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Winning one race doesn’t make you a Great Sailor

Winning one race doesn’t make you a Great Sailor

Persistence and taking a long-term view. These are the two critical things you must have to succeed in life according to Skip Sheldon, owner/skipper of the Reichel/Pugh 65 Zaraffa. “Your life is measured by what you have done over the years, he says, “by its quality and volume.” It is not enough for a poet to write one gem, a scientist to make one advance in knowledge. There must be a body of work.

Persistence and taking a long-term view.  These are the two critical things you must have to succeed in life according to Skip Sheldon, owner/skipper of the Reichel/Pugh 65 Zaraffa.  “Your life is measured by what you have done over the years, he says, “by its quality and volume.”  It is not enough for a poet to write one gem, a scientist to make one advance in knowledge.  There must be a body of work. 

It is a philosophy that Sheldon brings to ocean racing as well.  He has little time for rich men who enter the sport by buying a place on the finish line.  “This is the 51st year I’ve been offshore in my own boat,” he says, “and I have also crewed for a lot of people.  You have to do your apprenticeship.”

So it’s not surprising that there is absolutely nothing half-baked, nothing left to chance, in Sheldon’s bid to win the 2003 Rolex Sydney Hobart Yacht Race.  In fact it is the culmination of a four year program of racing and ocean cruising that has already chalked up a swag of successes.

“You can’t do it on a one race basis.  Even if you do it over one season your lucky,” he says.  The best professional sailors have to weigh up their prospects over the next few years of their careers when they choose to join a boat.  Joining Zaraffa, say, means they are not joining another boat that may offer options and connections next year or the year after that.  “If you want to do a campaign you must plan for four years, select the events you want to compete in, and select a core group of good people who are likeminded, because four years is a long time to be together.”  And then you must stick to the plan.

So far it has worked.  Since 2000 Zaraffa has won her class or been first across the line in her class in a string of ocean races including the Block Island Race, the Vineyard Race, the Bermuda Race, the Northern Ocean Racing Trophy and the North Atlantic Challenge.  In 2001 she won the Superzero class of the Fastnet Race and placed second overall.  This year she won the Big Boat Class of the Rolex Middle Sea Race, placing second in the IMS Overall and third IRC Overall.

But though tempted to bring the boat to Australia last year for the 2002 Rolex Sydney Hobart Yacht Race he held off.  “The 2003 Trans Atlantic Race was a target for us,  (she won both the IMS and IRC divisions).  That matured and seasoned the boat and the crew and prepared us for this Hobart.  If we had come here last year we wouldn’t have been focussed enough.”

Like the owners of many large racing yachts you get the feeling that much of the enjoyment for Sheldon is the same as when he was running a business.  The strategic planning, logistics, man management, with the bonus that, at the finish line you know instantly what you have achieved, or not as the case may be.

Incredibly, given her record, Zaraffa is no out and out racing boat.  She is genuinely set up for long distance, comfortable cruising with more than a tonne of the extras that make life worth living in a boat.  “I insisted on adding the things that John Pugh didn’t want.  Designers’ reputations come from race results but I was paying the bills and I knew what I wanted so my wife and children would enjoy cruising.  We have a six burner stove, two full heads and showers, a big heater.” 

Yet Zaraffa gets no credit in her rating for all the extra weight, so she has to be sailed at her peak to win.  “But that’s true of our competitors too,” Sheldon says. “The key has been a boat that is fast upwind and off the wind.  She is very strong, very stable and safe and because of where we sail she is a bit over-rigged so she is great in light airs.”

Zaraffa will do 9 knots in 6 knots of wind.  Over 3200 miles she averaged 12.1 knots.  Included in her crew are America’s Cup and Volvo Ocean Race veterans, and Sheldon has the vagaries of the South Coast and Tassie weather covered with Neil Batt, who for many years has been the CYCA’s official weather forecaster.   Sheldon has invested a lot of money in this quest and has mounted a very professional North American challenge to the fancied local grand prix racers.

He got into sailing because, “where I grew up that’s what you did in summer.  But ocean racing is the last place in the world where there is a clear line of responsibility and authority.  It’s the last place left for a tyrant, or a leader.”