Yankees at the Gate - A pre Sydney-Hobart conversation with Ken Read

by David Schmidt on 25 Dec 2014 Few Americans have won more sailboat races than Ken Read, 53, the President of North Sails. Read is skipper of Comanche, Jim and Kristy Clark’s new 100-footer, one of five that will be lining up on the startline of the Sydney to Hobart. I caught up with Read some 48 hours before the start to get his pulse on the race, Comanche, and the adventure that lies ahead, en route to Hobart.

Read is a former two-time U.S. Rolex Yachtsman of the Year (1985 and 1995), a three-time collegiate All American during his time at Boston University (1981, 1982, and 1983), and the winner of more than 40 world and North American (and other national championship titles) championship events in classes ranging from J/24s to Etchells.

Read has been involved with three Cup campaigns as both a sailor and a coach, twice serving as a helmsman for Dennis Conner (2000 and 2003), and he provided excellent television commentary for the most recent America's Cup in San Francisco (2013).

Read became heavily involved in offshore sailing in 2007, when he signed on as skipper of Puma Ocean Racing's two Volvo Ocean Race campaigns (2008/2009 and 2011/2012), finishing second in the 2008/2009 edition and third in the
2011/2012 race after a broken mast left the team temporarily shipwrecked on the remote island of Tristan da Cunha in the South Atlantic.

Following the 2011/2012 VOR, which Read has publicly stated would be his last around-the-world contest, Read re-joined North Sails (where he had previously served as VP prior to his VOR sabbaticals) in the role of President, a position that he currently holds.

Most recently, Read signed on as skipper of 'Comanche', Jim and Kristy Clark’s brand new 100-foot super maxi that was drawn by Verdier Yacht Design and VPLP, which built this year at Hodgdon Yachts in East Boothbay, Maine, and
commissioned in Newport, Rhode Island in October. Shortly thereafter, 'Comanche' was shipped to Sydney, Australia, in time for a brief work-up period prior to the start of the Sydney to Hobart Race (S2H), which kicks off on Boxing
Day (Aussie translation: December 26) in Sydney Harbour.

You’re less than 48 hours from the start of the S2H—what kind of emotions are you feeling right now?
You have to just treat these things as another race. Yes is there hype like we haven’t seen in sailing in a long time, of course. Are we breaking some reasonable new frontiers with this boat, yes of course, but in all your preparation you know what the goals are and what the capabilities of the people are and you just manage it and you hope it is good enough. At this stage we have done everything we can do and we hope it is good enough.

Can you compare/contrast your feelings now to how you were feeling in 2008 and in 2011 in Alicante, before Leg One of the VOR? Any similarities?
It’s a completely different animal. It is a two-day race. If you break the record it’s a day and a half race where you have reasonable expectations that you know what you are in for whereas the Volvo Race you have no idea what you are in for. It is such a marathon. It is incredibly daunting especially the first time you do the Volvo. You just have no idea what you don’t know yet. Here I hope we are a lot more confident in our situation than you are when you are just about to embark on sailing around the world.

Can you tell me about your pre-race training? How much sailing have you guys been doing and what are the biggest conditions that you’ve brought the boat through so far??
We have sailed a total of 23-24 days now since the boat has been launched. Our goal was always 30. Our optimistic goal was 30. We definitely had several days knocked out in Newport that we thought we would get in. Here in Sydney we have had an amazing batch of weather and conditions to train and the first training was much more inshore. That was literally three days to get ready for that big boat challenge and we used it not only to train for that race but we really used it to get our boathandling, our sail handling sorted. The race happened to be a great excuse. Since then we have gone outside every single day. We go out in the ocean, we have had every sail up and what we think its condition is.

We haven’t gone out in 35 knots of breeze yet because quite honestly it was one of the big decision I thought that I had to make is do you take it out and thrash it around and possibly break it to the point that you can’t do the race. To me that would have been the dumbest thing to do. Do you take it out and push it hard enough so you get a good feel for the capabilities, the structural capabilities of the boat? I hope that is what we have done. We haven’t had it out in big, big breeze yet just because you come all this way. I just couldn’t imagine going to Jim and saying just broke 'blank' in your boat and we can’t do the race. It just doesn’t make sense.

