd like to read his book once again the title is the proving ground. It is published by Little Brown.