Salty Podcast #63 ⛵ Jerome Rand of @SailingIntoOblivian's 29,805-Mile Solo Sail Around the World aboard Mighty Sparrow

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Capn Tinsley (00:05):
Could you spend 271 days alone at sea on a
32-foot sailboat?
More importantly, could youbattle the Southern Ocean for
four and a half months?
Well, that's exactly whatJerome Rand did.
He's a solo circumnavigator,the author of Sailing into
Oblivion and one seriously toughsailor sailing into oblivion
and one seriously tough sailor.
He faced everything fromfrustrating but calm conditions

(00:26):
to storms, 30-foot waves andbrutal 55-knot winds, all trying
to break his boat and tear hisworld apart.
We're about to hear hisfascinating story, but first, if
no BS, sailing stories are yourthing, please like, share and
subscribe.
It seriously helps the channelgrow and pass along to that
salty sailor in your life.

(00:47):
I'm Captain Tinsley of SailingVessel Salty Abandoned and
Island Packet 320, and this isthe Salty Podcast, episode 63.
Welcome, jerome Rand of Sailinginto Oblivion and the boat that
took him around the world amighty sparrow.

Jerome Rand (01:01):
Like I said, I'm being inspired.
One of the best things aboutcollaborating with other
podcasters and tellers ofstories is that you know it
gives the the other person agood idea and like, oh, I should
try that or I should try that,so you're doing wonderfully well
thank you for having me on theshow.
I really, really appreciate it.

(01:22):
Well, and just real quick, Ididn't realize.
So it's an island packet thatyou have.
You know, whenever they compareWest Sails to modern boats,
that's the boat they always use.

I was wondering about that because it looked
like well, yeah, I know you havea full keel.

Oh yeah, it is all keel.
Actually.
They say you could drop a WestSail on its keel and not use
jack stands, and it would stillstand straight up.

Well, that leads me to my very first thing.
I want to ask you Describe theMighty Sparrow.
It's a 1971 West sail 32.

So go ahead Well it's a 1975 and it was just a
shade under 50 years old when Itook her around the world.
And you know I originally waslooking for that type of vessel,
not specifically a West sail,but I was kind of aiming in that
direction after learning thatin the perfect storm the actual

(02:20):
sailboat in real life was a Westsail 32 called Satori, and
Satori, even after the captainand crew were pulled off by the
Coast Guard, managed to make itthrough the rest of that storm
pretty much undamaged and itbeached itself somewhere, I
think, on the Jersey shore.
They hauled it off of there andtook it right back to the
Marina.
So I was like, well, this is akind of the vessel I'm looking,

(02:45):
because I wasn't looking attrying to break any records or
do anything like that.
I was looking for the experienceof doing a solo nonstop around
the world in the old fashionedtime of the 1960s and 70s, where

(03:06):
you might as well have beenshooting yourself off into space
.
And the West sail 32 kind ofgave me that old time sailing
experience.
Um, but also with that safetyfactor, because she's they were
laid up with so much fiberglassI mean it's almost amazing they
can even sail through the water.

(03:27):
Uh, but if you, if you learnthe ways of those old full keel
heavy displacement boats, youcan actually get them to sail
pretty darn well.
You can power them up, but theyreally come into their own when
you get into some pretty roughweather.
And you know, like any boat, aWest sail 32 has pros and cons

(03:49):
as far as like speed and seakindliness.
They have a tendency with thatbig rounded bow to to hobby
horse if they're trying to gointo the wind and waves.
But again, when you're surfingdown a 25 foot wave in the
Southern ocean it definitelycomes in handy.
You're not pitch pole and youknow all that sort of stuff.

(04:09):
So, um, you know she's, she'sold, but she's definitely tried
and true and she's also and Ithink very important for my trip
is that she's very comfortabledown below.
So, I felt like I had quite abit of space, um, especially for
all the food and the spareparts and everything, but also a

(04:30):
nice double berth and a nicegalley and a nav station and you
know if you're going to be outthere by yourself for that long.
You got to be at leastcomfortable at least.

Do you think it like, compares to an Island
packet Like, um, theaccommodations are really nice
on a.
I've never seen a west sail, sowould it compare to that?
Or a beneteau or as far asaccommodations go?

I think it would compare to the island packet,
probably a little more, justbecause it's really spacious.
Most people that come down onSparrow and take a tour of it,
they they're like I can'tbelieve.
This is a 32 foot boat and it'sbeamy and it's got good
headroom and you know it.
Just, it's a nice, wide, openboat down below, especially

(05:16):
Sparrow, because it doesn't havea lot of the extras you know,
the shelving units and stufflike that.
Shelving units and stuff likethat.
It's a very bare bones Westsail 32.
So you definitely have the airyfeel down there, so much so
that I actually built a giantcabinet that took up about a
third of the cabin just forstorage and then also to sort of

(05:39):
cut the idea of like, if I get,if I get knocked down, I'm not
going to get thrown 10 feet tothe other side of the boat, I'm
only going to go about five feetbefore I hit the wall here.

Yeah, and so I mentioned to you before offline
that I read.
I will actually listen to yourbook on Sunday Everybody.
By the way, I've included alink below in the description on
Facebook and YouTube.
If you'd like to buy his book,please use that link.
But it is a good read.
I listened to it one day onSunday and I got to tell you,

(06:14):
the closer you got to theSouthern Ocean, the more
stressed out I was.
I was right there with youbecause I've experienced
everything you said in shorterincrements and I can't imagine
four and a half months.
but oh my gosh I was stressedbecause it was, as I would know
there was a lot of problems thatjust the uncomfortable,

(06:35):
uncomfortable ability to help mewith that word.
You know what I'm saying.
Yeah, yeah, so the and youmentioned when you were below
the Pacific Ocean, you justwanted to kind of take a left
turn and just go up there toFiji.

Yeah, oh yeah, that that's always tempting the
whole time.

Oh man that was it's amazing the way you tell
that story.
You were so honest.

Well, and that's what I really wanted.
I was very fortunate that justafter I returned I was able to
sit down with a very good authornamed John Eubacon.
He wrote the Great HalifaxExplosion, amongst other New
York Times bestselling books,and he said one of the things

(07:24):
with these sailing books is thatthey tend to get kind of boring
and long winded and and I agreewith them I mean I'm super
passionate about these aroundthe world books, but I know
sometimes they're they're alittle hard to get through.
So he, he kind of guided me alittle bit and he was like don't
just start, you know, with thebeginning of the trip and go all

(07:44):
the way through it.

