Part 2
Rich Wilson of Marblehead, MA
Great American III, click photos to enlarge
For recognition on the continent, the Vendée Globe solo ocean race around the world is on par the Tour de France and World Cup soccer. French sponsors cough up between 7 and 15 million bucks to build a competitive Open 60 racing boat.
During the week preceding the November 9th race, it seemed as if every man, woman, and child from the Vendee region of France and many from well beyond, came to Les Sables d’Olonne (south of Nantes) to see these mythic racing machines tied to the dock in the active fishing port.
Over several days, hundreds of thousands of people surge slowly up and down the long pier, inches from the sterns of these million-dollar thoroughbred sailing machines. They peer inside the cockpits, check their programs to see who is captaining each boat and salute skippers with shouts of encouragement when they see them aboard. The top ten skippers who began the race on November 9th are super stars. When one of them strides down the dock, the crowd parts as if Moses were crossing the Red Sea.
The only American who qualified for the 2008 Vendée Globe is Rich Wilson of Marblehead, MA. The guy has super star credentials. He’s been vaporizing sailing records since he was the youngest skipper to win the Newport - Bermuda race in 1980. He’s handsome, smart, tough, and unflappable when the going gets rough. He epitomizes a certain American ideal of the restless adventurer, relentlessly on the move, dreaming up and mowing down one goal after another, always in search of another challenge.
Well, he’s found the ultimate nautical challenge here and the crowds who see him when he emerges from Great American III’s cabin from time to time realize that.
They respect the 28 men and two women who have qualified, regardless of the order each might finish the race.
At 58, he’s the oldest skipper in the race ("Je suis un homme vieux dans un bateau vieux [I'm an old man in an old boat]," he jokes to spectators in the passable French he's resurrected from his school days.) His boat isn’t the fastest, it is one of the oldest, and he’s not going to win. Some dreams will gnaw a hole in your soul if you don’t challenge yourself to try them. For a world class sailor like Wilson, this “Everest of ocean racing” is one of them.
Rich Wilson may have the most impressively eclectic resume of any skipper in the race: businessman, high school teacher, defense analyst, desalinization plant consultant, investor, container ship industry analyst. All preceded by Math and M. B.A degrees from Harvard College and an Ocean Resources Management degree from M.I.T.
Ask him and in a heartbeat he’ll tell you his favorite venture - founder in 1989 of Ocean Challenge, Inc., producing interactive programs related to oceans, rainforest, wetlands, and marine life for the K-12 population.
From 1990 until 2003, Wilson parlayed his sailing challenges into “learning adventures” with schools across the country. On his trimaran Great American, the skipper and one shipmate would attempt to smash trans-oceanic records set by the great clipper ships.
His first attempt to break the San Francisco to New York record set by Northern Light in the Gold Rush year of 1853 ended in a near tragic experience as his vessel was capsized in 65 foot seas off Cape Horn. He and his shipmate escaped death when their trimaran was miraculously turned right side up by another immense wave and subsequently rescued by a giant container ship, New Zealand Pacific. Great American was swallowed by the sea. Most mortals would have called it a day and thought up less dangerous ways to engage in the learning business.
Not this man. The response Wilson felt when he visited the classrooms with whom he’d been linked by radio telephone and newsletter as part of his ‘learning adventure” so overwhelmed him that he decided to try again. From 1993 until 2003, aboard Great American II (History), Rich and a shipmate broke clipper ship records set in the 'Golden Age of Sail' from San Francisco to Boston (Gold Rush), Melbourne to New York (Australian Gold Rush), and Hong Kong to New York (China Tea trade).
Rich Wilson visits my fourth graders after his 2003 Melbourne-New York record-breaking voyage on Great American II
Wilson pioneered use of the internet for interactive learning long before it became mainstream. In 1993, he hooked up with Prodigy and classrooms across the country, including my own class of fourth graders in Brookline, MA, followed his voyages online. Newspapers on both coasts carried news of his voyages in a weekly “Newspapers in Education” series. The archives of past voyages and daily progress in this year's Vendee Globe race is online at another site Wilson created, www.sitesalive.com.
Today, the website bursts with life in the present tense aboard Great American III. Each day Wilson types a ship’s log, transmits a podcast, and includes the ship’s coordinates overlaid on a google terra world map. The essays often reflect on science, geography, history, and math. The podcasts give a kinetic sense of the grueling job of making the boat go as fast as it can without breaking: incessant sail changes, often based on computer generated programs matching wind and sea conditions to optimal sail load and course. And the human element, the knowledge Wilson has accumulated in his lifetime at sea.
"A primary motivator for me is the huge sail program we have going on in the USA. Twenty five newspapers are publishing a weekly series I write from the boat. Those are important to write well. I don't send the first draft but have it right by about the seventh, eight or tenth draft," he says matter of factly in a recent podcast. "That keeps me inspired, and excited." He goes on enthusiastically to describe taking a picture of a squid which landed on his deck, imagining the excitement of "kids who've never seen one before." The man's a born teacher.
On the second day of the Vendée Globe race, a violent wave tosses him like a rag doll across the cabin ramming his back into a metal handrail. He lays crumpled, in fear and intense pain. Crawling to a transat phone, he consults his onshore doctor. They figure he’s cracked a rib. He slows the boat down so he can recover. Every pull on the ship’s ropes and crank on the coffee grinder winch in the cockpit produces extreme agony in his back. Not a whine in his voice. Just a plan. Pull himself together then sail on.
Parents, teachers, and the rest of us following Wilson’s quest understand what school-age youngster’s are learning by this man’s example. How to deal with setbacks and adversity and not lose faith. Make Plan B and keep going. And take pleasure photographing of squid, flying fish, and the moon and stars from a coordinate on the planet none of us will ever occupy.
One last-minute interview before the November 9 start
Incredibly, no American corporations have signed on to sponsor him. Considering his audience, maybe the National Teacher’s Association should kick in a few million. And for every parent who’s looking for a role model who is tough, smart, modest, grounded, and one of the best in the world at what he does?
How about kicking in ten bucks and bookmarking http://vg.sitesalive.com on your kid’s computer.
Photos by Paul A. Tamburello, Jr.
Great articles about your friend's sailing and the wonderful way he has shared it with students. I'm going to pass it along to my grandson James, who wants to be in the Coast Guard when he grows up, so he can save people.
Posted by: Ann | November 19, 2008 at 04:46 PM
Wow again. Very special that you sent this.
Posted by: Carolyn | December 10, 2008 at 11:24 PM
Bravo!! This is great stuff - I even bookmarked the ships log!
Posted by: Susaan | December 11, 2008 at 08:52 AM