QA
Personality
Passion for the Ocean
By Vani Saraswathi
A
fter her first time at sea with her
father, a totally seasick, seven
year old Tracy Edwards, vowed
never to get on a boat again. Ten years
later, she found herself on a yacht, in
love with the ocean and the sailor’s life.
Soon she was breaking and setting
records at ease.
In 1998, Edwards brought together
an all-girl crew for an attempt at the
Jules Verne Trophy – the world record
for a yacht circumnavigating the globe.
Tracy and her crew were on course to
capture the record when after 43 gru-
58 Qatar Today February 2005
&
elling days at sea, their catamaran lost
her mast in the most treacherous ocean
in the world. Now retired from sailing
and involved in managing yachts and
racing events, Edwards says she will go
back and complete the unfinished busi-
ness of her record circumnavigation.
Now the director of Quest
International Sports Events, preparing
for the first major ocean racing event
Qatar will host – Oryx Quest, Edwards
takes time off to chat with Qatar Today.
From hating the sea to a record-break-
ing sailor, how did that journey come
about?
I got expelled from school when I
was 15 and my mother thought travel-
ling might be a very good experience
for me. After backpacking around
Europe, I ended up working in Greece.
And someone I met asked me if I would
be interested in working on his boat. To
be a stewardess, do some washing and
cleaning. I tried that, and just fell in
love with the ocean.
I was 17 then, and there were seven
of us on the team. And for me that was
the first time anyone had ever trusted
me with responsibility and the first
time I had ever been included in a team
of people. I have never really been a
part of a team in school, never really
played any team sports... but that expe-
rience really raised my self-esteem
about a 100 levels, because it was rock
bottom at that point. I thought I was
worthless, valueless... Couldn’t stick to
anything, couldn’t achieve anything...
didn’t seemed to have pleased anyone
in my life... this was my first opportuni-
ty really to be a part of something that
was good.
From stewardess to skipper?
I guess I was very lucky and had good
mentors on the boats I worked on. I had
skippers who saw something in me that
I didn’t really see in myself, and who
really pushed me.
So after few years of being a stew-
ardess, I meet a guy who says you can
do so much more, why don’t you learn
to navigate, and I learnt to navigate.
And the next person said ‘you can be a
really good sailor’... and then one of my
skippers said I should get into long dis-
tance racing and that I would be really
good at it.
So I went and did my first round the
world race when I was 21.
How many women were on the crew?
Only me, with 17 men. Because
women did not, simply did not, sail on
big boats at that time. There were 250
crew in that race and only three of
them women.
It was tough. They did not want me
on the boat. I think for them it was
hugely embarrassing to have a woman
on the boat and all the other guys took
the mickey out of them.
But I didn’t really see things from
that point of view, and I saw things
from my point of view. And I wanted to
be on the boat, and I thought I should
be allowed to. It was not an ideal situa-
tion, but it taught me that I was capable
of doing that, and if I was capable of
doing that, then other women were
capable as well.
I finished the race and started to put
Maiden together when I was 22, in
1986, which was the first all female
crew to race around the world. When I
skippered the Maiden I was 24, and
was the youngest skipper to have done
the Whitbread. I was the first female
skipper and we were the first female
crew – there were 12 of us.
Was it tough to get 12 women?
We had over 400 applications. We cut it
down to about 100. And then we tried
to mix and match. Went sailing with
people. In the end, what made the team
was personality. And team spirit.
Rather than qualifications. None of us
was qualified. None of us really had a
clue what we were doing.
That in itself was an advantage,
because we had no one in the boat say-
ing ‘I have never done it like that
before; I’ve always done it like this.’
We had none of that. What we had
was ‘How should we do this? Should
this work? Lets try that...’
It was much more of a democracy on
the boat.
There were times, having said that,
when you had to have a dictatorship on
the boat, where the skipper’s word was
law. Because if you are in the southern
ocean and you’ve got 50ft waves and
80knot winds, and everyone is afraid
they are going to die, the last thing they
need to hear is the skipper saying,
‘What do you thing we should do now.’
We had the best crew, what we lacked
in experience, we made up for in com-
mitment, excitement, drive and the
understanding that we all had to get on
together, and also a lack of egos on
the boat.
How different will Oryx Quest be
from the other round the world races...
