Cruising_World_2016-06-07

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I

t was very windy and

about to get much wind-

ier. In the early spring of

1986, aboard the 60-foot cata-

maran British Airways, we were

less than 48 hours into our

transatlantic record attempt

when the whole show started

going extremely sideways.

Skipper Robin Knox-Johnston

— already a legend, having

become the fi rst sailor to circle

the globe alone and nonstop

less than two decades earlier —

gathered the crew in the cat’s

rather cramped cockpit to out-

line the situation.

Robin explained that the

low-pressure system we’d

waited several days in New

Jersey to latch onto — the plan

had been to ride the low from

Ambrose Light, off New York

City, to Lizard Point, at the

mouth of the English Channel

— had morphed into a monster

storm that was about to over-

take us.

Had we been farther east, he

said, we could have turned and

run before the heavy souther-

lies, but because we were due

south of the Grand Banks,

that was no longer an option;

the fast cat would tear into the

relative shallows in hours. So

the idea was to reduce sail and

claw our way to weather, and if

that didn’t work, stream warps

off the bows and essentially

park and maintain our posi-

tion until the heavy weather

passed.

“Now,” he said, as he once

again reviewed where all the

safety and survival gear was

located, “if we capsize and I’m

swept away ...”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa, man,”

I recall thinking. “Can you

please slow down and run that

past me again?”

This month, as we assem-

ble our annual issue devoted to

multihulls, I am reminded of

my very fi rst off shore trip on

a seagoing catamaran. These

days, of course, cats are every-

where, but that wasn’t the case

30 years ago. My voyage on

British Airways was memorable

for countless reasons.

There were some very

good sailors aboard, includ-

ing Robin’s fellow Brit Josh

Hall and a young Frenchman

named Bernard Gallay, both

of whom would go on to com-

pete in solo round-the-world

races. The record we were

chasing at the time was just

shy of eight days, set by a giant

French trimaran called Royale

2. Realistically, we didn’t

stand much chance of better-

ing it, as British Airways was

a much shorter, heavier boat,

designed by Rod Macalpine-

Downie. (A French sailing

writer derisively nicknamed

her “the truck of the seas.”)

But that didn’t matter to me;

I’d never been on a yacht that

could knock off double-digit

boat speeds for hours and

hours on end. As far as I was

concerned, B.A. did not refer

to the vessel’s initials; nope,

those letters meant Badass.

As it turned out, we got

slapped around pretty well in

the gale, but we kept the boat

moving and emerged whole

and unscathed. The real prob-

lem came in the aftermath,

when the blow had pretty

much sucked the breeze out of

the entire Atlantic Ocean. For

72 hours after the storm, our

engineless cat did little more

than rise and fall on the greasy

leftover swell. It was not a

pleasant ride.

That said, it was still an

adventure. We ate from one

simmering pot the entire way

across, a curry-based concoc-

tion Robin just kept throw-

ing stuff into whenever it got

low. The commode was basi-

cally a hole in the boat with

a toilet seat bolted over it.

Our Spartan sleeping quar-

ters consisted of little more

than a chilled crawlspace dec-

orated with a smiling portrait

of the queen, but at least they

were dry. And when the BBC

reported the news about Libya

being bombed to bejesus, our

captain, an ex-merchant mar-

iner whose politics veered far

to the right, was downright

giddy.

But then the wind picked

up, right on the beam, with

some punch to it. For the next

several days, we ripped off con-

sistent 24-hour runs of well

over 300 miles. In fact, we

knocked off the second half

of the Atlantic in about four

days. If we’d managed that the

whole way, we actually might

have set a new record. But no

matter — to this day it still

stands as some of the best sail-

ing of my life.

To punctuate the journey

once we were tied up in

England, Robin’s sponsor

graciously forked over a

ticket from London to New

York on the Concorde. Talk

about fl ying British Airways!

I thought 12 days across the

Atlantic was pretty darn quick

— until it took me three hours

to get home.

Herb McCormick is Cruising

World’s executive editor.

The 60-foot cat British Airways had few creature comforts,

but when the breeze was on, she could haul the mail.

june/july 2016

cruisingworld.com

A Cat TALE

Then the breeze picked up, right on the beam, with some punch to it. For the next several

days we ripped off consistent 24-hour runs of well over 300 miles.

BY HERB McCORMICK

Off Watch

PPL PHOTO AGENCY