Have you or Mr. Clark placed any friendly pre-race wagers with any other the other skippers or owners?
No. I think betting is legal down here but not sure competitors or the owners can bet on your own program. I haven’t even seen what the odds are but it is talked about all the time down here. I know it is the 70th anniversary and I know that 'Comanche' is certainly raised a few eyebrows but I was just at a skippers meeting and there were 12 TV cameras at a skippers meeting. It’s really special down here. It’s wonderful to see and it is wonderful to see how much interest in sailing there is and in Boxing Day and this tradition and the legacy of this race. It is just very cool to be part of.

Can you compare/contrast 'Comanche' with other super-maxis that you’ve driven? What about with a VO70? Is 'Comanche' on another level, power and speed-wise than these other boats???
There is no doubt that its comparison is clearly what was called 'Rambler 100' at the time it was 'Speedboat' before. It was 'Rambler 100' in its old configuration. Obviously the keel wasn’t strong enough but its light configuration and even in its light configuration this boat feels quite a bit more lively. It is literally tons lighter and has a little more sail area, similar stability numbers. It’s a modern version of that same concept. Its feel great but the fact is when you are sailing around by yourself it always feels great but it is living up to the VPPs that the VPLP guys put together. We are very close to target speeds in most conditions. Sailing around by yourself you can probably talk yourself into meeting expectations a little easier than when someone is right next to you. That’s why we are looking so much forward to the day after tomorrow.

I remember you telling me, ages ago, about how 'Rambler 90’s' hull would visibly move around (twist/bend) as she polished through big seas—what is 'Comanche' like in similar conditions? Any funky visuals going on from the helm?
Absolutely. Carbon fiber is an interesting animal and the way they engineer these things is to give in some areas and to stay stiff in others. If you tried to just make it one massive stiff shell something has got to give. If we sail the boat a little too upright and hit a wave wrong you can feel the reverberation throughout the whole boat. It’s just something you get used to. That’s why you leave the docks every day and you go sailing because the first time it happened we all looked at each like ‘what the hell’. Now it’s more like you look at each other and [think] ‘yeah that’s normal’. It’s just part of modern day engineering.?

Will you be driving the start, or will Mr. Spithill get this honor? Or, does that one fall to Mr. Clark?
No. Jim’s definitely not doing the race. Kristy is still undecided whether she is doing the race. Jim’s ankles are shot so he really picks and chooses his times to go out on the boat. Jim thinks about this as his professional sports franchise and Bob Craft doesn’t go out and throw touch downs for the [New England] Patriots [American football team] and Jim thinks about it in the same way. He puts the franchise together and then allows the pros to do their thing.

On the other hand Kristy just wants to be part of it. She wants to jump in. She would drive 24 hours a day if she had her way. If she didn’t have a three-month-old baby, she would be there for sure but weather and child might win out over her sheer competitiveness.

Jimmy [Spithill] has been great. He called a few weeks ago, about a month ago and said ‘hey any chance of jumping in with you guys’ and how do you not take one of the best- if not the best-drivers in the world right now? You can never have enough good drivers so we jumped at it. He said what do you want me to do on the boat and I said well do it all. Everybody does. You are going to be a grinder. We have the most over-qualified grinder in the history of the sport of sailing off the start line and he will get plenty of helm time. Jimmy has been great first of all. It is good to get to know somebody on a personal level that you have sailed against for 1,000 years but on the other had he has been a consummate team player. He just does whatever he can do to help the team and he is not doing this for the limelight. I would say it’s fair to say he is pretty much semi-mastered inshore racing and he wants to learn from people who have been doing this for a while about offshore racing and what a better way to do it. The Stan Honeys and the Tony Mutters and myself and Kelvin Halrap and guys. This is all we have been doing for the last six or seven years of our lives so its nice little tutorial for a guy like Jimmy.?