I like the way you did it, thank you.

I mean, in the early days I was like I don't
know if this is going to beconfusing or not.

I was wondering what you thought of that you
were like, are you sure?

I really, you know, it's one of those things where
I put that author's note in tosort of explain how the book
runs through, and but in to sortof explain how the book runs
through and uh, but yeah, I, Iwanted to do short chapters,
almost as if it was like day byday, so that you know the the
audience or the reader has tosort of go through the same
experience, because, yeah, Iwanted them to feel the stress

(08:17):
and the anxiety that I wasdealing with it worked.
Oh, thank you, Thank you.

I was so stressed out, but you, you know, when you
were going around cape horn, uh, cope the cape of good hope
yeah around to the scary one andthen you take us back where you
were just starting, across fromum new zealand, right past new
zealand.
I was like no, no, I want, Iwant him to go up to get again.

I was it was a real adventure for me.
I'm so glad.
I'm glad you really liked it.
I you know.
I think my claim to fame as faras from people who have read
the book is that there's quite afew lobstermen up in Maine who
said, and personally told me,that that it was the first book
they read since they were inhigh school and they were able

(09:06):
to read it within just a fewdays and that meant a lot
because, you know, I know, Ilived up in Maine for a long
time and those guys are prettyrough and tumble and they're not
big readers, but theydefinitely dove into that book.

Well, you tell them to listen to it, that's
what you tell them and theycould do it while they're
pulling out the stuff.
Yeah, I know, right, exactly.

But yeah, it was a lot of fun to write it.
It was definitely a challenge.
But, like I said, I was justtrying to do sort of a unique
telling of that story.
And you know it, those shipslogs, that are the, the actual
accounts.
You know, the cool thing is isI can remember sitting in that

(09:52):
bunk and writing under thatlittle tiny light.

And I don't know how you made yourself do that in
those conditions.

Oh I well, luckily I don't.
I don't suffer from any sort ofseasickness, so I never heard
you mention that once.

Yeah, I, I, and when I don't.
I don't suffer from any sort ofseasickness, so I never heard
you mention that once.

Yeah, I, I.
And when I was younger I gotcar sick, air sick every kind of
sick.
My, I must've been a nightmarefor my parents and, uh,
thankfully, and I guess, foranybody- out there that deals
with it.
Yeah, sometimes it just goesaway.

Well, I want to.
You mentioned, uh, the oldfashioned sailing from the
sixties and uh, and I you know,I I've read and watched almost
every video on the golden globerace of uh 1968.
Yeah, the original scandals andall that stuff and the sad
stories.
And um then I interviewedKirsten new Schaefer that oh,

(10:44):
yeah, kirsten's great, isn't she?
Kirsten Was it 2020 when shewon 22.
Yeah, it's every four yearsright, Because it was reinstated
in 2018.
It was so controversial.
Well, and when they did it in1968, like you said, I don't
know if you said it here yet,but you said it in another
podcast Nobody thought that itcould be done yeah, oh yeah they

(11:07):
.

They had questions about whether a boat could take
it, but also, and probably morerightly so, they had questions
of whether a human couldactually endure the sort of
stresses and the isolation thatit takes to be able to not only
do the southern ocean portionbut then the long stretches of
the North and South AtlanticOcean.

(11:29):
I mean, that adds so many milesonto that trip.
Because, if you recall the, theonly stipulation they had for
the Golden Globe the originalone was that you left from North
of 40 degrees North latitude.
So that made it so that notonly did you have to cross the
doldrums twice, but you had awhole like extra ocean that you

(11:50):
had to traverse to get you know,to get all the way around the
world.
And yeah, like I said, I mean Ithink mine was just a hair
under 30,000 miles and that justit's a long time to be out
there alone.
A lot can be going wrong inyour head and that's where I
think the real battle reallyoccurs.

Oh, yeah, yeah, no doubt.
Well, so they didn't haveanother one until 2018.

Yep.

And um, and because they thought, because it
was so controversial and onlyone boat finished, only one boat
caught them is like I don't, Iforget how many sunk, um, but so
you're tied in with the 2018.
I'm just now thinking of thiswell, I, I moved mine up before?
Did you decide before?

like you knew, this race was gonna happen in the
golden globe in 2018 no, notoriginally so I I had finished
the appalachian trail in 2012,and that was when I was thinking
okay, well, the next thing isis going around the world, but
it's going to take me five, sixyears to do that, no, this was

(12:59):
going to happen again.
No, no, not, not even donmcintyre more amazing.

So, but here's the thing because they basically
did away with it because it wasso controversial.
And here's you coming along.

Oh, I think I'll do this well, that's, that's the
beauty of that course is it'sout there for anybody to do.
They don't have to join a race,but I don't.
I do not recommend it becauseit's far more risky, uh not
having you know this.
I mean, don McIntyre does aphenomenal job of coordinating
and making sure that if, ifthings go wrong, he does

(13:33):
everything in his power to getget you help when you're down
there.
And you know that might notmean too much, uh, in the
Southern ocean because it issuch a ferocious place, but it
definitely means something.

So yeah, At some point you were how far?
500 miles into the SouthernOcean.

Well, I mean.

I mean at the lowest point.

Oh, at the lowest point.
Yeah, to get around cape hornyou have to drop down to just
about 57 degrees south latitude.
And in the pacific, that's kindof the neat part is when you go
right past point nemo, which isthe furthest you can get away
from land on our planet, andit's about 1600 mile radius all

(14:21):
around you of just empty ocean,and I think that equates to
about 8.8 million square milesof just you in the ocean.

What were you thinking right there?
What's going on?

I thought it was pretty cool.
I'm not gonna lie, I thought itwas, it was neat to.
I got within about 30 miles ofthat spot.
Um, by that point I was prettywell malnourished and cold and
ready to get out of the Southernocean.
But it it felt like.
It felt.
That felt more to me Like I hadreached, like, the top of Mount

(14:55):
Everest.
Um, then, going around CapeHorn, did Cape Horn felt more
like I've got back down to basecamp and I'm about to, you know,
get out of the danger zone.
But when I got to Point Nemo,that was, that was a neat
feeling.

