by Jesse Martin
I needed sponsorship for my adventure. To get sponsorship I needed media attention. To get media attention I had to break a record. David had set the record. So I had to beat David.
When I read about Sir Robin Knox-Johnson and his non-stop trip, I thought that sort of thing was out of my league. But when David did it at that age, I was suddenly made to realise that it was possible. All I had, however, was a plan. I had no money, no boat, no equipment and no supplies.
But I was determined to get all of those things.
The organisation for the solo trip was done in a ridiculously short time. Nothing had been done when I returned from Tahiti, yet I departed five months later.
I started from scratch, with no boat, no equipment, little training, and even less experience. While I hadn't mastered the finer details, such as operating electrical equipment or tweaking sails to get the best out of them, I'd learnt from Dad and Dave how to use what was at my disposal, and to take things slow and easy. I'd learnt to get a feel for what I was doing and not push things unnecessarily. Then there were the nights spent at John Hill's place practising navigation and listening to him.
When I decided to do the trip, John and I spent many hours talking over issues such as slowing the boat down when sailing downwind, lying a hull, heaving to, and survival strategies such as double harnessing, avoiding hypothermia, and what to do if the boat flipped. When I sailed from Port Phillip Bay, I was chided by many commentators for my lack of experience. What people did not know was that I had a hell of a lot of knowledge in my head.
Once the decision was made to go for David Dicks’ record, I needed to get myself sorted out. The first task was to set a departure date. To become the youngest person to accomplish the record, I had to complete the trip by 6 October 1999, the day I would be the same age as David when he returned. I actually wanted to be back by my birthday, on 26 August, so I worked towards that. As David's trip took 264 days I based my planning around that, which gave me a departure of 29 November, a Sunday. Coincidentally, that was the date Kay Cottee had departed. To leave then would also reduce my chances of hitting the sort of bad weather that damaged David's equipment at Cape Horn.
I contacted the school to let them know I was not coming back. They accepted my decision, as it was obvious to them that my life was drifting in a different direction. I'd just scraped through the first semester on the work I'd sent back from overseas. Preparing for the sail was a full-time job, so I had to put school on the backburner. I thought I'd be able to complete the second half of Year 11 studies the following year, while on the trip, but that became impossible.
The real reason I enrolled and took schoolwork with me on the solo trip was in case the trip didn't come off. It placated Mum and some other members of my family.
‘There is a plan in case things don't work out,' I was able to say. When I got to the halfway mark at the Azores and it came time to hand over wads of schoolwork, Mum wasn't surprised to find there was nothing to give. My only regret was that I did want to do the right thing by the Victorian Distance Education Centre, which had helped me prepare for the trip.
My next task was to write a proposal to potential sponsors. I was getting pretty good at proposals by this stage. I made it a bit fancy, with things like boat plans, a map of the world and details of my previous adventures. That took me a few months, because it included the budget for the trip, which had to be worked out from scratch.
How much does a solo trip around the world cost? Well, how long is a piece of string? I could be out there for 200 days or 400 days. These sorts of things were not my strong point, so it took a while, which delayed getting the proposals out. I asked for $20,000 from the major sponsor. I sent the 27-page proposal to 64 companies and organisations. The response was pretty poor.
One sponsor who came on board early was Dick Smith, founder of Australian Geographic. An adventurer himself, I guess he took a bit of a shine to these sorts of things. A letter arrived with a cheque for $2000. Responses like that gave me faith there would be a company willing to be my major sponsor. I was in a bit of a bind: I needed the money to get the boat, but I figured I needed the boat to show I was serious to attract some major sponsors.
I discussed with Dad and John what I should get. With a tight budget, my focus was initially on a smaller boat, the Contessa 26, the same boat used by Tania Aebi, which is known for its toughness. But I had to live on the boat, and 26 feet was not enough to store my food and supplies. I decided on something a bit bigger, making the Sparkman & Stephens 34-foot the best option. It was a classic mid-1960s design, certainly not a luxurious craft, but considered bulletproof. They were once described as the ‘to hell and back’ boat and boasted an impressive track record. David Dicks completed his trip in an S&S 34, and Jon Sanders had done his single and double circumnavigations in the design. It was popular not only for its strength, but the way it handled heavy weather. It had a solid keel, which weighed more than a car, and had good stability.
I can explain it the same way I explained it to Mum. Imagine a Coke bottle with a lump of lead on its side. When you put it in water, no matter how many times it rolls, it will always right itself with the lead at the bottom. The S&S 34 was also built to withstand huge pressure that comes from round-the-world sailing. The one I eventually chose turned out to be an oldie but a goodie. My worries during the trip were not with the actual boat, but with the equipment, such as my power-generating facilities, communications gear and, my biggest worry, the mast and rigging—the heart of a sailing boat. To lose them would mortally wound my voyage, and possibly put my safety at risk.
With the sponsorship proposal in circulation and the search for a suitable S&S 34 under way, I approached the major Melbourne yacht clubs to ask if I could moor at their docks and use their facilities while I prepared. I would leave and arrive at the club, which would ensure they received publicity, if the media turned out to be interested in my story.