From the navigator’s point of view it
will be interesting, as this route has not
been done before. Because the tactics
will be different. It will start in Doha
and go down through the Indian
Ocean... and this bit of ocean has never
been raced before, at least by these
boats. It will go down to the bottom of
the world, turn left at Australia, go
round the Antarctic and underneath
South America, Cape Horn. The next
bit again will be interesting. Normally
we turn left and go up to the UK, but
this time we go round the Cape of Good
Hope and back to Doha.
How many female crew members do
you expect in this race?
None on the other boats. ‘Qatar’ boat
(earlier owned and managed by
Edwards) may have a mixed crew.
Brian Thomson will be the skipper of
the ‘Qatar’ boat, whom I think is the
best multi-hull skipper in the world.
And Brian has two women on his crew.
He said to me when he took over ‘Are
you going to interfere with the crew?’ I
said absolutely not, but it must be a
mixed crew.
February 2005 Qatar Today 59
 Personality
The Boats
Daedalus: Skipper Tony Bullimore
Geronimo: Skipper Olivier de Kersauson
Cheyenne: Skipper David Scully
Qatar: Skipper Brian Thomson
Because otherwise what have I been
doing for the last 30 years. And he has
sailed that boat for the last two years
with a mixed crew. And he knows these
girls are awesome sailors.
Is 12-15 the average size of a crew?
Looks like team Daedalus is going to
cope with eight. That is an extraordi-
narily low number. But they are tough
guys. They will push the boat to
absolute limits, and collapse after that.
It is a very self destructive way of doing
things. Because you will suffer enor-
mously. But by cutting the numbers
they will cut down on weight of men,
weight of stuff... it is all about how light
you can make the boat.
What is the ideal weight of a boat for
racing?
When the boat is built, that is its opti-
mum weight. Everything you put on it
after that slows it down. When you
start thinking like that, you start look-
ing at everything you put on the boat.
Before we went sailing, we did this
exercise at a warehouse where all our
stuff was. We made each member lay
out all that they were taking and we
made each member stand explain what
every single item was for and how
important it was. Slowly we started
eliminating stuff we ‘really’ didn’t
require.
You would be half way through
explaining something and realise that
60 Qatar Today February 2005
that is not really important. You get to a
point where you start sawing a tooth-
brush in half. That is how crucial
weight is.
What are the dimensions of the boat?
Our boat - the Qatar boat - is 110ft long
by 60ft wide (like two and a half tennis
courts), two hulls and the mast is 125ft
high. The sail area is 10,980 sq.ft.
What speed can be expected?
Her top speed is 46 knots (54mph on
land), which is faster than most speed
boats. The only power boats that go
faster than our kind of boats, are the
ones that Sheikh Hassan races –
Formula 1. We can go faster than
Formula 2.
Everything about these boats is
extreme. Everything is being pushed to
the limit: technology, the materials used
to build the boat, the electronics, the
navigation, the way the crew are con-
stantly trying to update and improve
the performance of the boat.
The other really good thing you can
think about these boats is that there is
no class. They are not a class of boats,
there are no restrictions. You are only
limited by your imagination. And we
continue that tradition with this event,
by having no rules.
The great thing about these boats is
that they are all owned by ‘mavericks’,
people who don’t like rules and regula-
tions and are who are just driven by
their passion.
Which will be the toughest part of
the route?
After you pass Australia and New
Zealand, further south. The worst bit is
coming up to Cape Horn. What you
have got here is where two oceans meet
and two weather patterns meet. High
pressures are dominant in a weather
system, it dictates what happens. So if
you’ve got a high pressure system. All
the low pressures (which gives you the
nasty winds...) will have to move
around them. What you’ve got in that
area is two high pressure systems that
follow all the low pressures through a
very narrow gate. And mixed up with
that you’ve got the worst tidal systems
in the world and different temperatures
between the two oceans. You just have
everything that can possibly go against
you.
The race will skim the areas that were
recently affected by the earthquake.
What is the worst that can
happen there?
You can get some quite severe weather.
But we will avoid most of that. There is
a small possibility of typhoons there.
You don’t want to get caught in the bay
south of Australia, as the Tasmanian sea
can be nasty. The other thing you have
to watch out there are driftnets. Which
are illegal, but people still do it. You get
60 ft long thick steel hoses held about 3-
four feet under water, without buoys.