Wow, okay.
So um, let's go back in yourtwenties.
You did yacht deliveries andthen you spent three years at
the Bitter End Yacht Club savingand just really getting lots of
experience too.

So, yeah, that well and that was, and that was the
second round at Bitter End I haddone five years before that and
then came back to actually earnthe money for this trip and
save it.

That's right, yeah , okay, and so you think that
all those experiences helped youget ready for this.

In some ways I mean , that's a whole different type
of sailing yeah 80 degrees tradewinds.
I mean the British VirginIslands, and especially the
North Sound on Virgin Gordawhere the Bitter End Yacht Club
is.
I mean you couldn't think of abetter sailing arena or venue to
just be enjoying warm water,warm weather and and constant

(16:07):
trade winds.
It's, it's beautiful.
Uh, I definitely learned, causeevery time I go sailing I
always learn something.
I've I've never been one ofthose people that thinks like
I've got it all sorted out, likeI learn every time I go out
there, and you know so.
Any time spent on the water wasalways good, but I actually
didn't.
I had never really solo sailedon the ocean until I bought

(16:30):
Mighty Sparrow.
You know nobody wants to lendyou their boat to go and see if
you can cut your teeth on a tripto Bermuda by yourself.

And even when you're moving yachts, there are
restrictions of how many peopleon board, for how long the trip
is, oh yeah.

Yeah, no, I mean for insurance purposes, and
stuff I mean.
I think, though, if you've donea solo nonstop, people are a
little more happy to hand overtheir boat to you.

Gotcha but.

I haven't run into that Now.
When I go out on boats withpeople, it's to give them the
confidence to go out there andgain.

Yeah, I was fascinated to hear that you do
that and I definitely want toask you about that.
But first, you spent a yearretrofitting Mighty Sparrow.
Uh, how was that?
What do you think?
Uh, what single upgrade wouldyou really think helped?
What was the game changer outthere once you cast off or once
you're on the southern ocean?

uh, I think honestly like so I had
originally on the boat.
I had an aries wind vane which,unlike the ma or the hydra vein
that that is very popular todaythe aries is a servo pendulum,
so it actually utilizes therudder that's on the boat and a
west sail has like a nine footrudder.
It's gigantic, and I had an oldone on there and it was pretty

(17:51):
pretty much on its last legs andso I got a new one of those and
that was probably one of thebiggest like confidence builders
.
It was definitely one of thebiggest expenses outside of the
it took a beating.
Oh, it definitely did.
But you know I still use it.
I've put another 70,000 milesor so on it and it just keeps

(18:13):
going and going and going.
And you know that.
And the new mainsail andstaysail, those were the only
two new sails that I had.
Everything else had to bebought used.
I was on a really slight budgetfor this trip and, um, I don't

(18:34):
know, I I definitely beefed up alot of the whisker stays and
the boom kin.
So on mighty Sparrow, the backstay doesn't just go to the
actual hull of the boat, itactually goes to a wooden
boomkin.
And one of the other nice partsabout a West sail as a choice
for this, this type of trip, wasthat there's a huge amount of
knowledge and so many boats had,you know, dismasted and they

(18:58):
found problems and all that wasalways logged, and so there were
like four decades of peopleupgrading and fixing and
breaking and fixing again andthat all was available to me so
I could make the improvementsthat I thought I needed.
And you know, for that trip atleast, it definitely seemed to

(19:18):
pay off.

Well, anytime you buy a used boat, once you open
up the electrical panel orsomething, like that you find
all kinds of fire hazards andeverything.
Did that happen to you?

Definitely so.
I purchased the boat in I thinkit was like December of 2016.
And then I had essentially sixmonths in the Caribbean and did
about 10,000 miles or so of solosailing and then took it to
Maine and in that time I brokejust about everything.

(19:51):
I found every leak you knowtried and I was trying to do so.
I wanted to find any weak pointsbefore I was actually on the
big trip and obviously thingsstill break all the time on a,
on a voyage of that length, youknow it's one of those where,
once you get into that rhythm oflike, okay, it broke, I'm going

(20:12):
to fix this, you become, Idon't know, pretty confident in
your abilities to do so and youknow you you do start to keep a
sharp eye for the things thatare going to cause real problems
, like, you know, pins fallingout or doing those daily checks
and all that sort of stuff.

Well, now that you mentioned that that's sailing
with Phoenix mentioned, that wasthe biggest piece of advice
that he got from you or fromanybody, and I've heard it from
other people like Kirsten.
She said every day she did herjam went up the mast.
Even I don't know how often shedid that, but how important do
you consider that?

It's absolutely essential.
You know it's one of the thingsthat I always talk to anybody
that I'm doing coaching orconsulting with.
If you're on a multi-day trip,where you're out at sea
overnight or a week or a month,whatever, every single morning
the first thing you do when youhave all the light is to go and

(21:12):
take a look around at everyscrew, every pin, every cotter
ring just to make sure nothing'sworked itself loose.
Because there's that constantmotion, the boat's always moving
and flexing, so many things canwiggle free.
And when you do that dailyroutine of that check, there
have been countless times whereI find a pin is just about to

(21:34):
slide out and actually cause aserious problem and I'm able to
just push it right back in.
Whereas you know the I alwaystell people the snowball effect
out there is very rapid, and theonly difference between that
and like an actual avalanche isthat you end up sinking and so
one little thing can lead tothis big problem, which then

(21:56):
puts you in danger and thenthings go really wrong.
But if you can mitigate thatjust by taking a lot of times,
it's only five, 10 minutes of aquick walk around the deck, just
getting your eyes on anythingthat could move and 99% of the
time you're not going to findanything.
But that's one of the troublesyou start to get complacent when

(22:17):
, day after day, it's alwayslooking the same.
But you just have to staydiligent.

Don't want to know .

Yeah, yeah, right.

Well, that's going to be a tip of the day in a
clip right there.

Do your daily checks.

That's a good clip right there.

And when, when Oliver sent me that picture he,
he sent me, he and I were weredirect messaging.
Yeah, and, and he sent a pictureof of his pin for his upper
shroud and it was missing thecotter pin.
And he sent a picture of hispin for his upper shroud and it
was missing the cotter pin andhe was like, he was like, thank
you so much, cause I, when wetalked, you know, I and I had
said this before the show Ididn't want to sit there and try

(22:55):
and tell him all the things heneeded to do, even though I kind
of wanted to.
I I was just like what'sprobably the most important
thing, and that important thingand that was the only real
advice that I want to give himand it helped.

