Latitude 38 Interview - Mike Harker: Part 2

March 2008

Part 2 of 5

Courtesy Latitude 38 Magazine

38: But be honest, is an 11-month circumnavigation a realisticgoal for most sailors?

Harker: Yes, it is, and even for singlehanders. With crew, it would have been an easy jaunt. The biggest factor is how much time people want to spend in places. It might sound as though I rushed around the world, and I certainly did move much faster than most cruisers, but it’s not like I didn’t stop at places. For instance, I spent nine weeks inAustralia - even though I'd only planned on spending three. Of course, that meant Ihad to race across the Indian Ocean. It turned out there wasnothing wrong with that, as I didn't find anywhere desirable to stop in the Indian Ocean on the way to South Africa. I spenttwo days at Christmas Island, two days at Cocos Island, andthree days on Mauritius - which was about one day too long. There's nothing in the Indian Ocean on the way to South Africaexcept a few islands with water and sand, and there's much more beautiful water and sand in the Bahamas. Right: Mike in Sydney Harbor

I also spent quite a bit of time in South Africa, which I loved. Here's why: I just happened to arrive in Durban at thesame time as the Clipper Around-The-World fleet. And it just so happened there were 14 front row slips, but just 13 Clipper entries. So an ambitious Hunter dealer arranged for my boat to be put in the 14th slip at the same time as the Clipper group. This apparently confused some of the thousands of people who showed up for the celebrations, because I was treated like a superstar! People thought that I was famous. (Laughter.) They had bands, big crowds, and it was a really big deal. Right: Welcome to South Africa with the 'Clippers' in Durban

Since my boat was in the front row, I was visited by many people, among them two families, each of which had 15-year-old sons. One was named Marx, and he was the South African Laser champion. The other was Pieter, and he’s about to do the Santa Cruz to Panama leg of the Clipper race with his mother. Anyway, about an hour after leaving my boat, both youngsters returned and sheepishly asked if they might sail with me. I told them I would take them if they could get approval from each of their mothers. When the mothers assented, the boys jumped up and down like crazy. Right: Pieter and Marx in Durban South Africa

The two youngsters sailed all the way to Cape Town, a distance of about 800 miles, with me. We were together for five weeks, as we had to stop all the time to avoid the famous storms that blow along the southeast coast of Africa. Most Latitude readers are probably aware that, in that part of the Indian Ocean, you get a storm lasting three days, then two days of lull. It happens like clockwork. You have two days of calm, then three days of gale-force winds - and I mean a real 50 knots of wind, not just 30 knots. Plus, the strong current flows in the opposite direction to the wind, so the seas become big, square, and horrendous. I don’t know what it’s like to be caught in those conditions because we managed to avoid them, but it would not be fun.

But having to stop all the time meant getting to visit all these great places like Knysna, or Port Elizabeth. My favorite was False Bay, the last one before rounding the Cape of Good Hope. I did a presentation at the local yacht club, then let the two boys sail my boat around the Cape. They were great kids.

38: Did their parents pay for them to sail with you?

Harker: No. My rule with crew is that they pay the expenses necessary to get to my boat and to return home but once on the boat, I pay for all the food and other expenses. I would never pay anyone to crew for me.

"I don't think I ever sailed

upwind - except for three

days off Cape Town."

38: How much of your circumnavigation was upwind?

Harker: (Long pause.) I'm thinking about it really hard, butI don't think I ever sailed upwind - other than three days nearCape Town. It would also have been upwind from Vanuatu to

Sydney but, when I got to Brisbane, I waited three days for thewind to change direction, then continued on with a fair wind. I don't sail with the wind on the nose because I don't like it. As I think back, the wind was always on my stem quarter,except for the Windward Passage between Cuba and Hispanola,when it was on my port beam. It usually blew on my port quarter, except in the South Atlantic, when it blew on thestarboard quarter. My boat was heeling to starboard for eight months, then to port for two months. (Laughter.) Right: Leaving Sydney with the new Parasailor

38: What was your worst weather?

Harker: I never had any really bad weather. The only roughstuff that I didn't wait out was 36 to 40 knots of wind between Samoa and Vanuatu, but it was coming from my stem quarter, so it wasn’t bad. The seas were big, however, maybe 18 to 20 feet. They’d been generated by 70-knot winds in the Southern Ocean. Some boats further south got dismasted, and some mariners were drowned down there. But Wanderlust 3 handled the conditions well with three reefs in the main and a staysail. We were doing about 9 knots, and the boat was loving it. Wanderlust 3 doesn’t heel as much as my 466 did, so it was quite comfortable. She’s also a dry boat because she has a bit of a hollow or concave in the bow that causes the water to shoot out to the side instead of up and over the deck. I had some waves crash onto the dodger of my 466, but that never happened with my Hunter 49.

38: What other differences have you noticed between thetwo boats?

