Podcast Show Notes — Ocean Sailing Expeditions My title

Episodes 2 & 3: Andy Lamont Show Notes

OSP: Good morning folks. We are on board Impulse this morning down at Southport Yacht club with Andy Lamont. Good morning Andy!

Andy Lamont: Gidday, how are you going?

OSP: Good. So, today we are talking to Andy. Andy is heading to do a solo circumnavigation later on this year so we have got an opportunity to talk to Andy and find out about his plans, find out about his background, find out about his preparation and hopefully over a number of episodes share his story as he prepares to depart on a very long trip. So, Andy, when are you planning on leaving?

Andy Lamont in the saloon of Impulse with his HP Toughbook on top of the engine cover

Andy Lamont: Well, we plan to leave mid October. We are just going to talk to Bruce to get the exact date that is going to be more favourable to get under New Zealand because Bruce doesn’t want to go under New Zealand because it’s going to be over 30 knots there. But, I need to go under there because one of the things I want to do is go under the five caps on the journey. So, we want to get a favourable window under there so I don’t get some really big seas and wind right at the very start of the journey. So, that is what we are looking for at the moment, we are getting some long term forecast probably in August and then we will set a date in August, but it’s going to be Mid October.

OSP: Ok. Great. If you are going under the five capes there is some pretty wild weather down there several times a year. What’s your wind tolerance or what are looking to stay below in terms of wind and sea conditions?

Andy Lamont: So, we plan to stay below 30 knots most of the time, but of course that is pretty unrealistic in the real world and most of the time we will be in conditions about 40 knots and no doubt actually as we come towards the end of the journey, we will be coming through the southern ocean in winter, so we are going to get hit with some pretty strong winds there. It will be unrealistic to not get 50 60 knots plus, but the trip is planned so that most of the really heavy conditions come, mostly we will be around the bottom of Tasmania and that is going to probably be the worst or the highest risk of bad conditions.

OSP: So, you will be on the home stretch at that stage?

Andy Lamont: Yes. I can sort of just close my eyes and just cry all the way home.

OSP: Okay, so, Andy, tell me what made you decide to do this? When was the point that you thought I am thinking about doing this and the point which you though I am really going to do this?

Andy Lamont: Well, it’s a bit embarrassing because some of these things you just set out to do in a couple of months and its has always been on my mind, as that was something I wanted to do one day right back to when I was a young kid. But, the moment came when I had a bit of cash due to the pending sale of a business and I thought, I am going to buy a yacht and sail around the world nonstop, that is the next thing I am going to do.

Andy's clearly articulated plan to circumnavigate alone in a yacht, written at age 6

That was in 2002 and its now 2016 so it’s been a long time coming, but I didn’t get that much money for the business that I sold, only about $20,000 so I looked around and really wanted to buy an S&S 34 at that time, but that was ridiculous trying to buy one at that price. John Dankenson is a really well known and well-respected designer and had designed a new kit boat and the kit was $20,000. So I went down and saw John in Melbourne and thought that was a great boat design, so I bought the kit and then I spent the next sort of 2 or 3 years building that boat which was about 2006-2007. I thought it was going to be finished in about a year, but it took a bit longer than that.

The boat was pretty much nearly finished when I started to develop a reaction to epoxy. So, I found it really difficult to work on the boat and then a few things led to my business needing me to be close to it, so I ended up putting my plans to sail around the world on hold. I also went and did a law degree and I don’t know why and then I was just looking at boatpoint.com.au at boats for sale, as you do - not really thinking of buying anything, but thinking about how am I going to finish this boat and there was a lot of things I had done on the boat so far were quite easy.

Andy's backyard kit set project to build a John Dankenson yacht

But now the build was at the stage of some really technical difficult things, like putting a one ton lead bulb in the keel and that type of thing started playing on my mind and I saw this S&S 34 for sale and they wanted just under $50,000 for it and it was probably about 11:30pm and I just sort of sent off an email and said “look, I will give you $35,000 for it”. Well, they accepted.

OSP: Wow! Just like that. And was it was called Impulse when you bought it?

Andy Lamont: Yes, it was called Impulse, the same name it has now.

OSP: It’s kind of ironic really?

Andy Lamont: Yes. Because I had to have the conversation with my wife and I said “I know we have got a beautiful boat sitting in our backyard and we have spent a large amount of money on it, but now we have got this other boat, isn’t that great?”

OSP: So you are still happily married and you have got two boats?

Andy Lamont: Yes, I have got a very accommodating wife. She is very good to me but she has said “one of the things (and there are a few things) before I leave to sail around the world that I have to do is finish the skirting boards”, because I put a new floor in our house with no skirting boards. That was like a year ago, so I just did the skirting boards and then the other thing was I had got to get rid of the half built boat in the backyard. It’s out there now, anyone can have it for free and all I want to do is sell the mast and the other bits and pieces that I paid money for along with the hull. We’ve have a few people come and look at it but its quite interesting. It’s probably harder to give something away than it is to sell it sometimes.

OSP: The yacht is not quite finished so you need the right person?

Andy Lamont: Yes, you have got to have the right person and some people have wanted to take it and I have pretty much talked them out of it because you need either the money or the skills to finish it.

OSP: Otherwise it could have been a sort of play hut for kids to hide under in a backyard?

Andy Lamont: Yes. I know. A friend of mine said I will put it on my farm and all the goats will love it.

Andy's kit set project had to go once he purchase Impulse

OSP: I guess it’s not quite the vision of how you wanted it to turn out, when you started building it?

Andy Lamont: Yes. Exactly.

OSP: What does your family think about your plans to sail off around the world, when your daughter has just got married recently and you have a grandchild on the way?

Andy Lamont: Well, the interesting thing is when I first started talking about this in 2002, my oldest daughter was 13 and now she is 25 so it’s kind of its something they have grown up with, that they expect to happen. So, it’s not come as a surprise or a shock to them and they have had a lot of time to get used to, it so they are all sort of pretty excited about it.

OSP: It’s good they are probably relieved you are getting on with it at last and not just talking about it anymore. You are actually doing it.

Andy Lamont: Yes, exactly, that’s right. They have told all their friends “my dad is sailing around the world”. So, it will be good to go.

OSP: That’s good, and how did you decide I guess on this particular design and model? What was the sort of decision points for you for choosing this versus something else?

Andy Lamont: Well, I guess John Sanders is a great hero and an amazing sailor and an amazing seaman. He sort of made this boat famous for circumnavigations and back when I wanted to do this trip, it was this boat that I wanted to do it in - the S&S 34. John Sanders sailed around the world twice in one of these and then David Dicks did his circumnavigation, then Jesse Martin did his circumnavigation and most recently Jessica Watson did hers.

They were all non-stop circumnavigations, so it is really comforting to know if something goes wrong, it’s not going to be due to the design of the boat and that is a really important thing. That is why, when I made that offer on an Impulse I wouldn’t have made an offer on another type of boat it was not the S&S 34 that I wanted. John Sanders did a triple circumnavigation on later occasion in a larger boat, but the budgetary factor with a 34-foot boat is that everything is so much cheaper with a 34 footer, when compared to a 44 or 48 footer. So, it is a great sea worthy little boat and it was cheap to buy and it’s cheap to get up to standard. So, all those things were factors.

The S&S 34 called Impulse was in need of new paint

OSP: And this size boat is physically easier to manage than another 10 foot in terms of physically managing bigger sails, bigger rigging and things like rig and sail loads become more challenging if you are on your own. So, it’s a nice size for physical management.

Andy Lamont: Yes, exactly, that is the other thing. I can pretty much lift everything on the boat and carry it. I have tried to lift up some big Code 2 Genoas and stuff like that and moving them around the boat is just exhausting. Whereas with everything in this boat, I can pick it up and carry it and don’t have any problems with putting new sails up or getting them down or that type of thing, they are all manageable. So, that is a big factor as well.

OSP: Ok so why don’t you talk us through the work that you completed already on Impulse and the things you plan on doing. Talk us through the things you are working on, the upgrades you are installing, the things you are doing to make it more manageable, safe and secure and the things that will help you to stow and secure everything, to be able to manage your way around the world.

Andy Lamont: I will start at the outer section of the boat. We are taking the wheel off as it’s got wheel steering and its nice little system, but the boat really wasn’t designed for a wheel and pedestal steering. It is difficult to get behind the wheel; you have got to step over the seats in the cockpit to get behind it. Operating the boat with the wheel single-handed is much harder than operating with a tiller single-handed.

So, I have had a new tiller built that by a good guy I met on the sea breeze forum and he has made a laminated tiller for me over in Western Australia, so that’s been great. So, thanks to him for that. I will be taking the wheel out and that’s probably the next big. When I take the pedestal that the wheel is attached to out, I am going to replace the cockpit floor. I have already replaced a quarter of the cockpit floor and the only weakness with this boat really is the deck in the cockpit.

It gets wet in there where the pedestal goes through the cockpit floor and the whole floor is pretty much rotten. So, I will cut that out; replace it with glass over marine ply and then add the tiller. So, that’s the next job and I love my Thursday afternoon twilight racing so it’s a job I have got to start on a Friday morning and finish by the following Wednesday. So, I am sort of arranging that right now so that I can still compete in the following Thursday’s twilight race.

The rotten cockpit floor in the S&S 34 needed replacing

OSP: You are certainly sitting pretty much to the top of the twilight series table and you finished well in the last series, so pretty means you are leading the overall championship for the year. As well as sailing around the world, you are a pretty competitive local racer even though you don’t say much about that.

Andy Lamont: Yes. I am a very competitive person. I try not to be.

OSP: I haven’t noticed.

Andy Lamont: I just can’t help it, I just love racing, I think it’s great fun and the crew here at Southport Yacht Club are a lot of fun to race with. No one gets too serious and we all have a lot of fun and also over the past sort of year of racing with this boat, we have really been able to get a lot of performance out of her, that we probably wouldn’t have got if we didn’t do the racing.

We commenced racing at Southport Yacht Club with a starting handicap of about 3:30pm, but by the time we did some things like trimming the sails better, putting on adjustable jib and genoa tracks and most importantly; putting a folding prop on and keeping the bottom nice and clean, we are now starting at 3:49pm with the faster yachts.

OSP: So, the difference of starting about 20 minutes in a 1 to 2 hour yacht race is 15-30% plus improvement in speed, right?

Andy Lamont: It is.

OSP: And its interesting because people often assume you are a racer or a cruiser but I think you can be both and if you become good at racing, your boat goes faster, well cruising is more enjoyable. It you have a long passage ahead of you and you can get an extra 1-2 knots of speed out of your boat, you will get to your next destination an hour or two earlier, or the speed may help you out-run some bad weather a whole lot faster. If you tune your boat well, you are looking after better, rather than being a lazy cruiser and having sails poorly trimmed or flapping and sheets chafing. I think being a good racer can actually make you a better cruiser and make your cruising more enjoyable.

Andy Lamont: Yes, definitely I believe that and of course when you are cruising there is a lot of joy eking a quarter of a knot of speed out of your yacht and that is one of the reasons I want to use the expedition software for my navigation, because it’s really a great tool to help you tweak your boat and measure all the different variables, so I am really looking forward to spending 8 or 9 months just tweaking my boat.

New sails arrive for Impulse

OSP: The expedition software is pretty well respected. So what else have you have to do all day?

Andy Lamont: Yes. I know. Other than checking my planning software, that’s it really.

OSP: It’s interesting having a feathering prop. I put one of those on my boat and I am adamant is made the difference of about ¾ of a knot and sometimes as much as 1 knot compared a fixed prop, so the speed difference is quite substantial. And if you are doing 5 knots, ¾ of a knot is a big chunk of extra speed.

Andy Lamont: It might be an extra ¾ a knot when you are doing 5 or 6 knots which is good but I think it’s probably an extra ¾ a knot when you are only doing 3 knots, that is a bigger deal.

OSP: Actually as a percentage it’s a big difference.

Andy Lamont: Yes, it’s massive. The biggest difference I have noticed is racing against the boats originally with my fixed prop and against them now with a folding prop. I noticed that when the wind was fairly light, it was an incredible difference. Congratulations to Gori Folding Props, because I have fallen in love with my prop. Even when I first looked at it, I was like “this is just a beautiful thing”.

OSP: It’s an amazing piece of engineering and that’s the great thing with twilight racing, when you sail against the same 10 or 15 boats each week, you have a great barometer when you make adjustments, because you can measure your performance against a like-for-like comparison. It’s not just guesswork and that’s kind of satisfying.

The feathering prop that folds flat when sailing

Andy Lamont: Yes, it is.

OSP: Moving from a wheel to a tiller makes sense as this removes another point of failure by not having the wheel and steering chain system, with the extra fittings and weak points that can also break under load. What else have you got planned as we look through the boat?

Andy Lamont: I have put in a new switch panel, which you can see underneath the stairs. I have got to tidy that up, and then I have got to replace my battery tie down systems. There are existing battery tie down systems in place, but I wouldn’t like the boat to be upside down and have to trust these, as they are a little bit dodgy. I have got all new instruments, as when I bought the boat it came with some really old B&G instruments that were made in 1976.

The original 1976 B& instrument panel

OSP: Wow!

Andy Lamont: Some of them still work but most of them didn’t.

OSP: Before the days of GPS

Andy Lamont: I have got all new instruments installed and they are set up with all of the connections and software to make them talk to my expedition software so that’s good. I have got to install the AIS and that’s going to be nice and easy to install and then I will connect it all up to the computer.

I went with a HP Toughbook laptop, because I thought one of the biggest things that knock people out of circumnavigations these days is a loss of electrics. With that in mind my Fleming Wind Vain is coming next week so I will have self-steering that is not reliant on electrics.

I will have navigation systems that will be independent of the boats electrical systems and that is why I went with the HP Toughbook as it’s got its own integrated GPS and power supply so we can run it if the worst comes to worst, as I can keep this charged off a solar panel and I will still have my navigations software running, even with a total loss of electrical power on the boat, not that I plan on having a total loss, but if it does happen, it is not going to stop me. So, I installed the new instruments and I have a plethora of GPS’s with a GPS in the chartplotter, a GPS in the AIS, a portable GPS and a GPS in the HP computer itself so that is four GPS’s.

OSP: So you will always know where you are.

Andy Lamont: One of the things you did ask me is what am I going to do with my time. Well, I am going to learn how to navigate with a sextant and take a daily sight and hopefully by the end of 12 months I will be proficient even competent maybe.

OSP: I also think that learning the art of navigating by the sun and stars is a fantastic skill to learn. It helps connect you to your ancestors who also used the same stars to navigate centuries ago. So, Andy, tell me about your plans with power generation and how you are going to manage charging batteries. It’s always a tradeoff between the extra comforts you carry and the amps they draw. What’s your plan with managing consumption and replenishing your batteries from a charging point of view?

New Raymarine instruments for Impulse

Andy Lamont: Well, I guess the first thing I am going to do is pretty much turn everything off that I don’t need. Turn the displays off and just have the whole thing running on low power mode. I have a Ray Marine chart plotter and a course master self steering system, but that will be turned off most of the time and I will just be using the Fleming wind vane for my self-steering. I will have the radar in sleep mode so it wakes up every 20 minutes or goes to sleep every 10 minutes.