Thank goodness it helped yeah, he did a lot of.
He mentioned you several timesabout that advice, so you'll
probably get some clients maybewho knows?

I'd love to get out on a boat with him someday
maybe our paths will cross.

Sure, why not?
All you got to do is fly toHawaii.

Yeah, I know Right.

Before sailing around the world.
You didn't try for sponsors andyou wanted to be independent,
which I totally respect.
You didn't want people tellingyou what to do.
Tell me about that uh.

So yeah, that was kind of I.
I had a kind of mixed emotionsabout that, because I did have a
few people reach out when theythey did find out about the trip
and kind of offer a few things.
But I, I just I wanted this tripto be really based on that solo
aspect and I wanted to keep itas pure as possible.
Um, I think I didn't reallyunderstand how sponsorships
worked and all I could think ofis, oh, these people are going

(24:09):
to make me do this and they'regoing to want me to do that, and
I didn't want this trip to besort of tainted by any of that.
And I kind of also had in theback of my mind I didn't know
that I would do as much speakingas I do now, but when I speak
at schools and especially toyounger kids, it's nice to be

(24:31):
able to relay just how much youcan do when you don't start with
very, when you start with verylittle.
So you can do these huge thingsand you don't need every
resource on the planet to do it.
You can start really small anddo really big stuff.

Okay, that's another tip of the day right
there.
Awesome, I love that.
So I'm glad you did it that wayand you didn't announce it to
many people.

No, I just you know , this was pre any social media
really that I had and again,because my, my resources were
limited, it was before Starlink.
The whole idea of of trying toblast out this stuff was pretty
much non-existent at that point,and I don't know.

It was because you were thinking if you decide not
to do the whole thing, wasn'tit that well, not so much that
if I decide not to, but if Ididn't make it um because I
figured my chances of successbeing just a lone sailor on
another podcast you were sayingmost people don't make it.

Well cause and and the vast majority of that's just
going to be equipment failure.
There's a million things thatcan go wrong.
I could get sick, I could hurtmyself and I just figured you
know what?
Uh, I'll, I'll tell everybodyabout it when I get back.
Um, I don't need to telleverybody about it before I go.
But it did it got out though,didn't it?

It got out while you were a little bit.

Yeah, cause I I was always making sure that, like
my family members and stuff knewwhat was going on each day and
they were posting like a littleblurb on, I think, facebook at
the time, but it was, it wassmall, I mean, when I got back,
I think there might've been 50people there or something like
that, and and that was fine,that was a was an easier

(26:25):
transition for me to make,especially after being out there
for so long.

Yeah Well, and you talked a lot about um and you
know you, I think you have to bea mental giant to to discipline
your thinking on that trip, andyou mentioned you practice,
control thinking.
It was like one ocean at a timeor one day at a time oh yeah,
talk about that, because that Imean just thinking about you

(26:51):
going and you're like oh, I got4 000 miles to go across the
pacific yeah, you can't thinklike that, yeah, and, and so I
mean it all, start it.

Really it hits you like a ton of bricks the minute
you get out there and you startlooking and considering this
voyage in its entirety.
And you know when we plan thesetrips.
Obviously you got the worldmaps out and you're looking at
everything.
You're like holy cow, but youhave to plan this whole thing
out, to plan this whole thingout.

(27:22):
But when you get out there andyou clock in for day one, I was
filled with so much anxiety andfear and I was thinking about
Cape Horn.
I was thinking about all thisstuff while I was in the
Atlantic Ocean and the weatherwas fine.
And to dampen down thoseanxieties and those fears, what
I started to do, like you said,was just shrink down my focus.

(27:46):
So instead of thinking of thewhole world that I was trying to
go around, I thought about justthe North Atlantic Ocean.
And when things were reallycrummy, I'd think about just
this day, or this little squallthat I'm going through, or this
project that I have to fix toget the boat back going and
captain's log.
Oh yeah, constantly, and ithelped to ease it.

That takes a lot of discipline right there,
especially when you're big wavesor uncomfortable.

Oh yeah, Well, I had.
I had some damage occur when Iwas trying to duck underneath
tropical cyclone Ophelia, whichended up turning into a
hurricane, and and you know, Ionly got touched by the
outskirts of it, but I had someequipment failure and and you're
just thinking what am I doingout here, and all these negative
thoughts, and it's your brain,I think, just trying to protect

(28:37):
you because it knows you'redoing something pretty dangerous
.
But that's when you kind ofhave to be a student of what's
going on up there and startplaying with different ways to
kind of convince yourself.
And because it's all abouttrying to ease those worries and
ease those, those anxieties, toget to that place where you can
sleep and you can focus on whatyou're doing and and you know,

(29:01):
to be honest, also enjoyyourself, so you're not just
sitting there riddled.

Remind yourself.
Oh, enjoy yeah.

I'm on the adventure.
I'm supposed to be doing this,but one of the aspects that I I
didn't realize until later wasthese fears of going into the
Southern ocean.
That were were really thosewere were pretty scary the whole
time I was going down theAtlantic and what I once I kind

(29:29):
of got over that and I just keptgoing.
By the time I got down there,because I had just focused on
each day, I had spent 60, 70days at sea continuously and by
the time I got to the Southernocean I was such a better sailor
and I think that that can beconverted over to any challenge

(29:50):
in any walk of life of like,okay, yeah, it's really hard in
the beginning, but as long as Idon't quit every day, I'm
getting this practice and I'mgetting this, this experience
that you know, when it comestime for the busy season or you
know the crunch time or panicsituations, well, I'm already
I'm going to be in much bettershape to deal with that, and

(30:13):
that was something I didn't knowbefore.
But I definitely took that awaywhen I, when I finished.

