Sail-World Cruising's Top Ten Heroes for 2009
by Nancy Knudsen on 28 Dec 2009
One person’s hero might be another person’s lunatic SW
The ocean has long demanded heroic actions by some of those who venture to sail on her.
However, heroism is a funny thing - one person's hero is another person's lunatic.
From all the news Sail-World Cruising brought you in 2009, here are our Top Ten Heroes for 2009:
1. The circumnavigating teen who 'just went cruising':
Zac Sunderland gets onto my hero list because he is, not only a great sailor and for a couple of months was the youngest sailor to circumnavigate, but because he is a true cruising sailor.
Zac set off in a small boat that he bought with his own savings, and without the sponsorship of grander circumnavigation projects. He sailed from port to port on his journey, enjoying the land visits while he repaired his boat continually. On one leg across the Indian Ocean, both the boom and the tiller broke, and Zac jury-rigged them at sea to get him to the next port. It was only as his voyage continued that he gathered more and more of the world's attention, so that by the time he sailed into his home port of Marina del Rey in Los Angeles, he was world renowned.
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2. The dog who never gave up:
Not all the heroes in the world are humans. This is DOB story - the dog who fell overboard and, in spite of a frantic search by the rest of the crew - his family - he was given up for lost.
Sophie Tucker - that's the dog's name - then swam five nautical miles to shore. That would be amazing enough, but then Sophie found herself on a deserted island, and, being a domesticated pet, almost starved to death - but she didn't.
Showing true grit, and the stuff that heroes are made of, she started to hunt. We know this, because it wasn't such a deserted island after all - it was a nature reserve, and the reports reaching rangers were of a wild dog who was first thin and emaciated and then started to gain condition.
How Sophie Tucker regained her home, and her family is a heart-warming story, and you can read it http://www.sail-world.com/cruising/index.cfm?nid=55550&rid=11!here.
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3. The quadriplegic who circumnavigated Britain solo, one sail at a time:
Can you imagine the determination that you would have to summon to circumnavigate Britain when you have only your mouth to control the sails on your boat?
When Hilary Lister sailed single-handedly around Great Britain this summer she became the first disabled woman to achieve such an arduous record, and I give her the hero accolade not only because it is such a feat, but because, in the first summer that she tried it, technical difficulties delayed the voyage, and, in the end, prevented her from continuing before the winter. Nothing daunted, she waited a year, and completed the journey in the second season.
Before her triumph in August, Ms Lister, 37, who is quadriplegic, had smashed several other records, becoming the first quadriplegic to sail solo across the English Channel in 2005 and, two years later, she became the first female quadriplegic to circumnavigate the Isle of Wight.
'I’ve spent my whole career saying we need to take the 'dis’ out of disability,’’ she says. 'I hope my voyage will generate awareness of disabled sailing and inspire fellow sufferers to fulfil their own ambitions. It has provided me with fresh hope.'
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4. What one man can do to help the environment:
Scottish engineer Dave Reid gets a hero award for taking personal action on global warming. All over the world there are extraordinary 'ordinary' citizens trying to do their bit without waiting for the governments of the world to sign agreements, and Dave, for me, makes an excellent representative for them.
In Dave's case, he is delivering fruit and vegetables to market without using a drop of oil, by transporting them by - you guessed it - sailing boat.
It's only a tiny proportion of the world's fruit and vegetables that are being transported, but he and his team of helpers are dead serious about finding answers to the polluted world we find ourselves living in in the 21st Century.
To read Dave's story, click http://www.sail-world.com/cruising/index.cfm?nid=59755&rid=11!here
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5. A heroic private rescue:
Maurice and Sophie Conti were minding their own business cruising the world when the May Day came in. Giving up their plans, they headed straight to the site of a sinking catamaran. The crew on the catamaran had made the mistake that tempts many amateur sailors. When the sea became too rough for them they tried to take cover and ended up on a reef off the coast of Fiji.
By the time that the Contis arrived on the scene, the catamaran had broken up and sunk, and the dinghy that the four crew had resorted to had been punctured by the coral on the reef.
