Sailing in Covid-19 Times

Last night I crossed the equator in my sleep. It wasn’t in a dream. Nor did I physically cross the equator— but my sailboat did – my virtual sailboat. 

From my perspective, the most amazing sailboat racing in the world is the Vendee Globe. Held every four years, this is a solo race around the world without any assistance. Top racers can do it in less than eighty days. I will not be able to do it anywhere near that quickly, partly because I got off to a slow start, or rather my virtual sailboat did. Not surprising, given that I’ve never done this kind of thing before. 

My goal was not to win a virtual race, but rather to have a new kind of experience— to be part of something I couldn’t possibly do in real life. When I was younger, I occasionally fantasized sailing around the world, but now that I’m seventy-seven years old and feeling my age, I have to consider other options. Offshore e-sailing, particularly in an era of Covid restrictions, is one of them.

 I felt a bit like a real traveler as I cruised by the Canary Islands and then Cape Verde.  I learned, for example, that the Canaries enjoy an excellent climate and Portuguese in the volcanically-formed Cape Verde islands.

Unlike a pure computer game, e-sailing involves interacting with real world conditions in real time. You need to know wind conditions in some detail. You need to chart your own course. You need to decide what kind of sails you are going to run up your virtual mast. And you need to find tune your heading relative to the wind with your virtual tiller from time to time— often, for best results. Or, if you’re like me, I set a heading before I go to bed and do not check it again until I have had a good night sleep. One morning I woke up and found my sailboat plodding along at a mere 0.9 knots. But I had slept well.

Conditions for the thirty-three actual sailors in the 2020 Vendee Globe are much different. They usually never sleep more than two hours at a time. It is estimated that on average they sleep only about 15% of the time they are cruising. Given their sailboats are built for speed rather than comfort, they take quite a pounding. When they are speeding along at 20 to 25 kn, noise levels generally run around 90 dB. Sometimes noise levels are as high as 130 dB. Plus, things are always breaking. Whatever repairs are necessary, they must fix them totally on their own, although they can receive verbal advice via satellite radio. (I understand they shoot for trying to do one repair each day.) And I suspect they end up being wet or damp most of the time.

After a virtual crossing of the equator, I cannot help but think about the one time I actually crossed it when I was a doctor aboard the Glacier. About one third of us aboard this Coast Guard icebreaker were “pollywogs” hoping to become “turtles.” We knew in advance that this ‘rite of passage’ would involve some type of barbaric, if not brutal, ceremony. I was given the option of opting out of the ceremony, but I did not want to pretend that I was better than anyone else. And I thought I might miss out on some fun. It was a great decision. True, the ceremony was barbaric and crude. For example, imagine a diaper-clad “Baby Neptune” grabbing your face and rubbing it in his beer-belly covered with axle grease. In fact, it was a hilarious occasion and superb for morale. I am glad that I was able to obtain some photos for my book that helped to capture the spirit of the event.