Captain's Log

February 10, 2003

Hello All,

One of the most difficult elements of this race is attempting to explain to many why it is we do this. Leaving family and friends as well as beautiful places such as Tauranga, NZ is not easy on the sailors and those left on land. I am reading a book by David Lewis, ( yes I admit to reading books while racing !! ) some will know his name but many will not. He passed away late last year and had a full life, including being one of 5 people in the first Solo Trans Atlantic race in 1960.

This is an excerpt from an Autobiography of David Lewis called ' Shapes on the wind ' as he prepared for the 1960 Solo Transatlantic.

' In the rare intervals of peace and quite amidst those feverish preparations, I could not help but ponder the rationale of it all. Why should I, a staid general practitioner, venture out, at the cost of not an inconsiderable discomfort and expense, over a predictably stormy ocean ?? It seems to me that there must be some outgoing imperative, a sense of wonder at the world around us, a curiosity manifested in research, art, philosophy, or just the simple urge to find what lies over the ranges, that is an essential part of the human spirit, without is Homo sapiens could hardly have evolved. In earlier times this urge would have found ready outlet in a generally perilous world, but in the increasing mechanized and impersonal societies of today, where perspectives tend to become limited to amassing dubiously useful possessions, the free spirit is liable to suffocate. Surely its no accident that it was only from about the mid nineteenth century that people began to climb mountains, not for the view, but simply because they were there. Men like Joshua Slocum and John Voss did not sail around the world for gold or empire, but simply to fulfill something within themselves '

Well said David.

Regards from BTC Velocity.