I sent a proposal to six of the major clubs. I had replies from three, and went to see two: Sandringham and another. I went to meet with the other yacht club first. It took me ages to get there—two train trips and a long walk to the yacht club. Throughout the meeting I got the feeling they didn't think I could pull it off. That was actually said to me in the meeting in a roundabout way. I felt like an idiot sitting in front of five or six much older people more or less being told I was living in fantasy land and wasting everyone's time. It was such a negative experience. What made it worse was that it was my seventeenth birthday. The club never actually said no to me, I just never heard back from them. But, give them their dues, at least that yacht club was willing to hear my case and consider the proposal. Yacht clubs are pretty much bastions of conservatism, so a radical proposal like mine may have been beyond their comfort zone. And as it turns out, Sandringham was closer to Dad's place.
There's a modern catchphrase you hear so often—thinking outside the square. I think many people are unable to do this when confronted by a young person (albeit a slightly disorganised one) who plans to do something a bit different. They cannot imagine that they could do it, so there was no way someone else could. One motto I reckon everyone should live by is not to limit other people by their own abilities.
One thing I was not prepared for when I first started planning were the doubters. It was incredible, the number of people who were keen to disparage me and my parents. I thought that was unfair because the decision to make the trip and go for the world record was mine.
The first group were those who thought I was not going to be ready in time, and if I did, I would not complete the trip. Even in the boatyard there were people who didn't think I was going to make it. I suspect some of those actually working on the boat doubted my support crew and I were going to get things organised in time. It was just so wearing on us to have that doubt and negative vibes hanging over our heads, particularly for Dad.
We were trying to be positive and get everything done and people around us would ask why we wer
e doing certain things. There were criticisms of the boat, of the equipment and some of our decisions. I didn't care what people thought, but when they refused to help simply because they disagreed with our view of things, that really annoyed me.
Still, with every goal we achieved during that preparation period came the satisfaction of knowing that we were closer to proving the doubters wrong.
Well-known solo round-the-world sailor David Adams was another who added fuel to the fire in a story in the Australian newspaper a week before I left. The story said, in part, ‘David Adams, who sailed twice around the world in 1990 and 1994, drew breath when he heard of the attempt—Martin's first solo sail. “It's a bit like running an Olympic marathon without having run a marathon before. I admire what he's doing, but it's a big challenge.”’
I didn't feel very good when I read that. As he was such a respected member of the sailing community, I was upset that it would influence many people into thinking that I couldn't achieve what I was setting out to do. But I do sometimes wonder if I was in his position whether I'd be guilty of saying the same thing.
David Adams was one of the first to congratulate me on my return. I've received many apologies since the trip. ‘Listen,’ they'd say, ‘I am very sorry. I didn't think you would make it. You've proved me wrong, which is great.’
I even received admissions of doubt from people I didn't know. This was one letter I received when I returned:
Dear Jesse,
Just a short note to say how pleased and happy I am to see you safely back in Melbourne at the conclusion of your trip. I must admit that I was initially very sceptical that you would successfully complete your trip. I considered the whole enterprise ill-advised. It wasn't until you had gone about a third of the way on your journey that I started to realise that you had every chance of success.
But the worst criticism was from those who thought I was being foolhardy. Mum and Dad never had it said to their face, but there was a lot of criticism of their role. ‘How could they let their child do this?’ was a common question. One man was heard to utter in front of a group of people, ‘How silly was his mum for letting him go.’ That was six months after I returned!
Mum had a simple view of the matter: ‘I've always maintained that most people live a pretty bloody boring life. And they are the ones who come up with the adverse comments and reactions. I've never really been bothered by things that others have said. I've just gone and done what is true to me, and what I have wanted to do.’
Dad said there were 50,000 opinions out there, and I shouldn't worry about a few ill-informed ones. John Hill even copped some criticism from people he didn't know. Someone accused him of sending a kid to his death. John said they were only jealous because they didn't have the guts to do something like this.
Those people did not know me or my family. I was certainly not foolhardy. Maybe I didn't have the experience, but I made the decision because I was confident I had the ability. For people to say it was foolhardy before knowing my capabilities was quite simply measuring my abilities by their standards. I'd proven myself on other adventures, so Mum and Dad knew I had commonsense and they had confidence in me.
They also knew the effort I'd put in to get to that point. I'd been preparing for the trip for years. I may not have done any solo sailing, but I had a lot of knowledge. I knew I'd be right. I equated it to my meeting with the yacht club that didn't want to help. Don't limit me by their expectations, I thought. Let me choose for myself!
Amidst the doubters came letters of heartening support, such as this note from David Dicks’ grandmother.
Luckily I came across Steve O'Sullivan. He might not like being described as a radical, but as the then-Commodore of Sandringham Yacht Club, he was willing to think outside the square and take a chance on me. I owe a lot to Steve, as he got the ball rolling on a lot of things.
I went to meet with Steve and the club's chief executive Scott Eccleston. I suspect they both thought I was mad at first. I told them about the trip, showed them the five-minute tape of my Papua New Guinea trip, and took them through what I required. They were very interested, and were obviously a lot more receptive to the idea than the other club. As I walked away from the meeting, I was confident they would come on board.