So, basically I am going to run on low power mode as much as I can. I have 4 x 100 amp batteries so they should be able to run that gear and they shouldn’t really use very much of my capacity in any 24 hour period.  I still haven’t how to go about arranging solar panels on the boat. Conventionally with the boats most people are putting up a solar panels at the stern on top of a stainless frame or Bimini cover, because they have uninterrupted sunlight. However I don’t like them there, I just think there is too much windage in strong wind and they always seems to get damaged.

So, pretty much everyone that has gone around the world has come back with damaged panels or so all of that effort gets wasted because you get knocked down and the whole thing gets bent. I am more inclined to have flexible solar panels on the deck and maybe some kind of hydro-generator. Unfortunately in my boat it’s very narrow in the stern so fitting a hydro-generator along with the self steering gear at the back is probably going to be too crowded.

I know it’s all happening in October but these are the areas I haven’t really made my final decision on what we are going to do there, but pretty much it’s going to be running the solar panels. I think flexible solar panels is my plan and if we are in situation where there is a not much sunlight or we are not generating much, we can always run the boat on a no power mode and that’s a really important thing to me. We have a lot of guys going around the world in nice 40-foot boats, but once they lose power they pull out and they say oh we can’t sail the boat without power.

Impulse's new distribution panel is fitted

I can sail this boat around the world without power and so it’s nice to have power, have a radar, have AIS and all those things, but it’s not going to be something that is critical to the voyage. I could leave tomorrow with no power and navigation-wise, although I still need to do a little practice, but I have enough to be able to navigate with a handheld GPS and a box of spare batteries if I have to.

OSP: Now, that’s a brave approach to take and if you have got your navigation and your wind-vane self-steering, then you are well on your way in terms of being completely independent of whatever else you add on top of that, luxury-wise and necessity-wise because it will be a shame to have to pull out of something because of batteries. You don’t want to have to start motor every so often, just to keep your batteries supporting a big instrument panel and all the extra electronics that you live without if you want to.

Andy Lamont: Having said that I will run the motor every week at least and I am still thinking that you have got to open that self-feathering prop, because if you leave it shut for 10 months and you finally decide you have got to use it and it might not open. So, that the other thing it’s a non-stop unassisted solo trip around the world, but in all truthfulness I will have 90 litres of fuel and I will start the engine and open the prop once a week for half an hour or something like that. If the prop doesn’t open, it’s worse than not having a motor at all, isn’t it?

OSP: Yes, that’s right, and then if you lost your rig at point and you need to be assisted in some way if you can’t manage the boat by motor in a rescue situation, then all sorts of things start to get harder, don’t they?

The prop is a piece of art when its feathered

Andy Lamont: Yes that is exactly right. One of the first things that happened to me on the delivery trip from Sydney to the Gold Coast, where we motor sailed, we dropped below 5 knots with motor sailing and the starter motor stopped working. And we were lucky there was a crank handle here, so I took the engine cover off and gave it a few turns with the crank handle and just started up straightway. I had the boat like 9 months before I got a new starter motor because it was just so easy to hand crank it. I really didn’t mind hand cranking it, so another great thing about the engine is doesn’t need to rely on any electrics either to start or run

OSP: Simplicity is good.

Andy Lamont: Yes.

OSP: What about you rig? Is there anything you have to do with your rig to get it to where you want it?

Andy Lamont: Yes, absolutely. So, what we are doing and its going to happen sometime around June is we are going to take the mast out, we are going to take it to Cookie, the local rigger at S&H Spars and he is going to go right over it and make sure that there is nothing that is worn or near the point of failure or that might not be up to scratch. We will have a look at the whole mast for corrosion and then we will run a new VHS Aerial through it and do that type of thing to get the mast set up properly. Even when I bought the boat the first thing that I did was change the standing rigging so its only 2 years old, but I will change all that again and go to probably one size or two sizes heavier than actually is needed for the standing rig and also Cooky is going to put in an inner forestay so we can hank on the storm jib as well.

OSP: Great and an inner forestay is kind of useful because if you did lose your forestay for some kind of reason you act quickly it can allow you to have a backup forestay.

Andy Lamont: Yes, exactly.

OSP: So, it depends whether you have got it permanently attached or whether you have got it set up so you can just clip it on when you need it.

Andy Lamont: Yes, well the other thing too is I will probably put a little bowsprit on for a code zero sail. So, I will probably just run a spectra line to the bowsprit as well, just in case the forestay fails and the heavy spectre line will still hold up the mast.

OSP: Its good to have those kind of fall back plans.

Andy Lamont: Yes.

OSP: And with the length of your trip you have got a lot of provisions that you have got to take, you have got water that you need to take, you have got yourself to fit inside here and you have got sails and other bit and pieces. What are you doing with the layout, what sort plans do you have around storage and how are you going to handle all that?

Andy Lamont: Not completely 100% decided but I think I am just going to use the saloon berth as the bunk I sleep in. The engine is right at the centre of the boat and I have just started to make a new engine cover which will extend about 100mm behind where it extends now, which will then add a lot of storage space as it will be higher and longer.

Scraping the old paint off Impulse's hull

So, there won’t be much room to walk around the boat but that will provide me with a nice table in the middle of the boat and I will have a seat on the port bunk and also an area to get out of my wet weather gear on the port bunk as well. Then there is basically a whole lot of nooks and crannies in the boat, we have got all the whole area at the back of the boat that we can store stuff in and all the areas underneath the cockpit area that we can store stuff in as well. So, what we do with food is to put together one week packs, so all we really have to do is to take probably 50 one-week packs of food and I am pretty sure we will just be able to just stuff them into any nook and cranny…

OSP: Anywhere and everywhere.

Andy Lamont: And probably the harder to find the better because knowing me, I will go through all the one week packs and take all the chocolate bars out first. So, we will just basically fit them wherever they go. So when we are talking about all the provisions that you need, basically we need sails, food, water and some spare parts and tools. And some plywood, I love plywood. I love working with wood and I just think plywood is the most amazing stuff. So, I will take a fair bit of plywood underneath the bunks and just double up with plywood there. It weighs a little bit, but it’s just such a great material and you can easily cut it and do anything with it. It’s super strong, I will take a few large pieces and I will probably take 15 litres of epoxy, which is only 15 kilos plus hardener, so more like 20 kilos. But with 15 litres of epoxy you can just about do anything. Any sort of thing that is made up of steel or stone you can make an epoxy substitute for it.

I will take some fibreglass resin and matting, I have got plenty of glass at home from my other projects. So I will take a fair bit of glass which doesn’t weigh much and I have probably 6 or 7 meters of 600 gram glass and 20 litres of epoxy, which is going to mean I am pretty confident of fixing anything in the boat. So I will have my 50 one-week packs of food, 200 litres of bottled water and also 70 litres in tanks, so that’s 270 litres of water and I am going to make some water catching devices, so when it rains I will just spread those out and I will be able to catch a lot of water I will put that into the tanks so I am pretty confident I have enough water and I have an emergency hand water maker, although I have thought about an electric water maker, but at this point I haven’t gone with it, but I was really encouraged, actually amazed to see at the last boat show this little rain maker that runs on petrol , which I don’t really like on the boat, but he is saying on 1 litre of fuel it will make you 100 litres of water which is massive.

OSP: It’s a tradeoff with using fuel, otherwise you will probably use 100amps battery consumption to make 100 litres of water using a traditional water maker so that’s a pretty expensive tradeoff as an alternative.

Andy Lamont: One of the things of course is everything costs. My plan is look at people who have done it before; they just take their water and its fine. So, that is my plan to do that if I end up with sponsorship or some other form of unexpected wealth well, I would buy a water maker. But, apart from that I will just take bottle water. Bottled water is great because it’s really secure.

OSP: Can’t get contaminated.

Andy Lamont: Yes.

OSP: You are limited it to 600mils of contamination.

Andy Lamont: Yes. And the other thing that I haven’t decided to do yet, but am very keen to look into is to install the Turtle Pac self-inflatable bags inside the boat which basically turns the boat into an unsinkable unit, because these bags don’t take too much room and they attach to a diving cylinder and in the event the boat starts to fill with water, you just open your cylinder, the bags fill up with water and the boat still floats, even with a hole in it. A local here makes it on the Gold Coast. I have used the Turtle Pac fuel bladders on other boats, they are fantastic, durable and strong, you jump on them to get the fuel flowing out of the bladder into the tanks of the boat and they just seem to be indestructible. It seems to me to be a real great option and I am really surprised it’s not used more for this purpose.

OSP: Sounds like a great solution. I have read a lot of stories about people living in life rafts for 4-5 months and they are not really life preserving devices beyond 2 or 3 weeks, but if you can keep a hull from fully submerging and you stay attached to it you are more likely to be found as well and much more secure than getting off it.

Preparing the cabin top for repainting

Andy Lamont: Yes, exactly, if this thing fills up with water for some reason and I have my Turtle Pac system, I will float around for 2 years.

OSP: As long as it rains regularly and you can catch fish you will be fine.

Andy Lamont: If I have 50 weeks of food onboard and I also have emergency rations, I can float around for a very long time. I am still trying to understand why it’s not used more.

OSP: Instead of building a waterproof bulkhead as lots of boats do, you have got an inflatable bulkhead instead essentially.

Andy Lamont: Yes, exactly.

OSP:…that is waterproof that you can put in a pocket inside the boat.

Andy Lamont: Yes. And of course IRC racing boats and Volvo boats and even the class 40s they all have the space to do that to have full bulkhead watertight rear bulkhead. They have got enough space to do that whereas this boat, we could build a watertight bulkhead there but you are still using that space, the door is going to be open and for a cruising boat it seems to me to be a good solution. And the trouble with water tight bulkhead is they can fail If the breach in the hull goes both sides of the bulk head, then even it’s all over.

OSP: It’s just a function of time even with the smallest leaks they will fail eventually. So, what is the cost of something like that?

Andy Lamont: 5 grand. I spoke to the guy last year about it and he said look I have done this on an S&S before, it will cost you $5,000.

OSP: Its pretty good life insurance.

Andy Lamont: It’s pretty good. It’s the same price as a life raft really. Although I will have a life raft as well but it’s another 5 grand and every that old story with B-O-A-T standing for “Bring Out Another Thousand” and you want everything but as you were saying before it’s a factor of time and money. With a trip like this you are probably going to run out of money and not get everything you want, you are going to run out of time not enough have enough time to put everything you want into the boat.

OSP: And then there is space to add to that as well. You have to pull these stuff somewhere too.

OSP: Ok. So, what are the things about this trip that keep you awake at night at 4 am with your mind sort of overly processing and thinking about things you might have overlooked or things you certainly decide to make out a contingency plan for?

Andy Lamont: The biggest thing that keeps me awake at night is which is why I haven’t got in the recent offshore races is because I jumped in this boat and we just sailed back up till Sydney and I was getting in there and I was doing things. One of the things I did is I though “Oh I just better replace that exhaust hose that runs up under the companion way stairs”. And  I pulled the old exhaust house out and it was completely perished.

OSP: Wow! So you were one step away from carbon monoxide poisoning basically.

Andy Lamont: Yes, exactly. We ran that motor coming from Sydney with guys down there sleeping, it looked fine at the exhaust elbow and all the way up to where it disappeared  under the companion way stairs and under the companion way stairs it’s that hard against the hull and under the battery compartment and you can’t really see into that space and it was totally perished. So that kind of thing.

The perished exhaust pipes of the engine the previous owner had attempted to repair. 

When I was under there actually replacing that and looking around, I was looking at the seal on the rudder stock and the little piece of rubber pipe that sort of clamps onto the fibreglass housing and thinking that piece of rubber there is nearly 40 years old and, if that starts to leak, what are you going to do? It’s a big question what are you going to do. So, obviously you are going to take the rudder out and replace that. So, it’s like realising the things that you don’t know that are the problem.

Wasn’t it Donald Rumsfeld who said “the unknown and unknowns are the things you have to worry about.” So, it’s the things that you don’t know you don’t know that are the worst and that was one that, really I just really give a moment though to. I thought it all looked nice and solid but when I had a really close look at it, I thought gee this is a bit of a worry.

So, what keeps me awake most of all is the boat sinking. If the boat doesn’t sink, I can just curl up in a ball and cry.

OSP: Yes and set your EPIRB off.

Andy Lamont:…or just sit there and just wait for things to change things gets better because with everything there is greater energy for life and every storm passes and if the boat doesn’t sink well you are out the other side. So, that is the main thing that keeps me awake at night. That is why I put all new 10 mm lexan windows throughout the boat and type of thing.

If I can keep the water out, that is the main thing. I put a new PSS seal in and now I lie awake thinking, what happens if the PSS seal fails? An old stuffing box you can just tighten that up but you can’t do that to a PSS seal do I get a Zip tie and tie it up , surely there is sort of a set procedure for a failed PSS seal. Its things like that keeps me awake at night, but really what keeps me awake most of all is about like sinking.

OSP: Keeping the boat the right way up.

Andy Lamont: Yes. So, the keel attaches over on these boats over a really long period. It is very solid but when we take out the water, we are just going to drop the keel off it, check the bolts, if the boats are a bit suspect we will replaced the bolts. But again, it’s a great system the bolts come up through the boat and they tighten down with nuts inside the boat.

OSP: You can see them easily and you can see the condition of the boat.

Andy Lamont: And I have never heard of an incident where S&S 34 has lost its keel but everyone that goes around the world takes the keel out and checks the bolts and so that is just one thing to do.

OSP: Ok, and have you thought about what you can do to minimise the risk of injury, minimise the risk of falling over, falling off when the boat rolls upside down? How do you avoid breaking bones and puncturing lungs and that things like that, can that really debilitate you despite the boat being perfectly fine to carry on.

The S&S 34 engine in need of TLC

Andy Lamont: Yes. It’s a really good point. So, I am going to buy just a racing car seat with a seat belt which I can sit in and belt myself in. I am going to put a seat belt in the bunk so if the boat turns upside down when I am asleep I won’t just fly across the boat. I’m replacing the engine cover with a nice big storage compartment which is going to mean there’s not very far to fall inside the boat. There is a central pole which obviously people can’t see, it’s not in the boat at the moment it goes basically from the centre of the boat up to cabin ceiling that is going back in. plus I am going to put two more poles by the sink and just in front of the hatch so that it’s going to be 3 poles, it’s going to be like a little forest in here. There is just not going to be far to fall. So, that is going to be the big thing.

So, it is a nice little boat, there is not far to fall anyway but when I am asleep or drowsy or resting I will be in this and the weather is rough I will be in a seat belt so that is what I will be doing. I will take of course ok I have got some protective body amour and head gear so I will take that as well with me. So, if I got to get up the mast I will just put that gear on so that will give me a bit of protection from slamming into the side of the mast.

OSP: Put a helmet and stuff on because that is quite a risk really knocking yourself out if you…

Andy Lamont: Yes, I have a Gath helmet which is very light and nice and strong

OSP: I am sitting on your bunk and I visualise you being thrown across the boat and punctured by one of those bolts thats sticking down below your cabin top and theres about 20 bolts there and I am looking at them and they are about an inch long, thinking about the risk of punching one of those through your skull. Have you thought about that?