Can you tell me about the sails that you will be flying? Standard NS 3Di stuff, or is NS using 'Comanche' as a tech test platform?
?Technically it is standard 3Di from North but is definitely a new version. It’s a version we have been working on for the last year called 3Di Raw and in essence we have eliminated a couple of outer layers that were there purely to protect the carbon and use a special coating instead of these outer layers and reduce the weight of the sail to up to 15% so every sail on this boat is considerably lighter than its predecessors for similar or even better shape holding capabilities. From a North Sails stand point, whenever Jim does anything it is about pushing the limits and when I went to him from North that we wanted to go this route he didn’t even hesitate. He said of course that’s what we are going to. He has made a career in pushing limits in everything he has done and this boat is nothing shy of it and he allowed us as North’s to really utilize all of our smart people and our technology to try to make a better product.
?

Based on the weather forecasts that you’ve seen to date, what part of the course has your attention and why?
It all has our attention. What we want is a 15 to 20 knot beam reach from here all the way to Hobart and that’s not going to happen. It never happens [laughs]! If that happens, we would be there in 24 hours! It looks pretty windy, pretty breezy this first night so it will be a bumpy breezy first afternoon/night tapering off to a right hand shift. The race is made up in three stages. It’s the windy first part. It’s a transition through a trough into a medium light air, medium air reach across Bass Strait and then it looks like a pretty light air zone underneath the island that you are going to probably end up trying to play some sort of sea breeze/land breeze. Is it perfect for us? I don’t know if anything is perfect for anybody at this stage. We would prefer to not see under seven knots of breeze but hey it’s a sailboat race. We deal with what we get. There is no doubt that if 'Wild Oats' has an advantage, it is in super light [conditions]. There are some conditions that we should go knots faster than them and certainly in under six/seven knots they could potentially go knots faster than us. That’s how big a difference it is.

Can you tell me about your electronics and weather-routing software? Are you guys sailing with a Nortek Doppler Velocity Log, like then you used in the 2011/2012 VOR, or any other sci-fi black boxes or custom-written software?
We really don’t. The way this race rules read is you can only use weather data that is available to everybody. It is a little different because as long as it is available weather it is commercial or free as long as it is available to everybody so we just use standard routing software whether it Expedition or Adrena or Deckman. I think Stan [Honey] has probably gotten at least two of those running all the time and then he just picks and chooses where he sees the best weather information coming from and plugs it into pretty stock systems. The magic is creating the boats hauler speeds. It’s really for a navigator anticipating how quickly the boat is going to go compared to what the boats BPP say because that all has got to do with weather routing. That’s where Stan [Honey] is the master. He has been massaging numbers since the first day we went sailing and hopefully those types of numbers pay off when it comes to weather routing for the race.
We have nothing super fancy. It is pretty stock standard stuff that still needs a little bit of human interaction. That’s why you get a guy like Stan Honey because he is certainly one of the kings of looking at a stock standard map and interpreting what is really going to happen. That’s what makes the difference between good navigators and great navigators. Good navigators are fantastic in dealing with what they have got, great navigators stop and say yeah but this is what it really is saying and that’s where Stan is clearly one of the best.?

Any thoughts on the importance of online media plays in a race like the S2H?
Of course. Trying to help promote the sport of sailing is in all of our best interests to help push the race and push the sport. At the same time it is a fine line on overhyping and you don’t want to go over the top. You want to make sure that you keep within expectations that you are there to race. I have to admit I see way too many programs and online banter from people who are actually on the racecourse. It’s like ‘come on man’, you’re racing. You have got to race and then when asked by a reporter before or after the race what your pinion is I think it is our obligation to give our opinion. When the race starts Jim Clarke didn’t put this program together for us to be spouting our online diatribe about porpoises jumping out of the water and the beauty of the ocean. He did this to fricking get us from point A to point B as fast as possible and that’s our jobs when the race starts. We will check in. We have been asked to check in from time to time but if it lasts more than ten minutes on a phone call then I think I have done my job pretty poorly.

Anything else that you’d like to add, for the record?
We are anxious and we are curious about the capabilities, post structural capabilities. Structural integrity and physical speed capabilities of this boat as anybody. I am as curious as the rest of the world. The one thing I know for a fact is that we put a team together that can sail this boat. Safety of course is always the absolute number one goal on a project like this but with that said we have put some guys together who have a lot of experience and can push boats like this hard. Hey let’s see. This is either going to end up in a big smile or in tears. I am not sure which [laughs]. There is no in-between. I can’t imagine at the end of this race saying ah that was pretty good. It’s either going to be great or shocking and we are certainly hoping for great.