Harker: The H-49 tracks better downwind and doesn'tyaw as much. She behaves like she has a long keel, yet sheturns on a dime. She also feels like a much bigger boat.

38: Was her larger size a problem?

Harker: Not at all. My 466 was actually only 44’6”, while my 49 is 49’11”. Plus, the new boat has a plumb bow and carries the waterline almost all the way aft, so she’s truly a much bigger and faster boat.

38: What did you consider to be a good day's run?

Harker: Wanderlust 3 had no problem sailing at 8.5 knotsfor hours on end, so I had many 24-hour runs in excess of200 miles. My best week was from Christmas Island to Cocos Island, during which time I covered 1,396 miles in seven days, or an average of just a hair under 200 miles per day. For a luxurious and relatively heavy boat being singlehanded by a guy who wasn’t racing, I thought that was pretty good. Right: Christmas Island

38: How did you get your weather info?

Harker: I got GRIB files via SailMail when atsea and, while on land, I used the U.S. Navyforecasts from fnmoc.navy.mil and Passageweather.com. The SailMail files come in black and white and are based on the color charts from the U.S. Navy. But the Navy has the best ocean weather info around. They are really good. Plus, they can provide you with a lot more information than just the surface winds and sea conditions.

38: Did you see many other single-handers?

Harker: It seemed that no matter where I went, I was introduced to “that other singlehander.” There was never more than one, but there was always one, and they were usually French. Three of them were women. One of them,Jeanne Socrates, had done the last Singlehanded TransPac in her 37-ft Najad Nereida. She was going around the world on a ‘fast’ circumnavigation too and having a great time. Interestingly, I’ve never met another singlehander on a boat larger than 40 feet. Most of them have older style boats, with long keels and lots of overhang. I don’t know, maybe it just means they couldn’t afford newer and more expensive boats, but they were having just as much fun and adventure as I was. Right: Cocos Keeling

38: Did you have any problems with any port officials?

Harker: No. But I always make an effort to present myself well, and I’m very courteous. I smile, I’m patient, and I’m never demanding. But above all, I put myself beneath the officials, letting them know that they are in charge. They love that! (Laughter.)

WATCH FOR PART III

Relaunch of Wanderlust 3 after minor repairs at
St. Augustine Marina Center in Florida.

TheSailingChannel.TV Father's Day Special

Latitude 38 Interview: Part 1

March 2008
Part 1 of 5

Courtesy Latitude 38 Magazine

Mike Harker
As a result of a horrible hang-gliding accident off Grenada decades ago that left him under water and unconscious, Mike Harker spent six years in a bed, all but unable to move, and being assured by doctors that he’d never walk again. Although he’s paralyzed from the top of his “butt bone” down - except for the insides of his thighs - he’s managed, through relentless effort, to resume a normal life. And, to make remarkable passages with his boats.Harker started sailing at 52 by entering the ‘00 Baja Ha-Ha, learning as he went along. The following year he singlehanded across the Atlantic, then sailed back across to Panama and the South Pacific. After returning to California, he had planned a circumnavigation that was, for reasons he’ll explain, delayed for more than a year. His goal, now that he’s 60, is to complete a 26,000-mile trip around the world in 11 months, sailing half the time and enjoying stops in ports the other half.

This interview was conducted in St. Barth when he had 1,000 miles left to go. By the time it was over; and. before this was published, he’d actually covered 27,800 miles in 10 months, three weeks - the greater distance a result of doing an unplanned additional 2,000 miles on the east coast of Australia just for the fun of it.

Harker’s worst scare of the trip? When he mistook some wicked hot sauce for ketchup at Cheeseburgers in Paradise in St. Barth. He was choking so badly and. in such genuine pain that we were seconds from summoning professional medical help before he began to recover. While making his circumnavigation, Harker’s home at Lake Arrowhead burned to the ground. He’ll not rebuild. When he’s through sailing - which isn’t going to be anytime soon, as you’ll soon learn - he’ll move into one of the units in his triplex on the water in Manhattan Beach.

Harker: Let me start off by saying that you’re the first person who speaks ‘American’ that I’ve talked to in over 10 months.

38: Cool. Well, tell us, how did this very rapid and mostly singlehanded circumnavigation come about?

Harker: As some readers might remember, I started sailing by doing the '00 Ha-Ha with a used Hunter 34 WanderLust. At the time, I knew absolutely nothing about sailing. After doing a singlehanded Baja Bash back to Southern California, I bought a new Hunter 466 in Miami. Although I intended to have crew, I ended up singlehanding Wanderlust II across the Atlantic. I then cruised the Med for 8 months, and that winter came back across the Atlantic and ultimately to French Polynesia via the Galapagos. Then, while on the way to Hawaii, the rudder broke. After getting a replacement rudder from Hunter, my plan was to sail back to San Francisco, do the Ha-Ha again, do the Puddle Jump to the South Pacific, then continue on to Australia and around the world.