Andy Lamont: Well, so I have just left them long because the just look so handy.

OSP: Handy for what?

Andy Lamont: Well you can see I have attached some eye bolts (nuts) on them.

OSP: That could work.

Andy Lamont: So, then what I am going to do is I am going to make some netting so it attaches to those eye bolts so that anything that’s inside this shelf here won’t get thrown out and then what I will do is for every bolt that doesn’t have an eye bolt, so all those bolts I knew from the jib track for every bolt that doesn’t have an eye nut on it I will cut it off with an angle driver. I am pretty vicious with the angle grinder cutting off bolts at the moment. Sometimes I leave bolts a bit long because I am thinking I will use that for something. This used to have that basically similar to the car hood lining and foam underneath it.

The menacing looking bolts the hold the new genoa track in place

OSP: Like a final foam or something.

Andy Lamont: Yes. And it was all starting to sort of deteriorate and it was just raining tiny particles of foam from the holes in the lining on the boat. So, that was a big job. We had to pull all that lining off and I got the sander out and sanded it because all the foam  that sort of open cell  foam was glued to the ceiling, sanded all that off and then just put a coat of paint for the time being but I might put some closed cell foam just like Jessica Watson did to her boat which is quite a good idea. So, she just lined the cabin and the cabin sides in closed cell foam from Clark Rubber and that does a couple of things because its good insulation and it’s also all soft. So, that is one of the things. Those bolts won’t be staying long for too much longer.

But I am just looking at the design of the netting I probably have to get a sail maker to make it up for me but I think it will be great. One of the things you have to do is imagine about upside down and look at everything that could actually fall out of a place and make sure you have a system to have it all locked down but most importantly have that system that is nice and easy to use. You don’t have to go around, oh, there is a storm coming I have got to make sure you got through this to lock everything down, just have it locked down as a matter of course. That is what I want to do and make sure it won’t happen for that.  That is where I think the netting is probably great because a lot of stuff you are using all the time is visible and you just have to unclip the net and grab what you want and the clip the netting back on.

OSP: Its light, you can see it, it feels behind it. So, what do you think it’s going to cost you to get to the start line with what you have spent so far and what you are still to spend and then all of your provisions and all the other things you have yet to think about?

Andy Lamont: Is my wife going to hear this?

OSP: Probably not.

Andy Lamont: Well, the boat only cost 35 grand.

OSP: So, you already saved 100k.

Andy Lamont: So, we are already 100k in front. Well, I have spent a fair bit. I am probably of spending another 40k on it since I have bought it and I have probably another 40k before we go. So, that probably a hundred and…

OSP: 15…

Andy Lamont: one hundred fifteen thousand dollars.

OSP: And that is just getting essentials it’s not the sending it out fitting it out in terms of and this is really luxurious sort of items it’s just getting good solid safe see where the boat…

Andy Lamont: Something probably like this computer which is another one of those ridiculous things but it’s really it is kind of great in that way. Like let’s say the whole thing happens for less than $150,000 that is great for a trip like this which could cost millions and I know previous people that have been around the world nonstop, some items have cost more than that alone. The satellite phone for Jessie Martin back in those days cost him around $165,000 alone.

The new starter motor is fitted to the S&S 34's engine

OSP: Here is the thing. You can go out tomorrow buy $150,000 boat, it would not be great to sail around the world, you will still have to put another 40,50, $60,000 into preparing it to sail around the world. So the near end result because I have got an older boat and when you kind of build it from the ground up, you can of restart the life of every part of the boat that you then replace or upgrade like your engine, exhaust systems and like your steering and then you know that part of the boat is good to go for another 10 or 20 years. So, in some ways it’s a smarter approach than maybe to buy something that is 5 or 7 years old were due to its treatment or the lighter weight production these days and the way things are built you don’t need something that is robust anyway.

Andy Lamont: Yes. And I think every component has a life and if you buy a boat that is new you have got the maximum life for every component on the boat and then depending on what boat you buy all those components may or not be up for the serious challenge. So, some would be and that would be great but then if you bought a boat that was 7 years old, the every component needs to be replaced.

OSP: Yes. That’s right and manufacturers these days don’t actually spec things out for going around the world anyway they pick them out for coastal cruising. So, 2,5 or 7 years old may not be fit for purpose anyway despite paying three or four time the amount for the boat upfront.

Andy Lamont: Yes. And an interesting thing too, the difference in the newer designed boats and the older boats is really not that much, as far as cruising boats (I’m not talking about IRC boats)  there is not that much speed really it’s just space.

OSP: Yes some of the cleverness around the design…

Andy Lamont: They are not fast. They are probably more comfortable downwind , less comfortable upwind but they are not really an order of magnitude faster or more seaworthy probably less seaworthy some of them. It is an interesting thing. All the boats like this boat, now getting close to 40 years old, I can’t see why it is not going to be a viable beautiful boat in another 40 years.

The engine gets a complete makeover on Impulse

OSP: If you maintain the hull.

Andy Lamont: Yes. Very easy to maintain and that’s right if you maintain the hull and keep replacing the systems as they start to degrade…

OSP: Keep the water out, fix the leaks, stop rotting inside the boat. What things are not on track in your preparation from here October since like a long way to go away but it’s probably like having a baby you go from talking in months to talking in weeks, you are probably not far from talking in weeks soon rather than months so it will tart ticking down?

Andy Lamont: What is not on track? I have got my old Musto HPX sailing gear which is great stuff but I have already thought about getting a new set just probably a good idea you have to get some new off shore gear. The stuff I have got its great but I am sure it’s going to start to reach the end of its life pretty soon so that type of thing. So, the fitting out in the interior is – I am doing a fair of bit at the moment and it is  running to a pretty good schedule that is ok.

 The truth is the things I need to worry about are the things I haven’t thought about. So everything I have thought about I am going that’s ok. The mast is coming out and I am pretty sure if I am going to mount a radar on it even though probably it might be better on its own individual mast at the rear of the boat. It is just another mast getting knocked over isn’t it. 

OSP: Yes. And the higher up your mast or the higher the radar it does affect your range particularly with sails so that is something to consider versus a lower level. And when you like if you need things these days when I did a radar training course they talked about not standing in front of the radar because of radiation and when I had a technician recently say I should put my radar at the back of the boat I talked about that and he said the radiation was nothing, no more than a five flights to Perth or whatever the comparison is. But radiation I don’t think it’s good for you so there is a radiation effect if you consider standing in front of it and the height which gives you the range to consider as well.

Andy Lamont: Good point, so the mast is coming out so that radar going there, the new tricolour on the mast, all those things are pretty much covered. There’s a bit more work I will do glassing the inside of the boat but to be honest with you, the worrying thing is I think I have got it all under control which is … well that is the worrying thing.

What will happen is like everything else I have ever done in m life? It’s always like everything is under control until the week before and then it’s kind of pain stations. So, it’s probably what will happen. The thing for me is, really,  I can pretty much go next week onceI fit my wind vane on I could go next week, I would have everything I wanted, I won’t have my new storm sails but I could go, and  I would probably make it. So, I am not hung up really on having every last gidget and gadget that’s needed on the boat as long as everything is to a certain standard, one of the things I haven’t done yet is bought new stanchion for the boat. So, that will be nice to have new stanchion and stanchion bases. Again, if I didn’t do that, it’s not really the end of the world

OSP: Unless you are attached to them and they break and you don’t stand on the boat for some reason.

Andy Lamont: They are fine they are. Okay a bit bigger taller ones would be better but even tall stanchions are not going to stop you from falling off the boat, it’s really jack lines that is really their purpose.

Impulse's hatches are remove for refurbishing

OSP: Ok. So in terms of, what’s the safety equipment that you have got on your must have, must be bullet proof, must be triple strength, on your list

Andy Lamont: So for Christmas this year I got a set of jack lines, I also got a harness that doesn’t have life jacket attached to it just a harness which is really it’s a Bourke harness, it’s really light and I will just wear that all the time. I will just wear it all the time so it will just be like my undies. So, it’s nice and light and it’s never inconvenient to wear so and I think that the main piece of safety equipment.

OSP: And then be clipped on with that.

Andy Lamont: Yes. So, that is right. So, if I am wearing that and that I what I asked for, for Christmas was a harness, jack stays and a leash but I probably have 4 or 5 leashed. So, they are all over the boat and if run out and forget my leash there is a leash there. So I am pretty much probably going to sleep in this, in this harness and basically I won’t take it off.

OSP: And if you rush up in the middle of the night because you hear a sound and then you are not then racing out there in your undies with nothing else on and fall off in the back of the boat.

Andy Lamont: It is really I am not really fussed about a life jacket because it will be handy while I am close to Australia and when I am close to New Zealand. The last thing I want would to be sitting in an inflated life jacket halfway between here and South American watching the boat sail away. You probably feel like just getting a knife and because…

OSP: You would be pretty fortunate for somebody to just happen to be in the area.

Andy Lamont: So, really it’s the harness. Its making sure I just do not fall off the boat no matter what and luckily for me I am clumsy so I am not sort of going into this with a false sense of my own invincibility when it comes to having great balance.  I will trip over walking up stairs. So, I don’t have any illusions about that.  The main thing is to be hooked on all the time even when its dead calm because stuff happens.

OSP: That’s the time you trip and stumble when they do come and you are going twice the speed to do something.

Andy Lamont: Exactly.

OSP: So, prior to this trip what offshore sailing have you done? What is your experience been getting out of sight of land?

Andy Lamont: I haven’t really done a lot. I have always sailed. Sailing has been my sports and my passion since I was 11 years old but in sailed right through my teens and then when I was 17 I sort of met some people who were sailing to New Zealand so I sailed to New Zealand. When I got to New Zealand I just got bitten by the wind surfing bug and for me that was still my sport of sailing and I just had a passion for it, if there was an Olympics for enthusiasm I would have been gold medal player. I never really had a lot of talent but I just loved wind surfing and that was my sailing outlet.

The original Coursemaster 800 auto-pilot on Impulse

It was the first time I got in a boat and I just felt being on the water and being powered by wind that was to me I knew that was my thing and windsurfing satisfied that for me for all my adult life. I learnt to windsurf over in New Zealand then I came over back to Australia, stayed in Brisbane for a while, windsurfed in Brisbane and then moved to Western Australia purely for the wind. I just went out there I am going to Western Australia, I lived in Western Australia until my first kids were born then came back here and had a break from windsurfing for about 3 or 4 years than I was back into it again.

And then kite surfing came along in the 1990s 1999 and I kite surfed and then recently after more and more sailing but in-between – I have done south to Sydney quite a few times, South to Adelaide back to Port Macquarie with Tony Mowbray who sailed around the world nonstop in a Cole 43. So, I have done that. But I helped to deliver Wedgtail (RP55) with Cossie and John Gower they put up with me. I think it’s the funniest thing in the world and I am the butt of all their jokes,” you won’t get this one you are sailing around the world.” So, it’s been a lot of fun but I have learnt a lot with them and I probably have done more miles under Jury Rig than most people because we sailed back from Hobart to Brisbane twice under Jury Rig with a broken mast.

OSP: Wow! That’s a long trip.

Andy Lamont: Yes. two years in a row and so unfortunately they didn’t go to Hobart this year so we didn’t get to sail back because they are still trying to sort out their mast issues. And apart from that a few other little trips, but the main ocean trips that I have done are obviously New Zealand and from Adelaide to Port Macquarie which is not a bad trip quite a few miles. So, not a lot of offshore experience but enough to feel confident.

OSP: And the Tasman sea around Southern and Eastern side of Australia you can get all sorts of weather, you can get some big blows coming through, you can get stormy squalls, you get a fair taste of what is bad possible.

Andy in action kitesurfing

Andy Lamont: Yes. I don’t think the actual boat handling side of it I don’t think will be anywhere nears as challenging as the solitude side of it and that will probably be down to trying to maintain your capacity to make good decisions when you are tired. I guess this is really what happens to people. So, it doesn’t matter how much you know about seamanship and how many years you have been sailing around with a crew but when you are single handed, tiredness can be akin to drunkenness. The tireder you get the worse your decision making gets. Being able to sort of stay alone, you don’t have to make great decisions just have to  not to really make stupid decisions when you are super tired.

OSP: And just the fact you actually have to make decisions and not procrastinate and wait and wait and wait and things deteriorate.

Andy Lamont: Yes. There is plenty of cases like that and its pretty well documented. This is one of the things that happens to people who are solo sailors, they become paralysed and they just don’t make any decisions. So, they leave sails up and they are in all sorts of trouble.

OSP: Like the flight crash investigation one that indecision sets up a chain of events that snowball to the point of no return sometimes.

Andy Lamont: So, that’s the thing like act early act prudently and act early and all the other things and get enough rest like you just don’t know how I am going to feel after say 100 days by myself. So, that I what I am saying I guess they are more of the challenging things for me more than handling the boat pretty much this boat really to be honest with you. If you don’t have too much sail up and follow some pretty basic practical seamanship principles, you might not get there fastest, you might not be the most comfortable but you are probably ok. So, that side of things doesn’t really concern me too much and the other side doesn’t concern me too much either.  I am looking forward to that challenge but that is the unknown and how am I going to cope.

OSP: So, when you think about the solitude, have you thought about the ability to communicate with the rest of the world? Have you got any plans in terms of satellite or other communication options?

Andy Lamont: Yes.

OSP: What have you given thought to then?

Andy Lamont: I think the main option is the satellite phone. They are great now and the plans are much cheaper than they have been for ever so that will be the main thing. HF radio maybe but probably satellite phone is going to be the main conduit for communication with land. But having said that I do not want to be on the phone.

OSP: How is your day today? What do you see? Ocean.

Andy Lamont: Exactly. Part of me would be happier if there wasn’t that technology and I could just say I’d love to talk to you but I can’t but of course that’s me saying that now, that is not me saying that in 100 days into the journey so probably will be a whole different.

The rotten foredeck on Impulse has to be removed and replaced

OSP: And so have you talked about the communication side with your wife, what the expectation is and what – we are going to catch up once a week or once a month? Have you talked about that?

OSP: Its one of those things you often don’t get concerned until its only happening.

Andy Lamont: No. that is not a conversation we have had and it’s a difficult conversation to have, it’s probably one we will have as time draws nearer and like I said probably I am great one for these really strong ideas about how tough I am, how I am great I don’t need anything until I am right in the guts and that will completely change my mind. The roles will probably be reversed and I will be ringing – I will want to ring her up every half an hour and she will be going I have got a life to live leave me alone. So I don’t think calling anymore than once every couple of days is necessary at this point probably even once a week or something but I don’t know.

OSP: I found with crossing the Tasman the combination of I will send you a text every so often once a day or whatever and I will and I will call you at this frequency was kind of good because somebody just takes to say it’s all good rather than the obligatory phone call when there is nothing more to say than it was yesterday. So, you can get quite a frequency that kind of makes more sense and text through your GPS location.

Andy Lamont: Well actually I will have to have a tracker on the boat. So, that should actually just…

OSP: Great. You can track you progress around the world. So, we are getting on the Gold coast there is a bit of helicopter activity on the outside I am not sure how much of it is coming through the microphone but that’s ok.