Oh my gosh.
Um so, uh, here's a questionWeather window chess.
How did you pick your launchday while three Atlantic storms
were swirling?
Yeah?

that, unfortunately , that was one of those things
where, when you decide to do atrip like this and leave from
the United States, the EastCoast, I mean, you're at mother
nature's whim.
And we had, we had hurricaneirma, we had maria.
I had to wait for hurricanejose to pass by and it was just
like the one window, because ifyou leave too late, you get to

(30:58):
cape horn too late.
You know, when they leave forthe golden globe, they outside
of the first one, which they,admittedly, you know they went
way too early in 2018.
But they, you know, leaving inlike August 68 in 68, you could
leave.
It was like May until, yeah, Ithink the deadline was October

(31:20):
31st or something, but they're,they're typically outside of the
hurricane path.
Yeah, definitely compared toleaving from the States.
And as soon as I had thatwindow, it was October 3rd and I
was just like, well, this is it.
And then Hurricane Ophelia cameup.
So it was definitely a bitdicey, but I think that added to

(31:42):
the challenge and as anAmerican sailor, that was
something I really wanted to do.
I wasn't going to bend on like,oh, I'm not going to leave from
the United States.
It was like, oh, I'm definitelyleaving from the US.

Got to do it.
First time you realized there'sno turning back now.
What triggered it?

I think it was probably just the first day as
soon as the horizon emptied outof all land.
It was kind of like here we are, we're in it.

You look back and you say is this a good idea?

There were times where I was questioning my life
choices.
No, I think honestly, the timeat which you really feel
committed is when you get umjust East of the Cape of good
hope and you've only got theIndian ocean in front of you.
You can't really turn aroundbecause you know you're not.

(32:38):
You're going against theWesterlies at that point.

Right.

And you just you kind of buckle in for the ride
and you know, usually it takesthe first or second big gale to
to come over the top of you andlet you know exactly where you
are in this world and how littleyou actually mean that.
Um, you're sort of like okay,well, let's do this and let's do
that Going across the Gulf ofMexico.

(33:04):
Oh, I'll bet I will.
And you know, honestly, isn'tthat one of the funnest things.
Like, you don't have to go to aplace like the Southern ocean
to find some real adventure on asailboat.
You could find it anywhere inthe world.

Yeah, there was vertical lightning involved.

Oh, when was that?

2019 or something like that also not that long ago
.
No, I I've been going um everyyear, except for last year, to
the keys from orange beach,alabama, um, and I was going
across every year.
I've been making that trip andI went across the to the bahamas
, but coming back clear water todestin, it was gonna take about
two days.
I got about 12 hours out therein the middle of the night, so
calm.
All of a sudden, somethingchanged.

Yeah, yeah.

There was no wind, but all of a sudden the Gulf
just turned into a like ablender and vertical lightning
in front of me and I thought,well, I could push forward, but
that vertical lightning looks alittle scary.
Well then I just stopped.
And then it started movingtowards me and it chased me all
the way back to the coast ofFlorida.
I was so mad.
I wasted 12 hours, plus 12 morehours.

Well, it's one of those things where Mother Nature
is going to dish out whatevershe feels like.
She's got her own plan oh, 100%, and we just have to deal with
where mother nature is going todish out whatever she feels like
.
She's got her own plan, oh 100%and we just have to deal with it
and do what we can.
And you know, I work with a lotof people that have had bad
experiences out there asbeginners and they're you know,

(34:44):
a lot of people are ready tothrow in the towel.
They're like this I don't knowwhat we were thinking and to be
able to bring people back fromthe edge there and be like, well
, let's go out there and let'swork on these basics and let's
get that confidence up, and tosee people then be like, oh man,
we're planning our next trip orthey'll send pictures from,

(35:04):
like the Bahamas, and it is themost amazing feeling that you
know you're able to help outwith that, even in just like the
smallest way, just by beingthere on the boat for a few days
.
It's so cool.

Well, you I heard you say that and maybe it was
with the Appalachian trail youlearned that being uncomfortable
.
I forget how you put it learnedthat being uncomfortable, I
forget how you put it and Ican't find my notes, but you got
to keep the end, the goal, inmind, and that's what I think
when I'm uncomfortable goingacross the Gulf.

(35:37):
I'm going to get to the Westcoast of Florida and it's
beautiful and it's.
The anchorages are great andthe weather and the beaches and
you have, and you got to want tobe there and you got to.
You've got to have some moxieand it's not for everybody,
wouldn't you say.

I would definitely agree, and it's one of those
things where I not only like tosort of project myself to the
place that I'm intending ongoing and the goal that I'm
trying to reach, but sometimes,if that's not enough, I'll
actually project myself to okay,well, let's say I bail on this
and I, you know, pull in here,or I call the coast guard, or I

(36:12):
do this or that.
What am I going to feel likethe next day?
And I had to do that a lot inthe Southern ocean, Cause that's
, you know, like I said, we thewhole time you're going across
the Pacific, there's there'sFiji and Tonga and Tahiti and
all these places, and all yougot to do is turn North and
you'll get to them.

And it gets warm immediately and it's.

You know, it's one of those where I constantly was
like, well, if I do that, yeah,it's going to be pretty nice for
a little bit, but then how am Igoing to feel afterwards?
And that that definitely helped, because sometimes you can't.
It can't just be like allimaginary, like, oh, I'm going
to make it and it's going to begreat.
Sometimes you have to challengeyourself and say, well, yeah, I

(36:57):
know you want to go through thePanama canal and not go around
Cape Horn, but what's that goingto be like?
Let's just try and break thatapart.

And then you know yeah, oh, I'm sure have you been
expensive.

Yeah, you've been through having you know, but
I've interviewed people.

It's on my list, I'm I'm going to make mine too.
But I've interviewed quite afew people that have done it,
and you've got to wait, you gotto pay.
I think the price is about tocome down, though, but, but you
know, not everybody has thatability, that mental toughness.
So I mean props to you.

You know that you have Well it wasn't anything
that I I knew beforehand.
I mean, the only thing I couldever say about myself is that,
even since I was like a teenager, I had the ability to look at a
situation where I was eithersuffering or there was a lot of

(37:52):
discomfort, and a normal personwould be pretty upset and do
whatever they could to get outof that.

That's what you said.
I think you said it in the book.

I somehow just kind of was like this is going to
make for a pretty funny story.
How much worse can this get?
And I would just start laughing.

I would think like this is going to make for a
pretty funny story.

How much worse can this get, and I would just start
laughing.
I would think like this ishilarious.

Nobody would believe this.
All these things broke.