But the folks at Hunter liked what I was doing. They invited me to their booth at the show in Miami and suggested that I trade my 466 in for one of their new H-49s - which wasn’t even completely designed at that point - and do my circumnavigation with one of those. They made me a hard-to-refuse offer, and had me come to the factory to get my ‘non-sailor’ input on the boat. Having accepted their offer, I had to postpone my circumnavigation for a year in order to sell my 466 and for them to finish designing and building the H-49. Right: New H-49 launch and rigging in St. Augustine Feb 2007

38: We've gotten to know you over the years, so we expect that you put that year of waiting to good use.

Harker: I went to Sea School in Fort Lauderdale to get my Captain’s license, then I went to school in Pensacola to get a Masters upgrade, and finally I went to Orange Coast College’s School of Sailing and Seamanship for my offshore and sailing endorsements. I now have all the certificates. Right: Looking down on 'WanderLust 3' from the new Selden mast

38: Were the classes helpful or did they basically teach you what you already knew?

Harker: There was a lot of stuff that I didn’t know, the classes were helpful. Among the most useful stuff I learned is a lot of sailing and nautical terminology that I wasn’t familiar with. You have to remember that I learned almost all my sailing in the Ha-Ha with German friends, and we only spoke German. And since I’ve singlehanded more than 90% ever since, I haven’t learned the English terms from subsequent crew.

38: So you mostly sail alone?

Harker: The only crew I’ve had for a long distance passage was from the Canaries to the Caribbean with my 466. I don’t think anyone has sailed more than a couple of hundred miles with me on my current boat. I only need crew for coastal waters where there is a lot of local traffic because, with someone else watching, I can safely go to sleep. Right: Sea Trial from Miami to Atlantis Marina in Nassau Bahamas

"I’m a guy who likes to move around,
and I discovered it was possible to
circumnavigate in 11 months."

38: What was the concept behind such a rapid circumnavigation?

Harker: While waiting for my boat to be done, I spent a lot of time planning a circumnavigation. I studied Jimmy Cornell's ‘World Cruising Routes’ for the best times to be in the places I wanted to pass through. The primary determinants of the best times are avoiding hurricane and tropical cyclone seasons. For example, you don’t want to leave Mexico for the South Pacific in the summer or fall, nor do you want to be crossing the Indian Ocean after October of any given year. I know that most cruisers typically take three to five years, but I’m a guy who likes to move along, so I found that the hurricane seasons would also allow me to do a circumnavigation in either 18 months or two years. But after doing some more studying, I realized that I could actually do it in just 11 months. Right: Alone to Matthew Town, Inagua

Cornell’s book was my bible. Not only did I spend a year planning my route with it, but I visited with him at the Annapolis Boat Show. In fact, I had two $5O/hour consultations with him about my route. When I showed my plan to him, he said, “I’ve never seen anyone with a plan like this, but it looks perfect!” Jimmy has been around the world something like 5 times and really knows his stuff. But don’t get him started talking, because he can go on and on. (Laughter.) 38: What were you figuring for an average speed or distance covered in a week? Right: The 'Windward Passage' between Cuba and Haiti

38: What were you figuring for an average speed or distance covered in a week?

Harker: The distance of the circumnavigation was about 26,000 miles, and there are 52 weeks in a year. I wanted to average 1,000 miles a week, so if I sailed at an average of 6.5 knots, I could be sailing half the time and resting or exploring ashore the other half of the time, and still make it around in 11 months. But as it turns out, I did nearly 2,000 more miles on the east coast of Australia for the fun of it.

38: But we all know about the inevitable breakdowns, new boat teething problems, and schedules going all to hell.

Harker: I don’t know what to tell you except that, as I’m here now talking to you, I’ve completed 26,900 miles of what will actually be a 28.000-mile circumnavigation, and that I’m currently just one week behind schedule. Had I wanted to, I could easily have been right on schedule.Right: The Errol Flynn Island in Port Antonio, Jamaica

38: That's pretty remarkable.

Harker: It’s not to say that I didn’t have delays or spend more time than I planned in some places. For example, I ended up spending three weeks in the Galapagos waiting for the people at customs in Quito, Ecuador, to release an alternator that I needed. I’m normally a very patient person, especially on boats, but that was the first time I got really frustrated. As a result, I had to make up three weeks crossing the Pacific. So while I did have delays, there was enough leeway in my schedule that I could make up for it.

WATCH FOR PART II.

Wanderlust3 up on-the-hard for new bottom paint, zincs, and rigging inspection. Selden wanted to inspect the mast after 28,000 miles of sailing in 11 months. This was the first H-49 fitted with Selden's Tall Mast and they wanted
to study the whole rig.

Mike Harker and Wanderlust3