Andy Lamont: Ok. So, my sail wardrobe plan I have a 150% Genoa and a mainsail with 3 reef points in it. So, that is a furling Genoa and then going down from that I have a 100% jib which is again on the furler. Once I am expecting more than 15 knots I will take the Genoa down put the 100% jib up because there is not a lot of performance lost over 15 knots with the smaller headsail and it’s just means that 100% jib is quite ok up to 25 knots downwind probably up to 30 knots but it’s quite ok and then that is on the furler too so if it is downwind we can furl that. After that we will go to probably a smaller headsail hanked on to the inner forestay.

I haven’t had that built yet but that would be probably 50% of the size of the 100% jib , that is going to be a fairly small sail then you can go to a triple reef main with that sail. I am guessing it’s going to be fine under 40 knots and then we will have a storm  jib with the triple reefed main which is going to be pretty much the lowest that we go and then we could put away the jib just to go under the main. So, that should be triple reefed main is pretty much going to act as my storm mainsail. I will carry a storm tri-sail as well. I may put a track on the outside of the mast to put it up but my understanding is that these boats under triple reefed main there is pretty much triple reefed main then bare poles.

OSP: In terms of, how much sailing do you expect to be upwind versus downwind?

Andy Lamont: Well, it’s probably predominantly going to be downwind although you never know. You might run into the wrong side of the system where it might be upwind for quite a while but predominately downwind then you as you go through the southern ocean, its mostly going to be north westerlies ,south westerlies and westerlies but it could can clock around to the east as well.

Then up to the Atlantic I think it’s just going to be complete variation of all directions and that is quite a long leg from basically from Cape Horn up over the Azores and back down into Cape of Hope. Probably be the longest time wise and that is going to be all directions. So there will be fair bit of upwind quite fair bit of light wind sailing that is where the 150% Genoa will come in handy. If the budget stretches and everything is good I will get a code zero as well something that will just ghost along in 3 knots will be great to have as well because the Genoa is not a nice heavy duty Genoa but it just doesn’t really it need 5 knots.

Significant repair work is need to the cabin top as well along with strengthening for new genoa tracks

OSP: It hangs in the lack on winds rather than fills…

Andy Lamont: Yes. So, it will be nice to have something like a big code zero that just sort of ghosts along.

OSP: I bought a code zero over last year and the predominant thinking was that sorts of 2 or 6 knots of breeze I read that you get another knot of boat speed easily. I bought it without realising its actually a brilliant reaching sail and as long as you are reaching at about 90 or 100° you can then carry it into the 15 to 18 knots, it’s just a great reaching sail. Obviously as its starts to come up on the head will drop dramatically because it overloads really quickly but as long as you off the wind around sort of 90-100-110 it’s a great reaching sail in 15 plus knots and it really is quite powerful.

Andy Lamont: Yes. Well, that right. So it will be great to get a code zero. Again but that’s on the wish list. So, that depends I probably priority wise before I buy a code zero I will buy a radar. So, I will buy a radar and then probably after the radar definitely need new VHF, definitely need a sat phone, HF is a nice one on the wish list.

OSP: Yes. And it’s a tradeoff between an HF versus be it I am going to spend more money on satellite phone credit given the number of people that aren’t on HF these days, it’s almost hard that you should get anybody and if they have got HF radios [inaudible] [00:05:27] anyway. So, that is a tradeoff to make.

OSP: I guess if you have got a lot of downwind sailing, what thought have you given to running wing and wing, calling out your jib or Genoa? How are you going to make the most of your going straight downwind if you get that kind of wind from behind a lot of the time?

Andy Lamont: Well, it’s interesting you asked because the boat goes great with the 150% Genoa and I have actually got much to the chagrin of all the local guys I have been competing against I’ve got a longer pole I’ve got a spinnaker pole plus a plus a long whisker pole that pushes the Genoa out to its full extent and the boat is really balanced and goes really well. I have got a spare Genoa as well so I could run twin headies and go down when with that. And that was my plan until I read John Sander’s book. It’s only a very tiny book and I have read it about 4 times and each time you read it something else jumps out at you and this time I read it and he said in downwind sailing where he went for his double circumnavigation in the S&S 34.

He dropped the genoa completely and just used the mainsail because he didn’t want to work the forestay because working the forestay is a potential cause of damage or failure for the boat. So, I sort of had all my plans of being really nicely setup running downwind and now I’m thinking “really I am going to do that now?” So, however I think as long as I make sure we have got really oversized fittings there and talking about setting it up properly plus I think the furling forestay arrangement is not going to flex and work as hard as a forestay without a foil in it. So, that is my plan anyway. At the boat it just settles down once you pole it out.

OSP: Yes. And there is a couple of things to consider as well. If you run wing and wing and put your main sail away, you have eliminated the risk of crash gybe or even if you have a boom break on and you have got none of that trying to happen, but also if you have got a bit of seaway out there, if the weight is forward seem to be pushing right in front of the boat, there is less tendency for the main to try and round the boat up. So, with all the pressure right in front of the boat, I have heard and read that running downwind is a lot more easier and the natural tendency to want to broach is just eliminated completely.

Andy Lamont: Yes, that also brings into its own self steering sort of moment at well because as it just wants to run dead downwind. So, everything works…

OSP: Great so it’s a nicer motion. You mini that seesaw motion that you often have running downwind with main trying to push it sideways.

Andy Lamont: Yes. So, I am going to run with two poles. I have set the boat up to run with two poles. I have got a new system on front of the mast so I can use two poles nicely. I am going to run it. I am just going to make sure we have got a not only the – will have the spectra line forward to the bowsprit it’s just on all the time just in case we do break some fitting or something fails on the forestays. I will have that built up properly and make sure that that’s all we have got failsafe and redundant systems there. But I have got twin grooves in the foil Basically you can just run both Genoas up there, in light winds running two 150% Genoas at the front of the boat will just motor along. And also you can just furl them both up.

Windows are refurbished and replaced with thicker 10mm lexan hatches

OSP: Which is pertinent to the manageability of the boat. And if you need to climb the masts, can you and will you?

Andy Lamont: Yes. It’s been one of things that I have been thinking about on the original boat that I built, I have got a mast built for that and I put steps little folding steps on them and that was great.  I was thinking about doing the same thing to this mast when it gets out but I just had to go and was looking at these rock climbing systems with the giri and then I can’t remember that name they lock onto the halyard and you just walk up the mast. When you attach the mast just walk up I had to go with that and I think I am going to do with that and I not worry about the steps because that system doesn’t seem to be very difficult at all. I am not really scared of heights so it doesn’t really worry me and it seems like a really – it’s a nice system that you – basically what you do is you run two halyards main halyard and another halyard onto a nice 20 mm rope specifically for the purpose and that is right the climb up. So you pull that rope up the mast on two halyards.

OSP: So, you have got safety.

Andy Lamont: One halyard for some reason breaks you’ve got another halyard on to the purpose built mast climbing rope that’s not going to break. It’s a really good system.

OSP: Well that sounds good. And if you know you are going to drill all those extra holes in the mast attached steeps too. I am just a fun of less holes things like that.

Andy Lamont: Yes.

OSP: So, in terms of if you want to just describe your plan and route into that were are you going to tell us where the toughest parts of the trip will be.

Andy Lamont: The initial first toughest parts will be while leaving the Gold coast and heading east to clear of all the shipping channels because as much as I probably wanted to be rested before I leave I probably won’t be and that is the biggest risk of all. That is hitting something and we will be straight out of the seaway into a well used shipping channel off the east coast of Australia. So, that is the toughest first part is basically making sure that I get at least 100 miles east before I can relax a bit. Luckily ships travel quite near to the coast here so I think I might sail 100 miles east I am much out of all what is going on apart from fishing boats. And then of course you have got the Tasman Ocean which it could give you anything. It’s a real interesting piece of water, isn’t it?

OSP: Yes. And you are straight into the action. There is no sort of 3-4-5 week build up, you are straight out there.

Andy Lamont: Which is what Jessica Watson did that was really smart, she was went up over the equator in the Pacific Ocean which gave her a nice window to get used to the boat and I was really tempted to do the same thing.

OSP: But the moment you are heading for the bottom of New Zealand right?

Andy Lamont: I was really tempted, but for me it’s always been under the five capes to me that is what it’s been. So, then if I was to go and start here and go up in the equator in the Pacific all the way back I will have to go under New Zealand or it seems like a waste of time doing that way and also it will be under New Zealand in the Middle of winter which is…

OSP: Which is not a good idea. Well, also if you are not fixed about your departure date you’d have the ability to wait two of three days if your weather router wants to kick you off as a system just gone through depending on how you want to approach it.

Andy Lamont: I think I will have to settle on a date probably a couple of months out which is go to be because I have got family coming up. So, it might be just a matter of a month out going whatever you do wait till the second half of October or whatever you do you go a bit earlier it’s probably the best as close as you can expect…

OSP: And you just got to go.

Impulse's refurbished hatches are ready for refitting

Andy Lamont: And then you sort of go of course you can slow down and so that will be- Tasman Sea will be – I only sailed across it once and we had 60 plus knots so….

OSP: Okay so, that’s as bad as its going to get most of time anyway.

Andy Lamont: Yes. And that is just the Tasman Sea so it’s quite interesting but then obviously under Stewart Island it’s predominantly over 30 knots. It’s very rare to be less than 30 knots under Stewart Island so, that is going to be the milestone to get around that probably to jump around that and depending on what the weather is doing I might head up, go down few degrees head north and get a bit of better weather or if the weather systems look alright you sort of continue down a bit lower.

OSP: So a shorter course around the bottom.

Andy Lamont: Yes. And I have got to remember it’s not a race but that’s the thing. Always when you are sailing you always want to go as fast as you can.

OSP: And if you are done you log each day knowing to see how much ground. You will always going to be conscious of those records days and anything less wouldn’t feel good enough all that stuff will start to happen.

Andy Lamont: So, then of course, after that is pretty much the big one is Cape Horn and that is where I will rely on Bruce a fair bit just to give me what he thinks is the best strategy to get around there. I definitely don’t want to be going round there with a big low pressure system. That will be kind of terrifying.

OSP: Yes. Timing that well because its so shallow through there the sea can really stand up. There is no point of rushing to get there if you can just sow down to get there a couple of days later and have a nice trip round.

Andy Lamont: Just go behind the system and get down and around and out.

OSP: Ok. So, you get around Cape Horn and then what’s next?

Andy Lamont: So, really and again this is going to be very reliant on the weather routing as to where I go next. I have got to go up over the equator up to the Azores. Well, I don’t need to go as far as the Azores but I am still not so sure under the world speed sailing record council whether I can go around a way point now or whether I still have to round and island. But anyway I am going to go around the Azores at the moment. So, that is quite a distance and there is a lot of different weather patterns so the way I go will really depend on the weather routing up there.

So, I will be doing my own weather routing and then I will be asking Bruce for advice on that because I will probably be saying,” look this is what I plan to do, what do you think?” He will say, “Stupid! You should do this. You haven’t factored in all these other things.” So to get up and down the Atlantic I don’t want obviously go too close to Brazil or any of the South American countries and I definitely don’t want to go too close to Africa and end up getting boarded by crazy pirates.

OSP: No.

Andy Lamont: I will stay like pretty much a couple of hundred miles off the coast so that is another factor. And once I am up and over there then getting down under Cape of Good Hope will be quite a fair distance under there. Then pretty much after that it’s just trying to miss many systems as you can to get back under Cape Leeuwin and then under Tasmania and the back home. But, that is probably going to be the worst, weather wise, section of the journey because that is going to be approaching winter, or getting right into the winter months.

So, that is where the systems will start running through pretty regularly and that’s probably the way to do it and the fact that the closer you are to home, the more  able you are to limp home if you do sustain some damage and also I will be a bit sea hardened as well. I have been probably have been though a few storms on the way and by the time I get into winter in the Southern Ocean I will be a lot better than I would have been 8 months ago or 6 months ago, that’s the plan.

The new tiller for Impulse gets to the finishing stage in the workshop

OSP: Ok. And staying warm will be a big factor too, wind chill and heat.

Andy Lamont: Yes. Because I don’t mind the heat so much but I do hate being cold.

OSP: It’s a wrong place to go during that time of year.

Andy Lamont: I don’t know why I am doing it. So, I just went and bought myself a nice sleeping bag rated to   minus 13 degrees C because it can’t be down so it has to be al fibre filled stuff so that’s good. So, I have got that lots and lots of layers. I use the Gill sappolettes which I find really warm. I found wearing those and some long couple of layers of long Johns and sappolettes and your wet weather gear and you are going to wear a beanie and gloves, you are pretty even in Tasmania you are pretty warm. But then again that’s the coldest I have been. The furthest South I have been is really Hobart which will probably make some people laugh but to me Hobart is like...

OSP: Antarctica?

Andy Lamont: I just think I have got lots and lots of woollen underwear, woollen base layer stuff and as well as the normal long johns and thermals and I will just take all that stuff and wash it when I can. They will probably stink, they probably won’t let me back in the country I will smell so much.

I think that’s the main thing is before I go that is one of things I will do I will buy some more wet weather gear. The gear I have got the Musto HPX gear is bloody fantastic I love it. I have got Musto boots. Probably don’t need a new pair of boots but I will get some of those seal skin socks which are really good and that should be it – a dry suit would be nice. Survival suits would be nice.

OSP: That’s when having your life jack with a dry suit could be convenient if you can float about for 12 hours ships will be passing by.

Andy Lamont: But if the boat just fills up with water you can just put the dry suit on.

OSP: True.

Andy Lamont: You can sort of slosh around in that. That would be good but probably even putting on your wet weather gear like when the boat is jumping around all over the place it’s a bloody pain in the butt.

OSP: It takes a long time. It’s a good 20-minute job to get it off get it back on.

Andy Lamont: I am just trying to imagine putting a dry suit on it might even take longer so I am not quite sure. But I just know the wet weather gear I have got get another set of that should see me through and just to stay warm. I have thought about getting a heater but it’s just another thing that can go wrong. So, I will probably just go with lots of layers, some emergency clothing in dry bags, towels and that type of thing. The other thing is those space blankets and those survival bags are quite good too.

OSP: And they take no space at all.

Andy Lamont: No space at all. So, that’s another thing if I am really cold I jump in the sleeping bag or jump in the survival bag and then into a sleeping bag. Then another thing I saw at burnings was the AEG heater jackets. You know the 18 volt lithium ion drill . They have also got where you just put a battery in the pocket and then you have got a heated jacket. So, I might even get one of those.

OSP: Could be handy if you have been outside for half an hour and the wind chill fixing something up and then you come down below and just seem to warm back up again.

Andy Lamont: You just put that up and warm up. They are only 150 bucks or something so it’s kind of for the job that it might do its pretty good value.

OSP: It’s more practical than trying to heat a hot water bottle.

Andy Lamont: Yes, exactly. That’s right and its instant and I haven’t got a battery grinder yet which is one of the things I want to have. So a little 4 inch grinders so if I need to cut stuff away.

New teak rails are fitted

OSP: And if you get the discs that carbon or something but way better for slicing through regiment trying to get a hacksaw or bolt cutters out if you have to cut mast away they are excellent for that.