Now I do think that this is going to make a great
video when I get back, yeahright and I think that's what it
comes down to is yourperspective, and the nice part
about perspective in anysituation is that you can change
it and you can adapt it to makeit so that you can either, you
know, feel positive about thesituation or at least shine a

(38:38):
little bit of light, becauseit's all just tricks that you're
trying to play on your ownbrain to get you through, so
that you can just hold tight forthat little bit until it
changes.
And that's I think that'ssomething you would agree on is
that the ocean, no matter what,it's always going to change.
You know, the storm is alwaysgoing to break, the calm is
always going to end.

Forecast is not going to be right.

Yeah, forecast is definitely going to be right,
but it's always going to change.
So whatever you're dealing withthat's so miserable at the
moment is not going to last.
So whatever you're dealing withthat's so miserable at the
moment is not going to last, andall you have to do is make it
to that final little point andthen it changes and then you're
going to be all good.
So you know kind of.

well, you're so right.
It's just like anything in life, it's perspective.

Yeah, yeah.

You're so right.
Uh, let's see what we got hereum when the wind hit 55 knots
yeah oh my gosh, how'd you keepyou from falling apart?

uh, you know I went on a.

I was on my last boat in hurricane sally oh,
really, I was tied up and thelines broke and it was 115, no
110.
110.
And that's a whole differentdeal.
On a boat, yeah, because I livein a hurricane zone.
If you're on land I mean that'sa lot, but on a boat it's a lot

(40:00):
.
Totally different, yeah, thesound, the sound alone, you know
.

Well, my, yeah, my senses start to get heightened
when the winds reach about 30knots and as it goes up and up
and up.
Yeah, I mean that one of thethings that always gets in my
head is the sound and I couldn'teven imagine I I've never heard
or been in wind anywhere near115 knots or anything like that.

But yeah, when it gets up, what comes with wind,
big waves big waves.

Yeah, well, on that one, I mean, geez, when it gets
that windy it's just spray.
I mean the waves are justgetting chopped in half, but um,
it was like I was in the gulf Iwas.

I could see the, the, the bridge to the Gulf, the
pass, but the waves were like Iwas in the Gulf, it was crazy.

How long did it?

last All night.

Oof.

Wow, yeah, and the lines broke all on the port
side, and so we were playingcowboy for two hours.
Oh jeez.
But, there's no pulling oranything, it's just like you can
get them on there, pull astight as you can, and that's all
you can do.

Yeah, yeah Well and sometimes that's even what you
kind of have to do out on theocean is just you go with
whatever plan you have for howit's going.
So when the winds crept up andgot into the steady 50 knot
range and it's gusting higher,but the sustained winds are in

(41:37):
that 50 knot range I couldn'teven have any mainsail.
Up and I'm going downwind.
I'd have a teeny little stormjib that was sheeted right to
midships and so it wasn't reallycatching the wind, but it was
helping to keep the bow pointeddownwind.
And you know the seas just keepbuilding up.
But you're listening to thatnoise?

And it's very stressful.

I spent most of the time down below, but there was
one night in particular that, asthe wind started to drop off,
the waves were still there andthe pressure of just pretty much
the bare poles wasn't enough tokeep us in front of the big
breakers and and let us kind ofsurf our way out of it.
And that was where you knowyou're taking notes from the

(42:25):
past.
Sailors like bernard mortissier, his epic tale of you know
you're taking notes from thepast.
Sailors like bernard morticia,his epic tale of you know,
cutting the, the drogues that hewas towing behind joshua and
and that allowed the boatfreedom and and all this sort of
stuff.
And I'm like, well, I might aswell try, and so I had to go and
put a little bit of mainsail up.
And you know, you, you do thesethings and and sometimes you

(42:47):
have to adapt and the plan youcame up with isn't working
anymore.
But that's where I always liketo have like two or three
different game plans or options,like whether it be heaving two
um or four reaching or justchanging the sale plan.
But you know, ideally whateveryou choose is going to kind of

(43:07):
work and you can spend the vastmajority of the time either down
below or right in the companionway, because if I don't have to
be up on deck when the weathergets really bad, I definitely
don't want to be.

Well, you mentioned that.
You were sitting there belowand all of a sudden it's like a
bus hit you.
It was so loud.

The knockdowns are always always pretty scary, I
mean even in a boat as asoverbuilt and heavy displacement
as a West sail, it's still.
It's fiberglass.
And when water, when a wall ofof whitewater hits it, it's so
loud.
I'll never get the sound ofthose knockdowns out of my head.
I can always just close my eyesand picture and hear it and the

(43:50):
force you know it's.
It's absolutely astounding thatsomething like water can
actually impact something thathard, but it it, it definitely
can.

And they're just thinking what just broke?

Yeah.

And then it's hard to it must've been hard to go
do a check.

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah , and then it must have been
hard to go do a check.
Well, your adrenaline's pumpingat that point, so you just rely
on that.
You get up there, you do yourchecks and, like I said, with
the Westdale being so built up,the first knockdown that I
received in the Indian Ocean, Ithink we might have popped an
agrometer or two or somethingout of a spray skirt, but that

(44:28):
was it.
The second one in the Pacific,that one definitely was a bit
more um eyeopening, if you will,and and led me to change you
know the course and and changethe sail plan, because I knew it
was just going to keephappening if I didn't change up
what was going on.

You mean the surfing like going with the
waves?
Yeah, Did you change yourtrajectory?

Essentially, the winds had started to drop off,
so I wasn't going fast enoughwhen the big breakers came up
and the wave is nice and steep.
I want Sparrow to be in therhythm with that.
So she'll surf, surf and she'llsurf really fast.
But she needs that.
She needs enough sail to beable to do that, especially in
the big breaking waves and youknow, outside of what happened

(45:21):
to me in 2022, and that wascompletely being in the Gulf
stream and all that sort ofstuff Normal ocean waves, I
think, give you the opportunityto fine-tune your speed, your
sail plan, so that you can getinto the rhythm with the wave
and stay kind of in this safezone and a lot of the racing

(45:42):
boats will tell you that speedis your friend in a lot of those
situations.

When I was first time I went across the Gulf and
it was um kind of a nightmare,but uh, we had to change our
trajectory.
Um, I usually say sell solo,but on that trip I was my first
one going across.

Yeah.

