Bruce Schwab

Alone But Not Alone

Bruce, who the hell are you and why should we care?

BS
Well, I'm a sailor and rigger with longtime shorthanded sailing addiction. In 1996 I won the singlehanded Transpac with "Rumbleseat", a heavily modified 1930 "30 Square Meter" that a lot of folks remember. That was one hell of a fun boat. I've been a rigger in the SF Bay Area (Frisco?) for a good 20 years, and I ran the rigging shop at Svendsens Marine from 1980 till the end of 99. About that time I started my mid-life crisis and realized I'd better shit or get off the pot if I ever was going to race around the world, singlehanded. So, working with friends and supporters we started the Made in America Foundation, which is how we raised the funds to get the Open 60 Ocean Planet launched and sailing. Amazingly, that's still what keeps us afloat, contributions by sailors to the Foundation

Your specialty is shorthanded sailing and your new Open 60 "Ocean Planet" is not only your latest, but clearly your biggest project. For those who don't know, please explain the Open 60 rule and what your plans with the boat are?

Patriotic Ocean Planet

BS
As you know, most racing boats are based upon whatever rating rule they are designed to. Well, the Open 60 rules are basically just really strict safety rules. Most of the speed related parameters are, well, "open". No limits on sail area, how light the boat is, or what kind of rig you have. However, the safety rules are the most rigorous that you will find, and for good reason. Open 60's and 50's are the ONLY boats that are used for singlehanded around-the-world racing, which is what Ocean Planet is meant for. Which means they should be able to hit an iceberg and not kill you. Oddly, you would think that such a wide open rule on performance factors would make them ridiculously expensive, but they are a lot less costly than some other 60 footers, a Volvo 60, for example. Ocean Planet weighs only 18,000 lbs, almost 10,000 less than some Volvo 60's. So off the wind in a blow, Open 60's are just about the fastest things out there.

Our plan is to race in the 2002/2003 Around Alone, and then the 2004/2005 Vendee Globe Challenge. It is amazing how big these races are in Europe and especially France. They are absolutely huge, which is a good thing for sailing. We think that for a lot of sailors this side of our sport is a healthy alternative to grand prix or America's Cup racing. The long range goal of the Foundation is to start getting more young US sailors involved. The US should be represented in these events, which I believe is good for international relations as well. Especially in the Vendee Globe Challenge, where no American has officially finished. Mike Plant finished unofficially once, he was disqualified when he had to stop in Australia for repairs. But he sailed all the way back.

You chose Tom Wylie to design the boat. Do you feel that is a big risk?

BS
Heck no! Tom is a character and he can talk your ears off, but he's a real natural talent. Did you know he designed the only non-French boat to win the singlehanded "Mini-Transat" in the 20 years or so that it has been run? He's a trip to work with cause he won't use a computer, but in his way he keeps everything on the ground. A big part of his strength is the network of people that he works with that became our team: Boatbuilder Steve Rander (Schooner Creek boat works), our spar builder Ted Van Dusen (Composite Engineering), ace composite guy Erich Chase (Chase boats) etc, etc, blah, blah. Building a boat like Ocean Planet with only donated money "Takes a Village" and Tom certainly has one. He had Jim Antrim do some stuff for us too, we really like him. I did bring in hydrodynamicist Paul Bogataj, who is great, for shaping our foils,. One thing about Tom is his eerie ability to figure stuff out in his head. Jim Antrim refers to it as Tom's "powers of empirical calculation".

Perhaps the most unique feature is the unstayed mast. No other Open 60 has it. Do you feel you will be giving up too much performance versus safety and ease of handling?

Dousing with a snuffer

BS
You mention the exact three reasons we have the rig we do:

Performance. When you take the missing rigging into consideration, our rig is as light (or lighter) than any other Open 60 rig. Add to this the fact the rig's CG is only 25ft above the deck. Being a fractional rig without a long headstay is one of the factors in achieving this, by doing away with the compression that big jibs and standing rigging put on a standard rig. The rig's low CG ties directly into the boat's overall concept of getting righting moment without much beam. The overall CG of Ocean Planet is a good 3ft BELOW the waterline.
Safety. Not one of Composite Engineering's braided round tubes has ever broken that I know of. Compare that to the track record of Omohundro, Sparcraft, Hall, or anyone else. It's kinda like a giant fishing pole. Ted says you would have to bend it something like 30ft to bother it and we can bend it maybe 5ft max before we knock the boat down
Ease of handling. In shorthanded racing, ease of handling IS performance. The absolutely coolest thing about this rig is that the designed bend characteristics automatically flatten the big mainsail as puffs hit. And then of course it straightens right up and powers the sail as the pressure eases off. This effect isn't a dramatic as it is in Tom's Wyliecat cat rigs, but it is still there and really widens the range of each reef setting in sail. It works! Another huge bene is that when you jibe, you just bring the runners fwd and go for it. It won't fall down. Oh, and here's ANOTHER cool thing, downwind we can lower down our loose luffed roller furling jibs to the deck and have no headstay in the way of jibing the kite or genniker.