Andy Lamont: So, one of the things I am thinking about is go the AEG route, getting the grinder and getting the jacket…

OSP: Happy days cutting the regiment away with your warm jacket on. So, if you can ask Jessica Watson questions about her circumnavigation, what would they be and when you start to think about some of the unknown few that lie ahead?

Andy Lamont: Well, there is lots of things we are really interested. One will be the polars for this boat. What strength and sea state did you change to different sails? That would be really good information. I might not do the same thing but it would be good reference point. So, that would be really interesting because basically it’s the same width it’s the same boat.

OSP: Yes. And traditionally if you find out you have too far that you should have changed sails once you break something.

Andy Lamont: Yes, exactly. So, that would be a good one to ask her. and then what would she do for power generation next time because I do know like I have read her book but she didn’t say anything negative in a book and good on her but there must have been things that really pissed her off and were really just bad systems or really just annoying and it would be good to know those things and what she thought about. She was very adamant she wanted the D400 generating wind system. Which is great it’s a beautiful systems its nice and quiet but she had to take it down every time it got over 30 knots and that type of thing. That will be interesting to find out power generation thing. But that will two key questions could be really interesting and also – I guess that will be the two main ones.

OSP: I saw a presentation she did she had some great photos of rebuilding her toilet after it had completely seized up.

Andy Lamont: Oh! Yes, right.

OSP: So, I know that she had that system failure which was pretty unpleasing by the sound of it.

Andy Lamont: Yes. So, that’s right. So I don’t have an electric toilet. I am just going to pretty much at the end of the day I don’t think you can beat the bucket, that a pretty good system. We always go over the side and that is not a good system single handed but I just got a pump out system – if you are just yourself on the boat then you sort of think that should be alright. I have go that system where your toilet paper and just get right down to the nitty gritty, you just take a big supply of paper bags so you use your toilet paper put in your paper bag, throw the toilet paper over to the side and pump out.

OSP: Because that’s the toilet paper that notoriously blocks those toilets up.  I am fan of the pump toilet it’s just one less thing that can fail electronically and it’s a pretty simple system and it only fails if you put too much down the hole.

Andy Lamont: Yes, exactly.

OSP: So, if you just don’t, that is probably not going to fail.

Andy Lamont: Yes, exactly.

OSP: If it’s not used by 10 people a day it’s definitely not going to get a lot of use.

Andy Lamont: Yes, exactly. Definitely when you sail solo the person that blocks the toilet up is the person who has to clean it.

OSP: Self governing.

Andy Lamont: Exactly, right. That is the best system I have seen it’s just the paper bag for toilet paper and a hand pump and what can go wrong.

OSP: It makes a lot of sense. Ok. So, what do you love being out in the ocean by yourself or what is it that you love about that because you are going to have a lot of that?

The final coat of paint goes onto Impulse's hull

Andy Lamont: I am interested to find out whether I will get sick of it because I am mid to late 50s and I am not sick of it yet so it’s quite interesting. For someone I am bit nerdy and that type of thing for something so basic to completely satisfy me and not just me hundreds of thousands millions of people. A whole thing about being on a boat and having nothing but the wind and I have never gone like this is boring of days and days and days and I am just like oh! God just give me another day so, it’s really interesting. It came down to the first time I got on a boat I was 11 years old and I got on a trailer sailor I was just watching sitting on the boat just watching the water separating from the stern of the boat it was a little hard chine trailer sailor.

OSP: Its quite hypnotising.

Andy Lamont: Yes. And it’s pretty much all I need. It’s a very weird thing if you get me off the water I need to be connected to the internet, I need to be get stimulating conversations, I need good friends, food and the excitement and the entertainment and everything and challenges. I mean there is this unending list of everything I need in my life so that I don’t go crazy from boredom or feel like I am wasting my life, but put me on a boat or a wind surfer or a kite board, that is all I need. It’s quite bizarre, isn’t it?

OSP: Its amazing isn’t it? And the nights will be as magical as the days for different reasons.

Andy Lamont: Yes, exactly. That’s it. The first ocean sailing I did from Brisbane to New Zealand some of those night sailing memories are just seared it into my memory I can remember them as if they were like yesterday and two days after I arrived in New Zealand was my 18th birthday and that was 40 years ago.

OSP: Its quite incredible.

Andy Lamont: Its just like yesterday. They are the peak moments of your life. For me, the peak of your life are your children being born and all obviously getting married and all that but the peak sort of – I am not a spiritual person but they are the spiritual moments of my life.

OSP: I think what I found is when you are out there on the ocean and it’s just you, there is not land on sight, there is not ships, it’s just you and the ocean and you are on the circular plate because everywhere you look every direction it’s just the horizon in this crowded world you got a piece of the world just to yourself and its perfect an un-spoilt and its magical and even the sea life comes to life. The light show that happens below the water once you really adjust your eyesight and the stars are like you never see on the land because of all the smoke and light interference. It’s quite stunning. It’s hard to explain.

Andy Lamont: As the stars have meaning to you as well. One rises on the horizon you follow that for a while.

OSP: You can see the shooting starts occasionally.

Andy Lamont: Its nice.

OSP: Well its good you are going to have about 300 days of that. So, when you are not sleeping or tending to your daily tasks in terms of checking on chafe and wear and tear and doing bits and pieces, what else are you taking along to be able to occupy your time?

Andy Lamont: Well, I will take a guitar a ukulele and some harmonicas so they are the three instruments.

OSP: But the audience will love you.

Andy Lamont: I will play some music and I will take probably a couple of kindles and iPad and all the books I can fit on that because I love reading. So, that would be pretty much all I need because I wouldn’t be bored. I can play music, I can read and I can even maybe write some stuff and that’s probably a full day.

OSP: And you have got a plan for each meal.

Andy Lamont: Yes.

OSP: After you finish this meal you start planning for the next one.

Andy Lamont: And probably make bread and do some other little sort of nice things during the day when the weather is right.

OSP: And put plenty of sleep in the bank so you keep topping your sleep up.

Andy Lamont: Yes. That’s then I guess that’s a really important thing, isn’t it? Making sure that I don’t get fatigued and don’t enjoy something so much that I sort of don’t leave enough sleep in the bank, sleeping all the time. But that is another thing about being on a boat which I never have trouble sleeping. It’s just I don’t know if it’s the same for you.

OSP: It’s the best sleep; it’s the most restful sleep I have ever have.

Andy Lamont: Yes, so you just put you head down and the next thing you know your asleep.

OSP: And it’s the only place I can sleep during the day. I normally lie down and sleep during the day but on a boat once you are in that rhythm about day 3 or 4 you just lay down and sleep because it’s almost like if the motion is great and you know your body needs it, it just changes your whole ability to rest and recharge.

Andy Lamont: So, that would be my daily routine I guess. One of the things I was thinking of doing like I would love to learn to play the bag pipes. I don’t know whether I would have the time to do that but I thought that would be fun. You mentioned like in the middle of a foggy day, in the middle of the ocean just the sound...

OSP: It would be stunning, wouldn’t it?

Andy Lamont:…on a quiet day with sort of low fog and cold and just the sound of bag pipes…

OSP: Just come rolling out of the mist.

Andy Lamont: Yes. So, anyway I have never played bag pipes but I can’t imagine it would be that hard.

OSP: I was forced to as a child.

Andy Lamont: Oh, truly?

OSP: However, I thought it was quite glamorous until I realised you spend the first two years learning to play I don’t know what it called but it’s like the flute part, you don’t see the bag for the first two years.

Andy Lamont: Oh!

OSP: So, until you learn to play the flute part that plugs into the bag – pretty much so you have got to wait two or three years before you are given a bag. I didn’t last that long.

Andy Lamont: So, you can play the piccolo

OSP: Exactly, so, I didn’t get to the good part but obviously it’s an amazing sound. So, what resources have you used to plan this trip? Where have you turned for information, research and advice?

Andy Lamont: I guess Tony Mowbray has been a help, so he’s been great. I have spoken to him. I sailed back from Adelaide with him. So, he sailed around in a Cole 43 nonstop unassisted. I read a lot of books of course John Gower and Kevin Costin they have taken me on as a bit of a project because really at the end of the day even though sailing has been my sport, ocean sailing I pretty much knew nothing and pretty much still know not much. So, they are both experienced ocean racers. So, they keep telling me like I am crazy going around with a slow boat I should be going around in a fast boat and they just think its nuts to go around in an S&S 34. You should go in something that goes faster than the waves. That’s one opinion. It’s quite a good opinion anyways except that the evidence just doesn’t beat it out. It’s the slow boats that complete.

The gold stripe is added to the hull as the finishing touch

OSP: They get there.

Andy Lamont: They get smashed along the way but it’s the fast boats that have problems. On a crewed fast boat going downwind at 20 knots well they are no problem, you have got someone on the helm all the time but on auto-pilot the boat has to be like an open 60 or an open 40 with all the systems been built to broach it has to be that type of boat to sail under auto-pilot. Like a lot of them don’t finish.

OSP: They break down and you are taking five times the overall cost plus and they are more demanding to sail and things are happen fast with bigger loads so you can get injured too and sleeping is probably a lot harder when you punching through stuff at 20 knots and when you are rolling along nicely.

Andy Lamont: Like downwind those boats are sailing. They just flat and stable and fast…

OSP: And wet.

Andy Lamont: Yes, if you haven’t got someone on the helm 24/7 then you relying on the autopilot so it’s the slow boats they are the ones that can do it on a budget unless your budget is in the millions. I don’t think a little maybe an Atlantic crossing on a small fast boat would be alright but unless you have got a really big budget with like some of these autopilots which are coming up of the shelf models now but they are pretty high end systems and they take in account the yaw of the boat so and everything inside it, they are not going to approach on a wave or…

OSP: And you still need a back up for them because otherwise if they fail your trip is over.

Andy Lamont: Yes. If an IMOCA boat or class 40 boat loses its electrics it’s just over.

OSP: Yes. And then working 24/7 under reasonable loads too.

Andy Lamont: Yes. Exactly and it happens. Whereas to have the systems would cost more than this boat the whole trip.

OSP: So, putting a Ferrari engine in a Skoda or something…

Andy Lamont: Yes. So, that’s all their opinions which is I respect their opinions but I just think look! This boat has been around the world more than anyone and at the end of the day everyone agrees: The S&S 34 you are going to get there.

OSP: Yes, it’s not going to break in half and sink.

Andy Lamont: Yes. And it’s not break any records but you are going to get there. But they have been great Mabo and Kozzie have been a real help for me and pretty much they are the main two guys that have been helping me out apart from everyone at the club here too, it’s just interesting like just the doing sailing I am doing here. Even, everyday you go out you are kind of learning a little but more, you tweak a bit more, don’t you?

OSP: Yes. that’s is right and the more people hear about your story and plans and what people popup and contribute also ideas and obviously the help and the strategic all that will create a bit of ground swell. You have to go now because once you tell people about it you are first taking the ground. Did you ever read that book about the guy that did that very first solo trip? He went out there and sailed around in circles for several months just sort of thrown in the towel and disappeared.

Andy Lamont: Yes.

OSP: Sad story.

Andy Lamont: Yes, a real sad story. Donald Crowhurst.

OSP: That’s it.

Andy Lamont: Its an interesting story, isn’t it? And then it was the slowest boat in the field was Robyn Knox Johnson’s boat that won.

OSP: That’s a very good example of choose a well prepared solid boat.

Andy Lamont: This is a good example of that rather than these trimarans. But those days have changed and now the – I guess it’s the most important example of that is pretty much about your mental state. So, it was Rob Knox Johnson that had pretty rock solid mental state where I think Bernard Mointessier I think it was the guy who was actually…

OSP: He was leading, right?

Andy Lamont: Yes.

OSP: And then he decided to carry on nonstop.

Andy Lamont: Yes. Exactly. So, he carried on. So, his state wasn’t to finish the race, his state was to keep sailing I guess and there were a few others there. It was pretty interesting story.

Andy in action in his kitesurfing training business

OSP: Great story and Robin Knox Johnston story is a good example of if you know your boat from end to end and you have got confidence in it then everything comes from confidence in your boat. I think the only think he didn’t like was he had a cover over his heel as a form of antifoaming and it started leaking into something and he had to get off the bottom in the Southern Ocean and go down below hammer a nail some patches on the boat or something and sharks were hovering around so…

Andy Lamont: He talked about that so matter of fact, I will just have to jump under hold some copper nails in my mouth. Have you ever tried to nail something underwater I would drop the nail anyhow.

OSP: I have tried to swing a hammer underwater you can’t do it. But he saw a great white shark and he short it but he figured there wasn’t any other so he as safe to proceed. I would be thinking about the other 100 waiting there too. Anyway, so great story. This is a bit of Mount Everest in terms of challenges short of going somewhere crazy like North Pole or South Pole. Have you thought of beyond the trip in terms of what happens when you get home and what you do next?

Andy Lamont: Well, definitely, I am ready for a new change in my life. I have run the same business with my wife for 20 years and she has done most of the work. I was basically on the kind of ideas guy and get everything rolling and doing all then we are a great team in that it works really well for me and she sort of figured out after 20 years it doesn’t actually work so well for her because we both really want to do some other things in our lives. So, that is why I did a law degree so I would like to do something with that when I get back and we would like to do some public speaking if that comes up after the trip then really life’s over too quickly isn’t it.

OSP: It is, far too quickly.

Andy Lamont: But luckily I am 57 I am fit enough and its interesting because I have had a fantastic life from the time I was an adult say from the time I was 20 to the time I was 57, that’s 37 years. Like it’s quite possible to have another 37 years of being active and doing stuff with the advances in medicine and all that type of thing. But even another 20 years its whole another life.

OSP: It is and once I was racing flying fifteens I sailed at the nationals against a guy who I thought this was in 2009 I thought he was in his early 60s and so it is 50 boats and flying fifteens are quite demanding to sail, he finished I think 7th at the nationals. He had been a boat builder all his life, he was 86 years old and still racing at a really physically level. I thought that is a great example of someone who has stayed healthy stayed active and he got to 60 and he has added another quarter of a century of active sailing to his life. I have always remembered that example.

Andy Lamont: It is. Its great and I have a friend a great role model who I have wind surfed with and kite surfed with for the last 20 years and he is a keener kite surfer than me, he is out every windy day and he is 69.

OSP: Wow!

Andy Lamont on the S&S 34 'Impulse' at the Southport Yacht Club

Andy Lamont: It doesn’t matter how big the waves are he is just there and at 69 these people they do forge a pathway don’t they. You don’t have to sort of get to your 50s and 60s and start to slow down you can just turn another page and open a new chapter in your life and do something new and exciting. Yes, that is what I want to do and the other great chapter of my life will be becoming a grandfather, which is going to be fun. So, they are all great things as well. There is a lot to look forward to and when we get back whole new chapter to write I guess.

OSP: It’s been great spending the time with you this morning. I think we have got two episodes out this we are at the two hour mark which is great and its going to be excellent Andy following your journey over the next few months as you prepare to depart and then keeping in touch with you as you head off around the world and seeing how your experience is going. So, thank you so much for sharing your story and I know people listening to this find it fascinating, find it inspiring as well and I just shows you that if you put your mind to something the financial barrier is not the bigger issue or the age barrier it’s just putting your mind to it and heading down the path and certainly the departure day will roll around.

