The Weekend Sailor

- I was very much enthused by

Sir Francis Chichester because when he went

around the world, he aimed at trying to beat

the average time of the clipper ships

out to Australia and back again.

Therefore the idea began to have something which wasn't only

a thousand miles or six hundred miles,

but something which could really test people.

And I thought, "Let us start a new sport entirely,

"and have a 'round the world yacht race."

- As soon as this was announced,

powerful sailing nations put together teams

of their most outstanding navel officers,

the most adventurous and competitive sailors in the world

signed up for the race.

Lasting about nine months, this round the world regatta

is the most prestigious trans-ocean yacht race there is.

30 years later it would become the Volvo Ocean Race.

- Ramon searched the continent for the perfect

boat, but didn't like anything he saw.

While returning to Mexico, he read that a Swan yacht

had won a regatta from Bermuda to Newport Island.

- The Swan 65, a sturdy yacht.

Perfect in every detail.

Capable of sailing both short and long distances.

A two-masted ketch, the Swan 65 can hold up to five sails

at the same time, picking up impressive power and speed.

Now he had the perfect yacht,

but he also needed the perfect crew.

He only had three members, his son, Enrique,

his trusted employee Cantis,

and his wife, Paquita.

- He also enlisted his two nephews.

- But it was not enough,

he needed expert sailors to complete the crew.

- I saw a huge yacht in the Belgium harbor.

I asked the harbor master, "What sort of a boat is that?"

He said, "This is a Mexican Swan 65,

"and they're going to sail with it

"the Round the World Race."

I said, "It's not true, really?"

"Yes," he said.

"Crazy people of course, Mexicans."

Yachting at that time was very nationalistic.

They went for English boat or French boat.

They couldn't use any foreigners.

There was no Dutch boats in this race and I decided

I want to sail this race.

And I think it was not possible, in that time,

to get together a Mexican crew able to drive that boat

to its limits so I knocked on the boat and I said,

"Here am I, I want to join you."

- I was building the sails for the boat and so I

asked one of my friends, I said, "What are these sails for?"

Big sails, a lot of them going to Finland.

And he said, "This crazy Mexican guy's gonna do

"the Round the Rorld Race.

"You should call him up and go."

And so I thought, you know, that's not a bad idea.

So I called up and said,

"I'm building your sails, I wanna go."

He said, "You're on."

- The boat was put together, shall we say, through the mail.

Everything was done through letters.

So I found out who the organizers were

and I wrote away to them.

And that's how it started.

- I joined the yacht not knowing anyone

and just in case things didn't happen,

I had enough money in my pocket to go home

from Cape Town, South Africa,

that was going to be the first stop.

- I got a call three weeks before the race.

So I frantically took a leave of absence from my job.

I didn't know anybody on the boat.

- My name is Dalrymple-Smith but everyone calls me Butch.

When we did the race, I was 40 years younger.

We were all young kids.

- These people have no safety, no communication, nothing.

And still they jumped on this kind of adventures,

and even his wife jumped on that adventure,

not really knowing what she was jumping into.

I think it's fantastic.

I think they're more adventurous than anyone actually

because very few people are willing to live today

without communication.

If you ask people to leave their phones,

they get frustrated.

When I first got to England,

I was walking down the street,

literally from the bus station,

just a big ol' mustache, long hair, and this car comes by

with a bunch of guys hanging out of it,

screaming in Mexican, whatever they were screaming,

I don't remember.

And they go screeching to a stop, they go,

"You must be Keith."

"Yeah."

"Get in, we're goin' for dinner."

I was 22 and all I thought about were all these places.

All the cool places I got to go.

England, Cape Town, Sydney, and Rio, never been there.

Never really thought about the 45 days in between.

- The race consisted of four legs.

The first, from Portsmouth to Cape Town.

The second from Cape Town to Sydney.

The third from Sydney to Rio de Janeiro.

And the fourth from Rio de Janeiro to Portsmouth.

27,000 nautical miles, 50,000 kilometers.

- They can die, they will meet storms.

Anything can happen and they're gonna sail all the way

around the world and one of them will win but all of them

will go through the same difficulties.

There's no fate, there's no director who scripts the show.

If you start to get scared you should never do this race.

- On the morning of the 7th of September, 1973,

the Sayula II was christened and blessed

by two Irish priests that Ramon had sent for.

Holy water was sprinkled on the yacht and crew.

The launch was a spectacular event which involved

not only Ramon's family and friends,

but also the press and several race officials.

- They sort of said, "They are Mexican.

"What the hell are you doing in a race like that?

"That is nothing for you."

- The famous journalist came up to me and he said,

"What are you doing on a Mexican boat?

"Surely you can't expect to win."

And I just said to him,

"I never start a race without intending to win it."

And he sort of laughed and, yeah.

He said, "How do you feel about safety?"

And I said, "Well, I thought that, in fact,

"if all the boats were accounted for by the end,

"it would be considered a success."

I think the fact that people were likely to die on the race

was understood.

- Before departing, Ramon asked his crew

how they felt about their chances in the race.

- 17 yachts from seven nations are setting out

on the world's longest ocean race.

Seven months and 27,000 miles of hard sailing.

- Pen Duik VI, hot favorite of the experts.

Built with massive French government support,

she's pioneering a ruthless new type of aluminium

ocean racer with incredible strength

and a keel made of the precious metal uranium.

Eric Tabarly, the greatest name in French yachting,

takes the tiller himself, with so much at stake.

Great Britain II,

Chay Blyth's superb new yacht

built of fiberglass/foam sandwich, is the scratch boat,

setting an enormous genoa that needs a keen lookout

stationed in the bow.

- Perhaps the most well-known personality was

Sir Chay Blyth, skipper of Great Britain II,

with a crew of paratroopers.

In 1968, with little experience,

he took part in the controversial Sunday Times

Golden Globe Race.

In 1971, he became the first man in history

to go around the world westward, nonstop, solo.

- When he started his career with British Steel,

and then with Great Britain II, it was I who went around

to see a person called Union Jack Hayward,

who was multi-millionaire.

I tried to get him to sponsor the race, but he said,

"No Anthony, I'm not going to sponsor the race,

"but I'm going to sponsor Chay Blyth."

- My attitude toward the Whitbread Round the World

Yacht Race was very much an attitude of winning.

- The most well-organized, by far, was Adventure.

They had worked their boat up for months,

and they were head and shoulders above any competitor.

- 19 yachts competed in the race,

six from France, five from the UK, three from Italy,

two from Poland, one from West Germany,

one from South Africa, and the Sayula from Mexico.

Each yacht carried the country's most experienced yachtsmen,

as well as new young sailors who had become

the future stars of yacht racing.

- When I first got to England, I didn't know what my job

was going to be on the boat, I just figured I'd be sailing.

But then Ramon said you're gonna be watch captain,

as well as a sail maker.

And then I become the guy who, anytime anybody had

a question about what to do, what sails to have up,

anything like that, they'd call me.

- I don't like to sail on the wind, anyway.

I like reaching, but I asked Keith how fast

the boat would go on the wind,

how fast it would go reaching,

and how fast it would go running,

and going straight there would be on the wind,

and it would be the closest route.