We were in the trough and we we got to change
that.
You know.
We got to not be, you know,because you could be, you could
be.
What did you call?
What's the word you used?
Pitch pole knock oh, knock down, knock down knock down yeah
when you're parallel to the wayoh yeah, absolutely yeah but
pitch pole?
Yeah, that would be scary too,pitch pole would be a scary one.

luckily mighty sparrows got a really rounded
bow and you know I've gotten Idon't want to say I've gotten
like the boat almost vertical ona wave, but there's been some
pretty incredible waves thatI've surfed down and hit high
teens, even the low 20s, withboat speed.
And I don't ever worry abouther going end over end, probably

(46:47):
because I haven't seen bigenough waves.

Now doesn't that stress out the hole when you go
over that full speed?

Oh my gosh, yeah, Did you find any cracks after
that.
No, not from that.
I found cracks in some of thebulkheads and things like that,
after some of the knockdowns,some of the impacts, after some
of the knockdowns, some of theimpacts, and that's just where
the bulkhead is fiberglassedinto the hall.
The stringers or not stringers,but the tabs, those cracked off

(47:15):
the hall.
But the hall on a West Saleagain, it's just absolutely so
overbuilt and strong.

No cracks on deck or anything in the fiberglass?

No, not really.
Or anything in the fiber?
Um, no, not really.
I you know not until when, whenI was turned upside down, there
was a lot of stuff ripped cleanoff of the deck.
But as far as the actualstructure, um, she's always been
able to stand up to whatever,whatever I get thrown into.
So kudos to the west sail thatis one tough boat yeah, oh yeah

(47:48):
um frustrating doldrums.

It's not worse.
Do you think that was worsethan being in you know?

it's difficult because you know I have a
bittersweet relationship withthe doldrums, because you know,
as a sailor and doing it, youknow, without really utilizing
my engine for propulsion yeah,the doldrums.
Sometimes you're sitting therefor two days in a row, sometimes
more.
You're not making any progressand it's it's kind of annoying.

(48:17):
It's hot, but then on the otherside you have these beautiful
cloud formations and thesesunrises and sunsets, and there
I think it was 2020 when I wasout there and there was one
night where the sea had gone soflat and the stars were so

(48:38):
bright that you could not tellthe reflection from the actual
sky and it, honest to goodness,felt like I was floating in
outer space.
And when you get to experiencelittle things like that, for me
it makes all sort of theannoyance of the stop and go,
sailing, the intense squalls,the lightning.

(48:59):
It makes it all worth itbecause you know you're you're
earning that one perfect momentor that one really nice night,
and so I, you know, I kind oflook at them again through that
sort of perspective.
But it is troubling when you'retrying to get to one place and
the world will not let you gothere and it's just not giving

(49:22):
you what you need.

Yeah, especially that first time you went into
the doldrums around the equator.
Yeah, oh yeah when you hadn'teven gotten to the Southern
Ocean.
That must have been reallyfrustrating, it's like, let me
just get down there.
Let me get started.

Yeah Well, because you know, and again, with doing
these sort of trips, that routeespecially, and doing it in an
older boat, you're not racingagainst anybody, but you're
racing against the seasonsbecause you are trying to get to
.
Cape Horn and out of theSouthern ocean before the winter
time and you know, ideallyyou're going to be a Cape Horn

(49:58):
between, like, december andFebruary.
That's the peak of the summerdown there.
It's going to be your bestwindow and I I don't.
I think.

I got there.

Oh, it's still cold , for sure, and some of the old
down there it's going to be yourbest window, and I I don't.
I think I got there right.
Oh, it's still cold for sure,and some of the old old uh cape
horners talked about, eventhough in the summertime the the
overall intensity of thesouthern ocean isn't quite as
bad as the winter, you can stillhave some of the most violent,
intense storms that they'd everseen.

(50:29):
I think that was the advicethey gave to Bernard Moticier
when he was going down there,and so you just try and get
around in the best window.
I didn't get there until April7th, I think is when I rounded
Cape Horn, and I didn't get outof the Southern ocean until
another week or 10 days afterthat.

Well, I interviewed do you know Abby um
uh, tanya Abby.

Uh, I don't know her, but I know of her yeah.

Okay, well, I got to interview her.

Oh, wow.

I know I was like.
So I read her book in 2014 andI got my first boat in 2015.
And there were, there was one,there was, there was several
things that I, you know she hasno gps for anybody that doesn't
know.
She was in the 80s, 1980s.
She went around the world, yeah, she stopped, you know, and it
took her three years, but that'syou know.
That was fine, um, but shedidn't have a motor going up

(51:19):
across the pacific.
Um, no gps, you know.
But, um, she talked about, youknow, and of course she didn't
have starlink or anything therewas, and of course she didn't
have Starlink or anything.
There was no communication.
Absolutely, she didn't have any.

Yeah.

One thing she talked about was how she was.
Whatever you were doing, youwere so in the moment.
You know it's 30 days acrossthe Pacific Like she was
brushing her hair.
This was the exact sample.
That's all you're doing.
You're so in the present.
She was making soup.
That's it.
Did you experience that?

at all.
Oh, absolutely, I mean you know, outside of in the morning, at
8 am Michigan time, I had tosend a quick little text.

To your brother right.

Well, to my parents , to make sure that they knew,
because they, you know, andstill, still, to this day.
Just the other day, my mom wasuh talking to me and she was
like you remember how littlesleep I got the whole time.
You're out there and you knowthat vacation to sleep.

Oh, it was it was bad.

You know and that is a warning to any any young
people out there that want to goon adventure just remember you
might have a family member thatis going to be riddled with
worry, but she understood thiswas something I needed to go do,
so she wasn't going to impedeme on that, but she definitely

(52:40):
had those rules Like every day 8am Michigan time.
I get a text position report,all that sort of stuff and but
outside of that I was just in itand I am the moment.
Yeah, I haven't changed thatsince and I've.
You know I I sail quite a bitstill a lot of long passages,

(53:02):
sometimes up to like 88 days orso, and I still uh part of me,
especially after seeing likeOliver's trip kind of like man,
maybe I should be posting someof this stuff while I'm out
there, but I've never made theleap.
I've never gone to try and beable to upload things while I'm
out at sea, cause there issomething to be said about that,

(53:24):
I think.
When you go out there at leastfor my own experience I'm
looking for the disconnect,because I know how my brain
changes and how things slow downand, even though you're on a
boat, I get on more of an evenkeel when I'm out there Because,
like you said, I'm in themoment I am noticing the clouds.