Andy Lamont: If anyone can take anything from what I am doing you can fail your way to your goal when my goal was to leave in 2004. It’s been a massive failure and a lot of detours but failure is just someone said I don’t know who it was, someone once said that failure is a real essential part of any journey. No journey and nothing happens without failing.

OSP: Yes. And the irony is if we didn’t put these unrealistic timeframes against things other than the timeframe you did everything else right because you are about to go.

Andy Lamont: Yes, exactly.

OSP: If you hadn’t put and unrealistic timeframe you would have said the plan just took a little longer.

Andy Lamont: Yes, exactly.

OSP: The plan has turned out…

Andy Lamont: And that is the way I look at it.

OSP: But as often if we are not unrealistic about timeframes we don’t actually push ourselves hard enough to even get to what is a reality, otherwise if you just said I will do it in 10 years, of course 10 years comes and goes and there is no stake in the ground. Well, thank you Andy and we look forward to catching up and updating things as they unfold and good luck on all of your plans and preparations. I am sure you will start to have all sorts of people popping up the out of the woodwork and offering support and help, which will help you prepare for some of those extra things on your wish list that will get you off on the right foot with your fantastic lifetime bucket list type opportunity.

Andy Lamont: Well, that will be great, it doesn’t matter like when someone says what kind of things are you looking for and I said, “even a can of coke would be great” like anything would be alright. So, thanks so much for your interest and I look forward to speaking with you again.

OSP: My pleasure, great, thanks Andy.

Interviewer: David Hows

Checkout out the article on Andy Lamont in the Gold Coast Bulletin that was published following our podcast interviews with him.

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Episode 1: Rob Mundle Show Notes

OSP: So, folks this week we are with Rob Mundel. We are onboard Rob’s catamaran ‘Toucanoes’ down at the Southport yacht club. Welcome along Rob and thanks for joining us on the ocean sailing podcast.

Rob Mundle: Thanks mate great to be here.

Rob Mundle at home at the Southport Yacht Club

OSP: So, Rob has a really fascinating background that goes back probably closer to half a century, than to decades when it comes to sailing, writing, researching, commentating and really quite a fascinating background and they way it fits together explains why you are such an authority on writing and commentating and you do it on such a way that the layman can understand it. When I look back on your history in terms of your early days in journalism, what was the point on the road that the sailing in maritime became a passion for you and what drove that to the writing that you have done and the books that you have written?

Rob Mundle: Well, it was literally in the blood. My great great grandfather was the master of a clipper ship square-rigger, bringing migrants and cargo to Australia. Every other senior member of the generation of George Valentine Mundle, as they have been have all been masters or gone to sea to earn a living. I am the first senior member of the generation not to but I guess it was inevitable that I took this course and a pad and a pen and finished upon the water.

My first boat was a sandpit boat my father built at home when I was about 18 months old. I have photos of it with my brother, made out of a crate and a broomstick for a mast. I set that up in the backyard every time the wind was blowing and I was sailing around the world.

Then a mate of mine who lived for sailing was talking me about sailing. One day he came out of the blue and said do you want to come sailing with us this season; we have a spot in a 12-foot skip? And there we were 4 kids aged 11, 12, 13 and 14 in a 12-foot skiff at Middle Harbor in Sydney and that’s where the sailing side started.

As for the writing side it was never really on the horizon. I guess I just followed fate and that was the way it went. When I was at school we used to do these vocational tests to give you some guidance as to the way that you might go in the future. My number one guide was to become an engineer and that is understandable because my father was a maritime engineer on ships. That didn’t really surprise me, but somewhere there it also came up that I had an ability to write, which I didn’t see and didn’t really get excited about, it something I just did. And the when I left school I was sitting at home not having a clue (having got my leaving certificate) where I was going to go and what I was going to do.

I thought about going to university to study economics and things like that, but fate has always guided my life, I have just gone with the flow and I just said to my mother, “I am going to ring the Daily Mirror and see if they have got a job”. Now the Daily Mirror was the Sydney afternoon newspaper. I used to love going up for some unknown reason and buying it every afternoon, bringing it home and reading the paper, following the news and everything.  So I just called them out of the blue and said, “Do you have any jobs?” and I think I was 17 and they said we are interviewing for copy boys, who are like messenger boys and they said “come in for an interview”. So I went for the interview on a Monday and I had this gut feeling this could be the start of where I am going and I went in and they called back the following Friday and said “you have got a job as a copyboy in the daily mirror and we want you to start on Monday on 28 pound a week” and away I went.

OSP: Wow! What a start.

Rob Mundle: So from there as a copyboy, you are messenger boy but it was really exciting in the newsroom. Zel Rayburn was then the editor of the daily mirror, but there was this excitement 24/7 because we are doing 3 or 4 editions in an afternoon and you are running copy around from the sub-editor to the editor and reporters. Then I started doing police rounds, which is monitoring police radios. We don’t say much about that, but we were doing that back then and guiding reporters to activities around the city and that’s midnight till 7am, 5pm until midnight and all sorts of ridiculous hours.

I was also working my hours so I could go sailing down in Middle Harbor every Saturday afternoon. And then Blanche d’Alpuget who is now Bob Hawkes wife was yachting writer for the Sunday Mirror and she came to me one day, when they knew I loved sailing and she said “I am going on holiday” and I was still a copyboy, “do you think you can write the full page yachting column in the Sunday Mirror? And I did it and that really started my journalist career and things just went from there and life just fell into line all the way through.

OSP: What an opportunity.

Rob Mundle: Yes and I am a great believer in fate. You don’t fight issues, it’s amazing if you just go with the flow and the opportunities open up. I have been extremely fortunate in doing that in life and I am very lucky that I have been able to combine my sport with my career and its paid huge dividends. So the things I have done over the years and the opportunities it’s presented to me, has led to so many things. I started the Laser class in Australia because of journalism and I started the J24 class in Australia because of Journalism.

The Laser

I introduced both those classes to Australia because I was in a stage of life where I wanted a break from Journalism, because I looked at all of the journalists around me and said “my God do I want to be an alcoholic or a nervous wreck by the time I am 40? No I don’t”. So I had a bit if a break and again, that was a lucky opportunity for me where the director for the Mirror put me on a retainer to go around the world sailing full time and just doing the occasional report.

While I was in America I met up with Bruce Corby who was a journalist come designer and he said “come and see me, I am on Long Island and I have got this little sail boat you might like”. I was racing 18 footers back then. I went out and jumped on this little sailboat and it blew me away, it was the Laser. And I came straight back on shore and said to him and to Ian Bruce who was the builder out of Montreal; “I want this for Australia”. So, in 1973 I set up Performance Race Craft and started the Laser.

OSP: The laser is such a fundamental part of the stepping sailing from dingy sailing into high performance sailing.

Rob Mundle: Yes, absolutely.

OSP: It’s a great stable item now.

Rob Mundle: Yes. The great thing about the laser, it’s for any level of ability. It’s an Olympic class as we know but if you are a beginner, it’s so simple to sail and you don’t get overwhelmed by anything. It’s just the perfect boat and I saw that and was really excited even having come out of 18 footers and what we were doing. I thought this boat is so exciting and so good and simple to race, it was brilliant.

OSP: Simple to rig up and pack up.

Rob Mundle: Yes. Suited my intelligence.

OSP: You described as our nations maritime biographer and when you look at a book like First Fleet about a convoy of 11 ships that left England in May 1787, where do you go to start about researching the background and a back-story to put a book like that together?

Rob Mundle: Again good fortune and a stroke of luck. I never saw myself as a writer of maritime history. I did a book called Fatal Storm, which has been hugely successful for me internationally, the story of a 1998 Hobart Race and a few other books but then John Ferguson an old publisher guy, who was with Harper Collins “God bless him” said “I want to put some titles on the table for the publisher to consider” and he said “there are so many opportunities on maritime history, we are not really touching these days and I think there is a market there”.

And he said, “the first thing you should do is look at telling the real story of Captain Bligh, he was a great navigator, totally maligned by history and Hollywood. You should look at doing that book and you should get Rob Mundel to write it. Now I never ever thought about writing maritime history as I say and Helen Littleton rung me and said “this is who I am and this is what I am calling about” and I said “no”. And she said “but John Ferguson recommended you,” I said “no, I can’t see myself writing maritime history or biographies and I politely said no, but thank you for considering me, I don’t think I could do it to you or do it to me. I think I might embarrass everyone” and we left it at that and I said to my PA, “well, that was an offer to write maritime history, but I have said no” and she said “well fair enough”.

Anyway they rung back 3 weeks later with a 30% increase in the offer, so I suddenly found myself writing maritime history and it was very interesting. And so what happened there was they were right and I was wrong and I got into it and I absolutely loved it. And so I did Bligh, Flinders and Cook who all went together, because at some stage they would all sail together being involved in that.

And then the First Fleet was my idea and the publishers and I thought this is the glue to put it all together and it’s a big part of European heritage in Australia. So, I was thinking about writing that and coming off the Captain Cook book or my “Cook Book” as a lot of people call it and one day I was in Sydney and I was wandering through The Rocks area very early on a Sunday morning, in fact I was standing alongside a statue of Captain Bligh that I just realised was there.

Captain Cook by Rob Mundle

I heard this big booming voice and it was a tour guide with people following him around with Circular Key. He started telling them about the history of Circular Key and the First Fleet and everything else and I thought to myself, “this guy really knows his stuff”. So I politely cut him out of the pack, when they were walking on and introduced myself and fortunately he knew of my books. His name was Brian MacDonald and long story short I said, “look I think I want to talk to you and you could help me with my research”. And again it was fate, just a total stroke of luck and he said, “Well, come home for dinner next weekend and meet the wife and we will have a chat about it as well” and that is what I did. So we had a lovely dinner and a nice chat about what would be in The First Fleet. He said look come into the office, which was his second bedroom and there were 7,500 books in his private library on early Australian history.

OSP: Wow!

Rob Mundle: It was like striking gold. This guy is just a whiz. Most people aren’t remotely close to what he knows about early Australian history and he was a huge asset and he is currently working on my new book with me which is about the clipper ship era and the early Australian gold rush etcetera. So again that worked out. So that is where The First Fleet came from, but with my research, I go and contact him when I need information I am struggling with and with writing a book a year, its constant research and constant writing to keep it going and keep the flow going and a lot of that is back to my newspaper days as a journalist with The Australian in particular where you learn to write. I am different, I write newsy history, I write what people call readable history. It’s not heavy duty reading. It’s entertaining and factual and I have 5 best sellers in a row now, so I guess that’s is why, so it’s an energy and a form of entertainment, its factual.

OSP: It’s quite a gift to be able to catch a story in a factual way and then make it readable and entertaining without making it too heavy duty, too scientific and too hard to digest.

Rob Mundle: Yes, the big thing I learned in my newspaper days was if you can do that, you can be a journalist. You have got to have the reader interested in the first or second paragraph and if you haven’t got it by then you are going to lose them and it’s the same with the book. The first chapter really has got to be the tease so they say “I want to read this” and Fatal Storm was the classic example that I wrote. I thought I have got to give the book a chance for an international audience and it worked. The first person I introduced was an American and we had Glynn Charles the Englishman, but I wrote about a number of the people that would feature further down and the reader was saying, I like the sound of this guy, I hope he survives. So they want to read on to see what happens. It’s the tease again but it’s a desire to keep reading and I do that with all my books and fortunately it’s working for me.

OSP: It’s like a content marketing.

Rob Mundle: Absolutely, it is, so I love the writing. I am really enjoying it. I don’t know where I will go after this one if I do go anywhere, because I think after this latest book, the sixth, there is not a lot of maritime history left to write.

OSP: It’s a good stage to be at I guess. So, which of your books have had the most impact on you in terms of the creative process you have gone through and the things you have learned and the research you have done? Which has impacted you the most and been your favourite I guess?

Rob Mundle: Well, I would have to say Fatal Storm, because it was a real turning point for me and it put the Rob Mundle brand out there worldwide. The big thing was it was an absolute adrenalin pump and something I will never forget. I knew the book had to be the first out. I knew it had to be factual in every degree and this is where I was fortunate because I have covered 44 Hobart races and now I am in the thick of things. And when it all unfolded I had 30 mates, male and female missing and all their partners and parents ringing me because they couldn’t get information. “What do you know?” “What can you tell us?” And in an instant it was obvious that the story monstrous and it can’t be told in a newspaper, it can’t be told in a magazine, television can’t tell it, it’s a book.

Artists impression of Midnight Rambler in 98 Sydney Hobart

And while I was doing the TV and newspaper work I rung my secretary and said “look, I don’t know where this is going to go, but just grab every bit of information you can, every newspaper or whatever for me because I think there is a book here”. And anyway Harper Collins the publishers had the same idea and with them being part of the News Limited organisation, when I was working for News Limited, we crossed paths.

Anyway they said, “we want to write and book and we want you to do it”, and that became Fatal Storm, but the most exciting thing about it was I could ring people directly involved and they knew of me, I knew of them and we were all on the same page where we could converse properly and the questions weren’t embarrassing and it worked. All of that worked. I did 144 interviews I think, to get all that book together and they were just nonstop and at the same time I wrote 120,000 words in 12 weeks and that was just massive to get the book done to be first out. We were out In July that year.

OSP: Wow, so out 7 months after that fatal race in the previous December.

Rob Mundle: I started writing at the end of January and just went for it and still doing a lot of what I am doing now, research. There were some people who said no to interviews but interestingly enough when they realised what I was trying to do with the book, they actually called me back and said look I want to be part of it because I think it can contribute. One of the great things I think about Fatal Storm is that a lot of people worldwide, not just here treat it as a bible, because that book just shows how quickly and how easily things can go wrong. How if you are not prepared for the worst, then you are not prepared at all for anything. And a lot of people I know have that book onboard their boat and say to newcomers “read this before you go sailing, because I want you to know how bad it can get.” The other thing, which I find quite remarkable with it, is women really love reading it and that really staggers me. I have a huge following. Women have come up to me and said I never thought I would enjoy reading a book like that and I enjoyed that. So, that’s been fantastic.

OSP: Having read more than 100 books on ocean sailing and offshore sailing, Fatal Storm is the only book that I have read that really brings together the power of the ocean and of nature and what can really unfold. Reading it prior to an ocean crossing trip I did a couple of years ago, it gave me a really good appreciation of the fact that you are not going to be deploying your safety gear on a nice sunny day, you are more likely to be upside down, in the middle of the night, in the dark and maybe underwater, where you can’t see or hear anything and it really puts a whole new perspective on what safety is really all about. And if you get yourself into that situation, even with all the safety gear in the world, it’s probably still a 50-50 ball game as to whether you will make it out alive, especially if you have to get into a life raft.

Midnight Rambler going to windward under storm jib in 1998 Sydney to Hobart

Rob Mundle: Absolutely.

OSP: The story of I read about the life raft in Fatal Storm turning upside down and then of a small cut ….

Rob Mundle: Just ripping apart.

OSP: …and all the things that happened that you really didn’t appreciate when you think about the ideal side of yachting.