At enormous personal risk, Maurice Conti donned diving gear and left the safety of his yacht, which Sophie Conti kept at a safe distance. In horrendous conditions, he then single-handedly retrieved the crew safely from the coral reef.
You can read the full, gripping account by clicking http://www.sail-world.com/cruising/index.cfm?nid=63697&rid=11!here.
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6. Organisations for sustainable oceans:
Two organisations which seek to improve our ocean environment and educated the people who live by them as to how to preserve their own habitat, deserve this accolade for the efforts that they make. Again, these two are not the only organisations which are seeking to achieve this goal, so their recognition is as representatives of all those other organisations across the world.
www.sailorsforthesea.org!Sailors_for_the_Sea is a nonprofit organization that educates and empowers the boating community to protect and restore our oceans and coastal waters, and they are head-quartered in Rhode Island in the USA
Similarly, www.oceanswatch.org!OceansWatch describes itself as an international not-for-profit organisation that works with sailors, divers and scientists worldwide to help coastal communities conserve their marine environments, develop sustainable livelihoods and ensure access to primary schools. It is head quartered in New Zealand.
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7. The people of the world's rescue organisations:
Whether they are called the US Coast Guard or the Royal National Lifeboat Institution, Guadacostas del Amazonas, or Marine Rescue NSW, it is the people of the rescue services that are called on, often in horrific conditions to sometimes put their own lives at risk in order to save those in trouble on the oceans of the world.
For instance, funded by charitable donations, the lifeboat crews and lifeguards of the Royal National Lifeboat Institution have saved over 137000 lives at sea since 1824.
The US Coast Guard is somewhat different in that it is part of the military. However, for 200 years it has provided unique benefits to the nation because of its distinctive blend of military and humanitarian role. The Coast Guard's motto is Semper Paratus—(Always Ready), and the service is always ready to respond to calls for help at sea.
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8. The craziest hero?:
German sailors Juergen Kantner and his wife Sabine Merz were cruising through the Gulf of Aden in their yacht the Rockall in June 2008 when they were kidnapped and held for 52 days before the German Government paid a ransom for their release. But it's what happened AFTER that that is amazing and earns this recognition for them.
The residents of Berbera in Somaliland thought the couple were 'crazy' when they returned to Somaliland to reclaim their yacht, repair it, and sail it away to South East Asia.
It took 16 months from the time they were first kidnapped, but they finally achieved their dream. You can read their full story by clicking http://www.sail-world.com/Cruising/Kidnapped-German-sailors-reach-Malaysia-in-reclaimed-yacht/62402!here
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9. The longest Tow:
Sadly the habit of calling for a rescue and getting off a boat that is still floating seems to be more and more common in these days of ever-improving communications and every improving navigational aids. Maybe it just seems too easy to claim on insurance and buy another boat.
In November this year, Swiss/German Bernt Luchtenborg was sailing his yacht Horizons in an attempt to complete a double non-stop circumnavigation of the world, when he hit a whale in the South Tasman Sea. The boat was badly damaged, and, after talking with his wife back in Switzerland, he called a rescue.
However, he was no sooner safe on land in New Zealand when he chartered a fishing boat and went looking for his beloved yacht, found it, and towed it an amazing 500 nautical miles to Bluff on the South Island.
You can read his full story by clicking http://www.sail-world.com/cruising/index.cfm?nid=64097&rid=11!here
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10. The greatest, oldest, most determined sailor:
Japanese Minoru Saito, at age 75 and in the middle of his eighth circumnavigation, deserves this hero award, not for the completion of so many circumnavigations, for which he has been already well recognised, but for the grit and determination he has showed in his recent voyage.
When his boat was badly damaged in the Southern Ocean near Cape Horn, he was towed by a Chilean factory ship to the Chilean port of Punta Arenas, in the Magellan Strait. He then spent the winter repairing his yacht, and set off again in October, this time rounding the Horn successfully.
However, there were such serious problems with the boat that he had to return to Punta Arenas again for repairs.
He must be thinking by now that he can never leave the Southern Ocean. Saito-san is just about to depart from Punta Arenas AGAIN, this time hopefully to easily complete his circumnavigation with an 'easy' sail up the Pacific Ocean to his home country Japan. Fair sailing Saito-san.
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