Dublin Bay and the wind is gusting. There is a deep groaning, a loud crack and crew members duck. "S'alright, s'alright," shouts Australian skipper Shirly (Chris Sherlock) unconvincingly. The boom swings around and a one-and-a-half inch stainless steel hydraulic arm bends like a lead pipe. There is a moment of disbelief. For a fraction of a second, the crew freezes before swarming over the rigging like hyenas at a carcass. Bridgestone F1 is wounded and the Cork Dry Gin Round Ireland race has not even begun.
It is a disconcerting start, especially when you haven't fully made up your mind whether or not to go. . .when you have visions of seagulls flocking behind the boat to feast on the dislodgment from your stomach. . .when you wouldn't know a maxi yacht from a frigate. . . when you don't know the people on board who you will sleep with for four days. . . when you get the feeling that the onetime, jokey idea bouncing around the office is now souring. . .when Shirly says to you, "I've seen guys who literally just wanna throw themselves off the boat they're so sea sick", you start bottling out, tanking it. And then the crew ducks.
It is Saturday morning off Wicklow harbour and you haven't pulled a sicky. You are bumped up and chipper, feeling quite smug in fact. You are among a crew of professional sailors on an 83-foot ocean-going yacht, the biggest in the race, with a simple brief. Sail around Ireland as fast as possible. Go clockwise and keep to the outside of all islands and rocks. Don't use your engine, don't call into port, and finish with the same people as you started.
Dubliner Mike O'Donnell leans over. "Of course if this were an industrial work environment in some or other factory, we'd be closed down in a flash. That wire there," he says pointing to a white line which joins the top of the mast to the back of the boat "sometimes takes a strain of 30 tons. That's equivalent to about 30 mini cars. Oh, and keep your hands away from those pulleys. If you grab that when it's moving you could easily lose a finger or two."
The gun fires and we move into a breathless sea, the sun shinning and 704 miles ahead of us.
Sea days are like dog years. A dog year is seven human years and a sea day is seven land days. That, at least, is how it feels. We have been at sea now for six sea days and the sun has given way to cloud. We are barely moving so the helmsmen have become hunters of wind. They crane over the side rail looking for wind prints, little ripples on the sea that tell them a gust is on the way. The trimmers watch the sails, themselves beautiful pieces of architecture. The main sail costs £35,000, is made of the man-made fibre Kevelar, and is one moulded piece.
Trimmers are like fly fishermen, luring the better gusts and striking when they bite the sails. Behind the main mast are the grinders. King grinder is Flannery. Flannery is a fearsome and fearless Australian who controls the four sets of winding handles which pull in the sails. Flannery is awesomely fit and strong and talks non-stop.
Rounding the Skelligs and the Blasket Islands, the boat is heeled over in a fresh breeze and the grinding handles are still. We sit on the high side of the boat as ballast, with our legs dangling over the side, killing time. Flannery is talking about pirates. "We were doing this boat delivery in April 1995 coming up the coast of Africa off Somalia. I was below and heard this loud bang. I jumped up thinking we'd hit something so I ran around underneath checking things. The bangs kept coming so I went up top and saw this explosion off the bow. Quinny (another crew member) was ducked down and this boat was heading towards us firing f***ing mortars. We sent out a mayday and tried to outrun them, but we couldn't. They kept shouting over the radio, `stop the boat, stop the boat' but we kept making excuses.
"When they got close one of them pulled out a .45 and pointed it at us. We had to stop but kept spinning the boat and saying that we had to first take down the sails, you know, buying time. Then out of the blue the Canadian navy came over the horizon. It was like a f***ing movie. When they arrived we asked them why they didn't blow the f***ers out of the water. They said they have to be fired on first. F**k that, I said. The only f***ing warlord riding around in a maxi."
There is sunshine travelling up the west coast but it is the rain that remains in the memory, the soul-destroying rain. Everything is wet. Sweating on the grinder, you take off the oils. In minutes the rain and the sea spray hose you down. When you stop grinding, you go up to chill on the rail and to be charmed by Flannery's extravagant tales. Four sea hours on the rail is more than one day on land. Broken only by occasional grinding whenever the boat changes direction we are puny things in the face of driving wind and water rounding the north-west coast, a mist shrouding the land.
By now our race is lost. We will be second. Beneath deck the sleeping quarters are a stew of sodden garments. The rain and the sea leaks through the bolts, is carried in on the oils and the great bags of sails covering the floor, and washes through the hatch as waves break over the bough. You sleep in your sopping clothes and warm for four hours in the sleeping bag like a tropical rainforest. This luxury ends with a tap on the shoulder as another dripping body comes off the four-hour watch to claim the luxury of the clammy bunk.
An east coast sprint to Wicklow. Home. At the grinder, Flannery snaps his finger, points and says "rail". He is, as always, obeyed. We cling to the wire as the boat heels over on a 30-degree angle and picks up the wind. At the back sits Jason Carrington, who has just come off a nine-month stint on the Silkcut boat in the Whitbread around-the-world race. "In the North Atlantic, a 30-foot whale breeched clean out of the water and landed five feet from our bow", he says, leaving you to work out the consequences of five more feet. Carrington can walk around the angled boat with a cup of tea in his hand without it spilling. "You get used to the wet," he says as a gun signals the end of our 80-hour run.
"But it's unpleasant," you say.
Carrington smiles the you-just-don't-get-it-do-you smile. Because sailing, it's not a sport, it's a way of life.
"But would you do it again?" everyone asks. Never say never, you think to yourself. You know it was the weather, its bleakness that wore you down. "But would you do it again?". . . Never!