Rob Mundle: Too true. And you don’t want to be saying, “why didn’t I?” and you shouldn’t be saying why I didn’t die. As part of your preparation, just expect the worst and go from there. So, that book now I think it’s now heading for 250,000 copies, it’s in 6 languages and they have just re-released it worldwide. So it’s been something special for me.

OSP: And hopefully it will never be superseded right?

Rob Mundle: Well no, I don’t want to be doing another book, but I think too where you mentioned the conditions and one of the great advantages for me is in being a sailor and writer, I can translate those conditions, after seeing some really bad weather and force 10 winds as a result of sailing from the Bahamas to Bermuda and it wasn’t pretty through the Bermuda triangle.

You can talk about and explain what the conditions were like so people get the picture, whereas if you have never been there, never been exposed to bad weather or any great deal of sailing, you can’t translate it into something that the sailor and the public can appreciate and I think again that is one of the things where I have been lucky in life is being able to write about the sport. I write about things that are happening but put it into layman’s terms where the yachtie can still appreciate it and the layman understands it.

OSP: I think it’s a very good point because if you have never been in those conditions and they are not normally captured on camera because of how remote you usually are in those conditions. I think when I read the book and you talked about 30 metre seas and I think “that’s 100 feet, that’s a 13 story building”, it’s just puts into another perspective, that you could never ever possibly visualise without that level of granular description and then the howling of winds on top of that which is often the toughest part.

Rob Mundle: Well there are two things in the book that really drive that point home to some degree. There is one photograph we sent to AMSA was taken from 1,000 ft from a light plane; we had a 40 ft yacht in the image and a helicopter. So AMSA could gauge, get the dimensions of what was going on in that image. The wave was going away from the camera and breaking and they estimated that that wave was 25-30 metres high and breaking. Now that’s pretty serious stuff. And the other one we did which put into a perspective the public could understand, was an idea of putting the Sydney Opera house in the picture and putting the wave heights alongside, overlaying the Sydney Opera house. So you get an appreciation and suddenly you realise how bad it was.

OSP: And one of the interesting lessons in the 98 Hobart which was also reinforced in the Fastnet 1979 race, was the yacht Midnight Rambler that lost their cabin top and the crew all abandoned the boat taking to the life rafts. Well that boat was found still floating three days later and it was repaired and is still racing in Australia today and it was a great example of not leaving a boat until you have to.

You should always step up into a liferaft when your boat is actually sinking

Rob Mundle: Always step up into the life raft and never get off the boat until you have to do that.

OSP: At the last possible moment.

Rob Mundle: Absolutely. In Fastnet Force 10, John Rousmaniere’s book about the fatal 1979 Fastnet Race, Harry Cudmore and some mates were onboard in that race (Harry was the world half ton champion etcetera) and they were in an interesting dilemma, as much as it was a seriously bad storm, not as bad as the Hobart Race, but it was right up there and the helicopter was hovering overhead and the message came down to the boat “this is your last chance to get off tonight, we can’t come back tonight, if you want to get off, you get off now, or you stay on the boat overnight.” When there is a helicopter waiting, that is when you may think of getting off, especially if you don’t know if the weather is going to deteriorate further. Otherwise you stay on the boat and don’t get into the life raft until you really have to.

OSP: Life rafts look more like outdoor paddling pools

Rob Mundle: That’s right, kiddy wading pools.

OSP: So in that example it’s one thing to write about history, but how difficult is it to interview families and crew members of sailors who lost their lives in the process. How did you find that?

Rob Mundle: That part was difficult. Again it was surprising how many people wanted to talk to pass on the information. The hardest part was I did an update 10 years later when I went back and interviewed a lot of the people who had featured prominently in the original copy and what that did was really imprint very firmly on my mind, on my life and a lot of other people was how bad that race was still impacted people.

Some of them were still a mess some of them couldn’t work anymore. There is one young guy in there who subsequently committed suicide. It’s just terrible stuff and I have no doubt at all, that its come from those experiences and there are worst cases of sailors you just couldn’t talk to, but their mates were saying “you got to know about Bill” or whoever, “he is not doing it too well and he never has since that day”.

But then there were others who have gone and done 10 or 15, Sydney to Hobart races since and just accepted that as just something extraordinary happened in that race and they have continued on. But I guess it’s just the experience you have had and for a lot of people, you think about family and friends and everything else and why am I exposing myself to this possible danger so they go back to playing golf and lawn bowls instead.

OSP: I couldn’t think of anything worse.

Rob Mundle: Yes.

OSP: Okay, that’s interesting, tell me about how you got involved in the American Cup in the early days, because I guess my first memory is listening to Australia II racing the USA in the final race of the Americas cup in 1983 on a transistor radio at school in the classroom. I never even knew what the America’s Cup was, but the entire class started listening to it in the classroom and suddenly it’s the most important thing and since then the last 30+ years have really been incredible. How did you get involved?

Australia II crosses the finish line to win the Americas Cup in 1983

Rob Mundle: It’s interesting you say that because my first involvement with the Americas Cup was in 1963 when Gretel and Weatherly were racing and Gretel actually won the second race and in 1963 I was 16 or 15 or something 16, anyway I would wake up very early in the morning like 2:30 or 3 o’clock in the morning, lying in bed with a little transistor radio not much bigger than a mobile phone today, listening to the race live on the radio and it was just so exciting.

But when journalism came, my initial involvement was when Gretel and Vim were racing or sailing on the Sydney harbor in the lead up. But my first real media involvement came in 1983 and again I was absolutely blessed. I had done all my journalism and I had run Performance Sail Craft and then I set up a little sail boat marketing business in Sydney called Rob Mundel Sail Boat Centre, down near the Sydney Bridge in Middle Harbour and that was going rather nicely, but once journalism is in your blood you can’t get it out.

And I was still writing for magazines and things and this particular day, Peter Sutton, Kay Cottee’s husband, rang me and said “look (a journalist mate from back in the early days of the daily mirror) he said look “we are starting this sports show on Channel 10 with Ray Warren as our host and we want to be different we want to put sailing on it. Would you be interested in coming and doing stories on sailing?” I said, “I would love to, that will be great.” So I kept the sail boat business going and started doing that as well, but anyway long story short, suddenly the whole media bug was back and firing for me, so I got out of sail boat marketing and life went back to television and newspapers.

The Australian picked me up again and so that was 1982 and in early 83, Channel 10, I was doing more and more work for them and they were liking what I was doing for Good Morning Australia and stuff, t hey came to me and said “now Allan Bond has got this Americas Cup thing happening and we seem to think he might have a chance with this boat called Australia II, so we want to get involved, do you want to go to Newport Island and cover it for us?”

And I couldn’t get there quick enough. I was looking over my shoulder to make sure there was no one behind me they were talking to. Anyway so I went there to cover it for Australia and for Channel 10 and I had 5 months in Newport and that was the real turning point in my life as we now know; Australia II won and I was only live, there was 3 of us there Bob Lobel and a mate out of Boston who was a TV broadcaster for the American market and Dave Vitor who use to own Courageous and myself and we were on air for 8 hours and 10 minutes that day. No one apparently has ever been live on television for 8 hours and 10 minutes and that was the day we won the Americas Cup.

Australia II races Liberty in 1983, Newport Rhode Island for the Americas Cup

And suddenly my whole world exploded in front of me. Here I was, this new boy in television and suddenly I am worldwide and Australia-wide. But we didn’t realise when we were over in the USA, how big it was back here and to come back and start feeling it and I would walk down the street and people were coming up to me and saying, “are you Rob?” How exciting and so my whole television career went from there.

So, I went to Freemantle for 7 months in 1987 and so they were the glory days and they were back in the good days of television, where the budgets were unlimited and a helicopter was my taxi and all those sorts of things. It was a really good period in life and I think that launched me further up the track and that led to the book writing and everything else. Well I think my first real book came out as a consequence of 83 where I wrote a book about learning to sail, a very layman based book on learning to sail and that went pretty well and then my first real book was writing Sir James Hardy’s biography in 1992’ so now this latest book is my 16th.

OSP: Wow that’s a pretty good run rate.

Rob Mundle: Absolutely.

OSP: I read the book ‘Born to Win’ last year by John Bertrand and when you read about that event, they were almost the first sailing team that were semi-professional, where sports psychology was involved and they acted professionally and they went to bed on time. In reading about Australian teams in previous campaigns prior to 83 they turned up as a bunch of lads on a $20 daily allowance and went out late. So it’s like that was the turning point in which sailing started to become professional, when you see how they conducted themselves and that started opening the gate for sailing as a paid sport.

Rob Mundle: No doubt. Absolutely spot on. The big thing in 1983 was we played a psych game and we played it really well. The hiding of the keel was the best thing that could have been done and they played that game all the time. Bondy “God bless him” was just as much a part of it, but the real man was Benny Lexcen and what he did was brilliant. Warren Jones the manager just played the Americans to a break, it was super and I remember one day when it was happening, Bondy wanted to get involved because he was getting excited, so they had a press conference and they sent Bondy out to talk to the media and they said tell them that we are protesting the Americans under rule XYZ21b clause 4 or something.

The Australia II winged keel that was kept secret from the Americans

So he has gone out there with the claim and the Americans fell for it. There was no such rule. It was just feeding them and just making it more and more difficult and just keeping the Americans guessing and the interesting thing was the Americans actually had a chance, an opportunity to go and see the boat when it was being measured and they didn’t turn up. It was their own fault in so many ways. They could have known what the keel looked like and they could have grabbed that opportunity.

OSP: It might have been complacency.

Rob Mundle: I must say it’s really sad now seeing the Dutch again sticking their heads up and saying we designed the keel and we deserved the credit for it. Benny was just a genius and back in those days a lot of people would have contributed but Benny would have been the driving force, I have no doubt whatsoever and it’s just sad that he is not here to say “hang on guys, here is the truth” so they tend to say “we did it” and there is no one there to argue, but we all know Benny made a massive contribution to it and as Jim Hardy says “when it comes to putting coal into a steam engine to blow the whistle we don’t know which bit of coal does it.” But the concept was Benny’s and a lot of other people worked on developing that concept.

OSP: I have been reading about Ben Lexcen, he was quite an interesting character, genius in lots of ways and troubled in other ways.

Rob Mundle: Brilliant story; born in a little house on the banks of Lake Macquarie with a dirt floor, self-educated essentially, he taught himself how to use a computer, just an amazing guy. He was a good friend for a long while. And where his thinking was coming from all the time, you look at 18 footers he did Taipan and Venom he revolutionised 18 footers and he was playing with N plates back then, he had a thing about centre boards and rudders and all those sorts of things and his mind was always out there. The first boat that he designed for Bondy back in 1969 for the first Hobart Race I did, was the wooden Apollo and she was built in Monavale and all the frames were up that Benny had designed and he walked and said “take a little bit of that frame there, just flatten that out a little”. He could feel the water going around the boat and decided just take a little bit off here and a little bit off there and bingo and she was a great boat, fabulous boat.

OSP: He was just really gifted, one of a generation.

Rob Mundle:A bit like Herreshoff. Herroshoff had a similar sort of feel.

OSP: Not many people have ‘out-connored’ Dennis Connor over the years. He has certainly been the master of his game.

Rob Mundle: And again that was a lot of psych there, a lot of psych and Dennis in the end started falling apart. It’s a bit like what Jimmy Spithill did in last Americas Cup, his psych on the Kiwi’s absolutely destroyed them and it was really interesting to watch, because he was telling porkies half the time, but the Kiwis fell for it. “Well we are working on our boat all night and we are modifying stuff” rubbish, it wasn’t happening at all, but they fell for it and then Spithill turned around and said to Barker “they are 8 -1 up, imagine if they lose it” Well Barkers turned around, well it absolutely smashed him and sadly again its all the psych. The Kiwis put the cart before the horse, they had the jet waiting to take cup to New Zealand, had the street parade planned and everything else, they still hadn’t won the cup.

Emirates Team New Zealand 8-1 up, yet go on to lose the 2013 Americas Cup

OSP: After that they opted for a lay day when they could have carried on.

Rob Mundle: Absolutely. Yes, and again pressure and that’s the way to win these days. I hope that Australia gets back into it. I think we will one day and the next generation of boats is going to be really interesting.

OSP: When you think about the Americas Cup, the way its evolved and the way it continues to evolve, how much do you think the evolution of the cup and the deed of gift is around the holders raising the bar to make sure the next challengers find it harder to get a leg up versus the desire to keep Americas Cup yachts at the leading edge of sailing technology, innovation and advancement?

Rob Mundle: Well, it has never been any different since 1851. It’s the oldest trophy in the history of sport. It’s always about raising the bar, dirty tactics and all of that. That is beauty of the Americas Cup, its part of the intrigue. Some people have said to me “these catamarans are not the Americas Cup” but I think it is, that is where the world is going.

The Americas Cup has always been at the forefront of design, technology and equipment. We sailors really get excited about a lee bow situation, where the commentator is saying; “Oh they have gained a metre, they have got a lee bow situation” and we are going wow. Now the poor kids who we want to get excited about our sport and get into our sport don’t understand that terminology so there is nothing exciting about it for them.

That is why I think these catamarans are just sensational and I don’t know where it’s going to go from here, but they have had to bring the size of the boats down this year because it was getting scary as to where the performances was going to go, if they stayed with the same big boats. They would be doing 50+ knots downwind and 30+ knots upwind and people would be killed literally. I know we have had one tragic accident there and they are very dangerous. So they have reined them in and brought them down in size, but it’s still going to be spectacular.

One thing that’s really firmly imprinted in my mind about how good the last Americas Cup was the energy and excitement. I don’t if they have captured that same energy and maintained that towards this next cup. The classic was Thea Williams widow of Keith Williams who was a legend here on the Gold Coast. He founded Hamilton Island, Sea World, was the pioneer of theme parks here on the Gold Coast. I was up having coffee here in Tedder Avenue here in Main Beach one day and Thea said, “Rob, this Americas Cup, what are these boats all about?” I said, “Thea, its where it’s at, its where it’s going to go.” She said, “I have never seen anything more exciting in my life.” She was one who knew nothing about sailing but was getting up at 6am and watching the Americas up.

Oracle successfully defends against Emirates Team New Zealand in the 2013 Americas Cup

OSP: Yes, its interesting because in the end it was the fairy tale finish, because they set out to create this global spectacle that’s made for TV in 45 minute chunks and when it was 8-3, it was not looking like that would be the case, but they couldn’t ask for a better finish to the event and a better way of captivating people, it really was a fairy tale finish.

Rob Mundle: Absolutely, it was really exciting. The Americans, or the Australians really, because it was Australians in all the key positions. AUS or USA, it’s the same letters only turned around a bit. And again you see the talent that we have got involved there, it’s a shame in so many ways we are not involved. The next one is going to be exciting, I am looking forward to it. I just hope they get the right amount of breeze in Bermuda so we see them at their best.

OSP: Yes. Watching the last round of the AC45 fleets in Oman in maybe 7 or 8 knots of breeze, doing 3 knots round the marks was not exactly thrilling.

Rob Mundle: I know that’s like on Toucanoes, they were only just faster than that.

OSP: They need to get up and go.

Rob Mundle: Absolutely.