In the Vendee, you will be sailing against some of the best single-handed sailors in the world. What makes you think you can beat these people?

Somewhere over the Rainbow

BS
Experience-wise, sure, I have a ways to go. The Euro sailors are awesome. I've met a lot of them and they are really great people. (Of course, I have a total crush on Ellen) But I have a tendency to win shorthanded races, and I believe my strengths are applicable to these events: I'm a rigger, so I usually see stuff before it breaks (or hopefully I can fix it). I am a fanatic about preparation which is where these races are partly won. But yes, I'm intimidated by the sailors and what I need to learn. But if I wasn't scared, I probably wouldn't be driven to adequately prepare. One thing to remember is that aside from Brad Van Liew and Steve Pettengill, there aren't any Americans with the experience that the Euros have. I hope to change that.

Do you have any idea how fast the boat might be, relative to other Open 60's?

BS
It IS hard to tell, since it's not like you can ask PRB to hand you their VPPs. The bottom line is that we are very happy with Ocean Planet's design concept. We also know that she has a long way to go to realize her full speed. There are a variety of refinements that we can do when we can afford it via sponsorship and/or continued donations to the Foundation. We don't even have our whole first suit of sails yet. It takes a long time to get an ocean racing boat up to speed, especially one that is as progressive as Ocean Planet. I need to sail her as much as we can afford to and keep working on the endless list of shit to do. But I will say this: She is not a slow boat, in fact she blows my mind. We have won the last three ocean races we have entered on CORRECTED time, with a phrf of -108, against a variety of boats. We didn't even sail well for half the course each time, missing shifts upwind. But once the kite goes up, poof, she is GONE.

You have chosen Doyle as your sailmaker. Why?

BS
I have worked with Bill Colombo at the Doyle loft in Alameda for years. He used to have the UK sail franchise but switched to Doyle which has worked well for us. Their background in Megayachts, Maxis, and other Open boats is great. Also, Bill became one of our supplier sponsors early on, before anyone believed we could pull it off. That's guts

How much money is it going to take you to compete and complete the Vendee Globe?

BS
The Vendee itself, or both the Around Alone (the logical first race) and the Vendee? To be competitive, our budget is about 1 million each. Title sponsorship (to name the boat, etc) is $750k per race. We have a lot to offer, in exposure as the only American Open 60 entered. We could do it less competitively for a bit less than $750k per race, but I want to win. I'm not interested in just sailing around the world to see icebergs.

How are your funding efforts going?

BS
Kinda slow, right now. Almost everything has been donations by regular sailors to the Made in America Foundation that has got us this far. We've raised about 1.2 mill in donations and the boat has cost about 1.3. So we are in the hole a bit, but hey, we have an awesome boat, the only new American Open 60. Financially this has been really tough for me, I'm just a rigger and sailor. I couldn't afford to buy even one sail for this boat! But I've been really lucky to have the support of hundreds of sailors who want to see a US boat out there. There's no way I can say thanks enough to everyone that has pitched in, but I want to mention Kevin and Shauna Flanigan of Portland, OR, who made a huge contribution to support our environmental theme and the name "Ocean Planet". Also Philippe Kahn and Sonia Lee. And especially my friend Adrien Fournier, who was the very first guy to pitch in to this crazy dream. The only way I can completely give thanks to everyone who has contributed, is to actually pull it off.

Let's talk about the psychology of long distance shorthanded sailing. First of all, do you have to be insane? Seriously, what are the biggest mental factors to doing this well? And what is the toughest aspect of it?

BS
Well, most of the sailors who have done it that I have talked to say the hardest thing is raising the darn money! To be honest, I don't think I'd be one of the guys in 1968 or whatever that wanted to be the first to sail solo, nonstop, around the world. That WAS crazy. Nowadays you are in communication almost all of the time so you don't feel as alone. Ocean Planet is an extremely safe boat, I have no desire to become a casualty. Also, I have no intention of being tail-end Charlie. It will be hard to stay motivated if I'm getting stomped, but I'm not a quitter. There is a lot to worry about: the cold, gear failures, going crazy, bad tactical calls, etc. But I'm totally into preparing myself to be as ready as I can be. I know myself fairly well, and I know I can drive myself really hard if I'm careful, tuned up, and prepared. Once upon a time, I used to race bicycles at the national level and despite the fact that I'm not a genetic mutant, I could hang in there by tactics, motivation, and stubbornness. I'd like to apply those quirks of mine to racing around the world.

Thanks Bruce and good luck. We'll be looking for all our Ocean Planet swag to arrive in the mail any day now.

BS
Hey! We be poor! Besides, I have delegated control of clothing to my Significant Other, Jeanie, and she won't even let ME have an extra shirt! But I'll see what I can do. We do have some great swag, and remember that buying some supports the cause (and help clear out our backyard storage shed). Pics of the team gear and prices will be on our website soon, at www.oceanplanet.org. Also, anyone that wants to be on my e-mail update list can e-mail me from there. We've had some pretty good stories already, check out our "news and updates" page to get a feel for what has been happening. There are about 700 folks getting updates right now, so they either like my writing, or like to make fun of me, or both….