And if you don’t see the buoys you go
straight into it and it sinks your boat.
They are dreadful things. They lose
them as well and they float through the
ocean killing everything in their way –
all wildlife, all sealife. Which is the
major problem. Hitting sunken contain-
ers or an iceberg is also a problem.
Does technology make it easier to do
this than when you started off?
It is a double-edged sword really. Yes
technology makes its safer, we know
more, we understand more, and tech-
nology gives us the ability to race faster
and avoid nasty weather, dangerous
situations.
But from a navigator or skipper’s
point of view, technology can be a real
pain in the neck. Because you have to
keep up with it constantly, to win a race
you have to know more than everyone
else. It is more confusing now. I still
love navigating, with my sextant and
my charts... I could find my way from
anywhere in the world, with just those
items. And now it’s a laptop, and an
electronic chart and GPS... for me it has
lost a huge appeal that navigating had.
But that’s what makes the boat go
faster, so we use it. You have to be one
step ahead of everyone else. Thing
about technology is that you can’t keep
running to catch up. You have to be
leading it... you can’t wait till another
boat gets it and say I wish I had that.
The work of the skipper and naviga-
tor has become much more complicated
than it ever used to be.
What kind of team building exercise
do you do before setting out on a race?
Team building almost becomes a natu-
ral state. You are in a crew house
together, you travel together, you train
together, you work together, you stress,
you worry, you get excited... all these
things build you together as a team. By
the time you get to the start line, you
know each other extremely well. You
can’t predict a 100 per cent how people
will react in a stressful situation. There
is nothing you can do about that.
Team dynamics are an extraordinary
thing. You always seem to end up with
a leader, couple of followers, the joker,
the really annoying person, and a per-
son who will fade into the background,
but who will really stay staunch and
true. It always fascinates me that every
time I put up a team, this is true. Maybe
that’s the way we unconsciously
choose people.
Physical training?
For these type of races you don’t neces-
sarily need brute force or strength. You
Yes, It’s That Tough
The race is 24,000 miles long
All sailors on board need to eat 6,000 –
8,000 calories per day in order to survive.
That’s equivalent to 42 mars bars a day
Despite all these calories crew members
will lose an average of 22.4lbs during the
course of the race
Crew members only have five hours sleep
a day, and sometimes less
For most of the race, the yachts will be
2,500 miles from the nearest land
It costs $8 million to build each mega
multi-hull yacht and it takes 12 months to
build a racing catamaran
need stamina. We also try and build up
body fat before we set out, you are
probably likely to lose 10 per cent of
your body weight by the time you fin-
ish. As soon as you start the race, your
body starts to deteriorate. Because
everything you do from now is bad for
you; extreme physical conditions, only
exercising from your waist up, you are
cramming calories down. We need to
build a layer of body fat before you
leave and you need a nutritionist and
trainer to help you do that.
Is food the heaviest pack you carry
on board?
No, it’s the spares. But we carry about
two tonnes of food.
The food we carried on board used to
be horrible, everything freeze dried.
But it has greatly improved. And the
reason it has improved is not because of
sailing but because of mountaineering!
But you really start to crave fruits and
vegetables. When I am at sea I really
miss milk and I crave it and dream
about it...
Food becomes a huge focus on
the boat.
What is the most beautiful sight you
have ever seen out there?
Dawn. When we were on the Maiden, in
the Whitbread (race) on the second leg.
And we were in the lead... and we went
through the most horrendous storm I
have ever been in. And it was the longest
night – it seemed to last about ten years.
And no one could sleep, we were all on
deck all the time. The boat was pretty
uncontrollable. It was totally dark and
there were huge waves. And the person
steering was just doing it by skill and feel
of where the next wave was
coming from.
We were totally blind, and as we
were sailing, everything is black and
the tone of the sky changes to a
lighter black, and to a grey, and you
still have not realised that dawn is
coming, till you see the tiny little
speck of silver light. And then you
know everything is going to be ok,
because the dawn is like someone
throwing you a lifeline.
And the dawn of the next morning
was the most beautiful thing I have
ever seen, because I didn’t think I was
going to see it. n
February 2005 Qatar Today 61