Steve told me he needed to take the proposal to the general committee, where he would put a strong case. And, he said with a wink, he had the final say. He told me later that the fact I'd done no solo sailing was not important to him. He could sense that I had the ‘right stuff to do it. There were others he knew who had much more experience on the water, but would never attempt this trip.
Luckily, the committee was willing to take a gamble, and a deal was struck. The club would provide me with free mooring and yard space to work on the boat, in return for the Sandringham Yacht Club name and logo on the boat. And, more importantly, I'd leave and arrive from the club. The deal was done on a handshake.
We travelled far and wide for a good quality S&S. Our search took Dad and me to Sydney and Adelaide, which took up a lot of precious time. The boat in Adelaide had a double spreader mast, which gives it more strength in the rigging. I was keen on this, because I was attempting to do the trip unassisted. The more strength in the boat and the equipment, the lower the chance of failure. As it turned out, Lionheart only had one spreader, which proved adequate. But the Adelaide boat looked a bit worse for wear and Dad wasn't too keen on it. The Sydney boat, which I'd already looked at on the way back from the Belize trip, was called Morning Swan. But we were worried its new paint could hide something that I wouldn't discover until I was out at sea.
We eventually found a boat in Geelong, but it was expensive. They wanted $80,000, whereas most of the boats we'd seen were $65,000 to $70,000. We were looking for a good boat, so we knew we'd have to pay a high price to get it. This boat also had good equipment, such as a wind vane and high-frequency radio. That doesn't sound like much to get excited about, but they were crucial, and not having to install them would save us valuable time. But the deciding factor was desperation—time was running out. So we bought it with money I borrowed from Mum. I ended up paying $79,900 for the boat.
We are not a wealthy family—far from it. Occasionally the money from our pamphlet rounds would help to pay the gas or electricity bill. All Mum really had was her house, but she didn't hesitate to offer to remortgage it to get the money for the boat. She was unable to remortgage it through the bank she had her loan with, as her income was too low, so she went to a solicitors’ fund, which lent her the money at a higher rate of interest.
Mum best explains why she lent me the money: ‘I didn't think twice about it. Some people just didn't understand that. A lot of people will have the nicest cars, but never spend money on sending their kids to a good school, because the things around them were more important. I didn't think twice about giving Jesse the money. If I was to lose the house it was not the end of the world. We could just go and rent a place.’
Lionheart was built in Perth at Swarbricks, where many of the local S&S 34s were built. It turned out to be the same age as me, although I don't think it can claim an age record for the trip. Boats built in Perth are designed to sail the Swan River, which meant the mast was built on a pivot at the deck, to enable it to lie down to get under the bridges. I believe it had done a bit of racing, but not a lot of cruising, with its longest trip up the Australian east coast.
My first impression of Lionheart wasn't that good. It was a dull day and, admittedly, all boats look a bit dirty on an overcast day. Most of the S&S decks I'd seen were cream, but this was grey, which made it look worse. I was probably being a bit picky, but I didn't like the dark polished timber in the cabin. But it was the extensive equipment that sold it for us. And the soundness of the boat. It may have been old, but it had obviously been treated well.
As for the story of its name, many people presume I chose the name Lionheart as it summed up the braveness of a boy setting out to conquer the world. It's actually less r
omantic than that.
My ideal name would have been Watermark. In fact, when Dad and I were in Sydney, the manufacturer we went to see had just started production of S&S 34s. There is a song by Enya called ‘Watermark’ that I love. There, in front of me, stood the most magnificent boat I had seen, a brand new S&S 34 with a dark blue hull by the name of Watermark. This had to be the one, I thought, until I saw the price tag—$135,000. That was that.
There had been plenty of suggestions for names. Young Gun was a favourite among family and friends, but seemed a bit racy for me, wankerish even. In the end, all our effort at coming up with a name was a waste, because the name of the boat when I bought it was none other than Lionheart. It's incredible the number of people who tell me what a fantastic name it is, and how it really captured the spirit of my adventure. But I had nothing to do with naming the boat—I actually didn't like the name to begin with. And in the rush to get ready, a bureaucratic issue pretty much forced us to keep the name. To sail out of Australian waters, a boat must be federally registered, not state registered. I was fortunate that Lionheart had Australian papers. To change the name and get it federally registered would have taken time we didn't have. It possibly could have taken a year to re-register, and cost $1000.
I didn't like the name because it was a bit too forward for me. It sounded like I was big-noting myself. Of course, the media started calling me ‘Young Lionheart’, which was just what I didn't want. But the name started to grow on me. I now think it is a fantastic name for the boat, because it wasn't just me that did the trip—the boat also completed the voyage. So it is Lionheart, not me. I wasn't the one who stood up to the gales and the knockdowns.
It was a strange experience as Dad and I sailed Lionheart for the first time from Geelong to Sandringham, because I was the boss, not Dad. I'd just spent a couple of months on a 40-foot yacht so I was barking orders at him. We embarked on that trip with a fair degree of trepidation. We had no idea how it would sail, and if it would be a tiresome monster that would be a nightmare to handle on my own.