OSP: So as recently as a couple of weeks ago, there is a talk by Oracle of returning to monohulls if they win the 2017 Americas Cup due to the lack of match racing and tacking ability in catamarans. They have said that now they are in 45 foot Cats they are not exactly unique anymore with the other Extreme Cat Events also operating globally. Is there is future with a hybrid version of a Comanche-style 100-foot foiling monohull? Is that a possibility? What do you think the Americas Cup needs to do next in terms of direction?

Will we see a 100 foot version of this foiling monohull in the Americas Cup one day?

Rob Mundle: Look, it’s a wait and see really. Let’s see how the 45’s go. I think they could be throwing a few dead fish out there as well because Tom Eman’s getting these new monohulls going in California and I think let’s get this one out of the way, but the one thing about sailing is we have got to have events where there is wind. What really made the Americas Cup television worthy was when it was in Freemantle. It was by far the best Americas ever with the monohulls there in windy conditions.

If we are going to make it entertaining we have got to where there is wind. And we had terrible problems in Auckland a few years ago where races were cancelled and when you have got a worldwide television audience and you have got to say “sorry we are not racing today because there is no wind” its not good. You have got to think audience, you have got to think marketing, you have got to think promotion and you have got to think the sport.

So I think it’s a wait and see here and I think who knows, if Oracle does win it, will they go again? They may say “we are not interested in going again”. Larry Ellison might say that’s enough for me. The Americas Cup will never die and I think it will be great to see the right sort of boats like a Comanche-style or whatever and sailing in big breezes, big spinnakers because the public and the sailors love drama. They love drama, they love excitement. You look at motor racing, half the time people watch it just for the crashes, they don’t watch it for the skill and they want to be entertained with the near misses etcetera. They call this concept “a thousand sadistic sports fans”.

OSP: It’s some interesting speeds now reached by 60 foot foiling monohulls with the big wide hulls.

Rob Mundle: The 60 footer around the world boat is unbelievable with what they do and where is it going to go? Who knows but I think I might have been born about 60 years too early.

OSP: So, tell me about your role on the Selection Committee for the Americas Cup Hall of Fame?

Rob Mundle: Wow, it just came out of the blue and yeah I am honored I am the only Australian on the Americas Cup Hall of Fame Selection Committee and it’s a group of people who have had relatively long standing association with the Americas Cup and each year we have a telephone hookup worldwide, we have nominations. We will nominate who we think is worthy of induction into the Hall of Fame.

It’s at the Herreshoff Maritime Museum just outside Newport and we go through a voting process, a discussion process and we did that just 5 or 6 weeks ago and we were on the phone worldwide for an hour and a half to two hours and then finally we have a vote and work out our worthy winners. And that’s the way it happens. When I got involved in the early days Americans were very anti, surprise, surprise, Ben Lexcen being nominated for the Hall of Fame. So we had to drive that one and get him in there and we did. So that really helped the cause there. It’s a very interesting cross section of people and I think of the people they get in each year. This year, there have been a bit politics for one individual who will remain nameless, but he is on the way to being inducted in the Americas Cup Hall of Fame and not sure if it’s happening this year or if it’s happening next year, but it will happen. So, it’s great, it’s an honour.

Herreshoff Marine Museum, home of the Americas Cup Hall of Fame

OSP: Okay, that pretty interesting. Who are some of the most memorable personalities you have met in Americas cup community?

Rob Mundle: Oh wow! Benny Lexcen not hard to say, most intriguing. I love Iain Murray, I have a lot of time for Iain Murray. Tom Blackaller who was the equivalent of Dennis Connor in so many ways died way too young. He was my co-commentator at the Americas Cup in Freo and he and I had a great rapport. I had a huge level or respect for him. There are so many in it because it’s the elite, its the very very best. Heuy Trehan, tactician on Australia II. He and I were great mates, we had a little quarter tonner ‘Waikikamukau’ which was the first Bruce Farr keel boat ever come into Australia and we won Australian JOG championships.

Huey is just an absolute delight to sail with and you learn so much when you are sailing with a guy of that talent and Grant Simmer who was navigator for that final Americas Cup race. When you talk to those guys about what they did for that final downwind leg and how they calculated where to be and what to do, it was just brilliant and no disrespect to John Bertrand but their tactical and navigation contribution to that final leg downwind was just brilliant and they did everything expected of them and well done them. So, look I could go on and on and on Blakey (Sir Peter Blake) was there and the old red socks era out of New Zealand. So, yes there is just so many.

OSP: And it’s probably fair to say almost you are equivalent but not probably quite on the writing level but certainly on the broadcasting level in New Zealand; PJ Montgomery, have you crossed paths with Peter over the years?

Rob Mundle:   Oh God yes, everywhere. The Olympics, the Americas Cups and everything, we are good mates and PJ does a fantastic job and he has been duly recognised in New Zealand. His energy and his enthusiasm and I think his contribution is one of the reasons for sailing being such a high profile sport in New Zealand. And I think New Zealand owes that man a lot when it comes to driving this whole Americas Cup, Whitbread and now the Volvo Round The World Race. He’s a good bloke.

OSP: His voice really created a legacy in terms of sailing for the layman and New Zealand has grown an industry off the back of that enthusiasm. I don’t think they would have had the same growth and demand without Peter.

Rob Mundle: Absolutely, no doubt whatsoever.

OSP: He has made sailing more exciting than it is most of the time.

Rob Mundle: Well that’s the talent of a TV commentator.

OSP: Okay, so jumping back to the Sydney to Hobart Race, this is only one of the most revered ocean races on the planet and you have competed in it 3 times.

Rob Mundle: Yes.

OSP: You have been a commentator for decades and you have been media manager for the last 8 years for the super-maxi Wild Oats. So what is it about this race that entrances a nation on Boxing Day as 100 plus boats sail out of Sydney Heads with many crew members that have completed that race many times, sometimes for decades and often well to their 80s from a competitive point of view?

The 100 foot super-maxi 'Wild Oats 11' powers to windward in the Sydney to Hobart Race

Rob Mundle: Two things; timing, it’s the perfect time of the year for the media so it gets a profile and it’s in the holiday season but it’s a big part of the history of the racing as well. There is no race in the world to compare with the Sydney to Hobart. If you are going to tick every box as far as a sailor is being concerned, you haven’t ticked every box until a Hobart race is in there. It came straight off the back of World War 2. We had a very war weary community, an Australian society who were looking for new adventure, new things going on in their life and suddenly up bobbed the Sydney to Hobart Race which was going to be a cruise and Ellingworth turned around and said hey let’s have a race, 9 yachts in that first race and the newspapers promoted it, the public went to the headland, we had drama and as much as Rani disappeared of the face of the earth and suddenly bobbed up and got line honours and handicap honours.

Everything was right about it for the Australian community, so, it went from there. Right from the very first race its future was guaranteed. Where the race is unique is that it’s got so many elements to it and so many unknown qualities. It’s the only race in the world that starts in a harbour and finishes in a river. You have got a coastal element to it going down the New South Wales coast with currents with southerly busters, you go inshore and you go offshore so its very tactical in that respect. Then you have got one of the worst stretches of water in the world, which is Bass Strait, so shallow as we saw in 1998, massive waves, current coming down the coast, being compressed by a storm coming out of the west and just heinous conditions.

And then you have got the Tasmanian Coast where you quite often you get westerlies and you get all sorts of funny breezes down there and then you got a spectacular finish across Storm Bay and up the Derwent River. So there is no race in the world to compare to it, with what it can confront you with and what it offers in terms of excitement and it’s a fabulous way to get from one party to another.

Line honours winner Comanche passing the Organ Pipes along the Tasmanian Coast in 2015 Sydney Hobart Race

OSP: It’s a special place to be.

Rob Mundle: Well, I have sailed in and I think I have covered 44 now, the first time I went down there, the plane had propellers so that tells you something.

OSP: So if someone is listening to this podcast and thinking about either competing in the Sydney to Hobart Race or Hamilton Island Race Week, how would you sum up the experience required?

Rob Mundle: Yes, I am one of the organisers of Hamilton Island Race Week and I think the only person to have been at all of them, its number 33 this year. The best way is like what we are offering here at the Southport Yacht club. Get into sailing through our twilight sailing, then into offshore opportunities and work your way up. To go and jump straight into a Hobart Race is really is dangerous more often than not and you are putting a lot of pressure on the other crew if you don’t have any real experience. So, work your way up, do twilights, do club racing, do weekend racing.

Hamilton island race week around the Whitsundays - there is no better place to sail in Australia or the world for that matter and you get all sorts of conditions, great people, great atmosphere but slowly, slowly, catchy monkey. And again as we discussed earlier when we were talking about Fatal Storm, the Hobart race can be incredibly dangerous and you have got to be really prepared for it. So, it’s not something where like people say “I am going to sail around the world”. There is a guy here on the Gold Coast who bought a yacht to sail around the world, 6 months later he sold the yacht because he suddenly realised how hard it’s going to be. So just work your way up.

OSP: And probably 90% of its in the preparation planning and training especially in the race to the south.

Rob Mundle: Yes and only go with people you know and can trust.

OSP: Yes that’s a good point because you are really going to have to count on them…

Rob Mundle: Absolutely.

OSP: … all sorts of situations.

Rob Mundle: …In any sort of sailing. I wrote Allen Bonds authorised biography and I said, “What is it about ocean racing?” and he said,” I could be sitting on the rail of the boat going windward and the guy next to me can be anything in life, a labourer, an accountant, a millionaire, he can be anything.” But when you are out there in an ocean race you are only as strong as the bloke next to you. It’s a chain of energy, a chain of people and you are only as good as the weakest link. And he said that is the beauty of this sport it’s a leveller and its just a very exciting experience.

OSP: It’s certainly a great leveller and with all the variables; every day is different, every race is different and every year is different.

Rob Mundle: Absolutely.

Bob Oatley, the inspiring leader that gave so much to yachting

OSP: Ok, so Bob Oatley passed away recently and he has is an icon here in Australia in terms of his profile and his contribution obviously on the winery side of his life, but also on the sailing side, how would you sum up his contribution to yachting in Australia?

Rob Mundle: Bob is the greatest man I think I have ever met and very close friend for 40+ years. His contribution to the sport is enormous, (forget the boats), creating opportunities for young people to go sailing. Bob was a great leader and a great believer in people and if he saw talent Bob really encouraged it and presented the opportunities. And he has launched more young people into our sport who are now in the upper echelon I think than anyone. Sure he had a big boat but he went out of his way to provide those opportunities.

He was an absolute inspiration in so many ways and he really will be missed although I think Sandy his son, who is going to run the campaign, the boat is going to keep going, is pretty much a clone and is equally enthusiastic. So hopefully we will see the Wild Oats 11 campaign or if there’s going to be a Wild Oats 12 campaign who knows, will go on for some years to come. But what Bob did with his boats and he was adventurous, he essentially introduced the canting keel to offshore racing at the world grand prix level. He has never missed a beat with keeping ahead of, or up with the latest technology. Everything about what he has done personally has been nothing short of exciting.

OSP: Wow. That’s great summary of a great individual. I think we were cheated a little bit last year with Wild Oats tearing its mainsail having to pull out of the Sydney Hobart and not getting to see the outcome of that new bow section.

Rob Mundle: That would have been and I not saying because I am involved with Wild Oats 11, but I am not going to say if we had gone on, we would have won it, we can’t say that because it’s an ocean race, but it would have been a very interesting finish, I think it’s the best way to put it. And the guys were first to admit it was ‘operator error’ on the boat. They have dealt with countless reefing situations on the boat before but they got caught by a squall, which they couldn’t see in the middle of the night and there was a bit of operator error and ‘bingo’ the race is over. And you get that the mainsail just started shredding and sail makers on board, they got to onto the deck, and the sail makers just said we are going north, we are going home, there is no way we can go on with this.

Wild Oats 11 gets its new 10m long bow section fitted for 2015 Sydney to Hobart Race

OSP: Yes unfortunately and so do you think they will be back this year in the same format with the same hull?

Rob Mundle:   Definitely. And I will give you a scoop because I am writing it next week so don’t put this in the podcast, but you probably will; Wild Oats 11 will be at Hamilton Island race week this year.

OSP: Great. Quite a spectacle.

Rob Mundle: So you better bring Ocean Gem.

OSP: I will be there.

Rob Mundle:   Fantastic.

OSP: So, Rob I haven’t known you that well. I have been racing at the club for a couple of years. You have been racing here the majority of the time, I think on other boats and more recently on your own and your are doing surprisingly well with 5 wins from…

Rob Mundle: From 7 starts, not bad for a caravan

OSP: You are pretty understated in terms of what you do and honestly if someone was walking past you at the club, they wouldn’t know its you that’s lining the book shelves in the book shop and the voice on TV when it comes to Sydney Hobart and Hamilton Island race week and it appears you have crammed a hell of a lot into your life…

Rob Mundle: Still going, no stopping

OSP: So, what’s next?

Rob Mundle: And that’s the thing ‘fate’, just go with the flow. I have always gone with the flow and I was amazed how opportunities have bobbed up. To be philosophical I think too many people get to where they should be and they don’t stop to enjoy the roses and go with the flow, they have got to fight on and on and on.

If you go with the flow you can only ever have a good life and its stress free. And it’s amazing what bobs up because your subconscious is always looking for the opportunity, you are not driving yourself toward looking for opportunity. And I think thats where I have been very lucky and I will finish this book and I will do the Hamilton race week and I will do the Hobart Race and probably other nice things between now and then who knows what next year will bring, just let it happen.

Audi Hamilton Island Race Week where 200+ yachts gather for Australia's most prestigious regatta each August

As I say, the early days in my television career here, I was the new boy on the block and then within a year because we won the Americas Cup, there I am standing on the lawn of the White House doing live cross for TV back in Australia and I have got all these TV mates saying, “How come you have only been on TV for a year and here you are standing on the lawn of the White House with the President of the United States in front of you and you are doing live crosses?” It’s just the way it’s been, I have been very lucky.

OSP: Well I think you are a great example of; if you are passionate about what you do, you do it well and you can truly only master it, if you are passionate about it and you are really have combined your passion with your career. 

Rob Mundle: It’s the old story, do what you know and do it well and don’t try to be something you are not.

OSP: Well, I think that’s a great way to wrap up this conversation and it’s been really fascinating Rob and I am sure there is number of other chapters and opportunities ahead when we could dive deeper into just some of the things you have done given the length and breadth of what you have done. Its certainly been a privilege to spend the last hour talking to you and understanding more about Rob Mundle and it’s been a real privilege to have you on the ocean sailing podcast. I am sure this will be extremely popular with our listeners as it unfolds over the next few months.

Rob Mundle: I really appreciate it and I wish you well with the podcast, I think it’s fantastic what you are doing.

OSP: That’s great, thanks Rob.

Rob Mundle:   My pleasure.

Best selling Books by Rob Mundle

Click on cover image to read more or order online today

Fatal Storm: The Inside Story of the Tragic Sydney-Hobart Race
Hell on High Seas: Amazing True Stories of Survival Against the Odds
Great South Land: How Dutch Sailors Found Australia and an English Pirate Almost Beat Captain Cook...
Flinders: The Man Who Mapped Australia
Bligh: Master Mariner

Interviewer: David Hows

The First Fleet
Cook

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