(53:48):
There's none of the fast pacedclutter of normal modern society
and technology just constantlyhitting me, and it's something
that I crave.
And usually when I get outthere, I'm kind of like, oh, I
can't wait to get back and watchsome YouTube or something like
that, but the times that I'm outthere, I cherish those.
I really do.

Well, I'm jealous.
I'm jealous that you're ablejust to disconnect for that long
.
I'm a real estate agent, sothere has to be some
connectivity.

Yeah, oh, yeah, well, and as a podcaster, yeah.

It pays for the sailing.
You know what I'm saying, right?

Right, well, and that's yeah.
That's one of the things Ithink.
If, if I get to go out for alonger trip this winter, um, you
know, the one thing I wasthinking is, boy, if I had
starlink, I could do the podcastand keep uploading it while I
was out there.
But you know, then then it'slike, well, if I'm going to do
that, why don't I upload forinstagram or youtube, and I

(54:46):
don't know.
Then then all of a sudden, I'min that, that thinking of, like
well, shoot, I'm going to missout on all that, that being in
the moment sort of thing, andbecause you have to be, you have
to be bored, you have to be notable to look at the screen.
Yeah, Because you.
It takes my brain about fivedays before I get into that

(55:09):
normal childlike sort of mentalI.
What do I call it?
It's like it's not exactlymeditation, but it's oh low
level input brain mode where I'mlooking at a cloud and it is
the greatest thing I've seen inthe longest time and I can just
watch it for hours withoutwithout feeling bored moments of

(55:31):
it, you know.
Yeah, well, I think I think allof us had it when we were kids
and then you know when, when theafternoon would seemingly last
forever, where it was like, oh,we got all afternoon and riding
your bikes or doing this or thatand it seemed like time was
super slow.
Well, that's kind of how I feelwhen I go out there after a
week or so alone at sea.

(55:52):
Yeah, those sunrises andsunsets at sea and I saw that
video that you put up.

I used it on the thumbnail.

Oh, that big orange sky.

And you were like this is why I come, come out
here that was a rough couple ofdays.

Uh, I'm trying.
I can't even remember whichtrip that was, but that was.
That was squalls and justshifting winds and then calms,
but it blessed me with thatbeautiful sunset that night.

And it was.

It was so orange and so overwhelming.

Like it was orange .
It's just amazing.

So orange.

Well, I've got some rapid fire questions here.

Sure Sure.

All right, so short answers are fine.

Got it.

What's the first thing you miss after a week
alone at, say, at sea?

Ooh, first thing I miss probably pizza.
I think pizza is always goingto be number one there.

Okay, worst kind of breakdown to face completely
solo.

Probably the scariest one was just past New
Zealand, my computer that I wasgetting weather files and
forecasting on basically stoppedworking blue screen and the
backup computer, from what I wastold, would not do it and I
thought, oh man, I'm not goingto have any weather reporting

(57:17):
for the rest of the world andthat was terrifying you figured
it out, you yeah, after justtrial and error your satellite
phone.

You made it like everybody said it wouldn't work
and you're like what else am Igonna do?

even the company said it wouldn't work with that
computer.
So who knows?

awesome.
You have to read the book toknow what we're talking about.
Um piece of gear that gives youthe biggest peace of mind
offshore.

I think you already answered that uh well, I the
aries is is great because itsteers the boat, but the AIS is
probably the best for peace ofmind.

Sure, More mentally draining, frustrating
but calm conditions or 30 footstorm seas.
I did already ask you that.

Oh, the becalmed for sure.
If you're trying to getanywhere.
If you got time on your handsand it doesn't matter, I'll be
becalmed all day long.
But if you're trying to getfrom point A to point B, that
becalmed is so tough to dealwith.

Daily tasks that become shockingly hard when
you're alone Brushing your teeth.
No, I've never had trouble withthe routine.

You didn't bathe, but I probably the most time
consuming, honestly, is tryingto do a quality load of laundry
out there on the boat.
It's like an all day affair totry and get it dry and salt free
and all that stuff.

That was quite a process.

That made me never take for granted a washer and
dryer.
Never take for granted a washerand dryer.

So tip of the day, you mentioned that if you hang
them up in the sails, all thecrystals of the salt comes off,
or something like that Well,yeah, they'll start.

As long as they're shaking, they have to stay up
there for hours.
But I would do my laundry insalt water and as long as it's
up there for long enough and itshakes all the salt crystals
free, then it won't retain thedampness and all that.

Well, I heard it, I read somewhere they would put
it in a bucket and close it upand then throw it over with a
line and it would just be like awashing machine out there.

Oh, that's a good idea.
I never thought about that.

Make sure the lid closes, you know excuse me.
Yeah, you don't want to losethem all yeah okay, how do you
stay sharp without burning outon solo night watches?

uh, I sleep most nights while I'm out there and
and if I'm alone, my normalsleep schedule is 11 midnight.
That's when I'm going to tryand bunk down, if mother nature
will let me, and then I'musually asleep for an hour or
two at a time and I just come up, take a look around.
If nothing's changed the skylooks clear, I'll go right back

(01:00:05):
down and I'll do that all nightuntil sunrise.
The sky looks clear, I'll goright back down and I'll do that
all night until sunrise.
But if I'm on a delivery orsomething like that and I'm out
there and I'm actually doing anight watch where I have to sit
in the cockpit for three hours,it's all about music podcasts,

(01:00:25):
audio books, and that usuallymakes the time go by.

Capn Tinsley (01:00:26):
Okay, that makes sense.
Scary.
It's noise you've heard on theboat in the dark.

Jerome Rand (01:00:32):
Oh for sure, it's the whales.
There was a time, though, atthe in the doldrums where I'm
just sitting there floating no,no sails up or anything.
And then I start here like, andit just kept getting bigger and
louder and closer, and it waslike a whole pod of dolphins
that we kind of just slowlydrifted into.

(01:00:53):
They were all asleep, butthey're at the surface and
they're just popping theirlittle spouts and I did not know
what that was for quite sometime and it was definitely
freaking me out.

You were afraid it was whales.

I didn't know what it was.
I was just like what is thatnoise?

it's a monster.
Hello from san diego.
We'll catch up after you finish.
Do you know this, barbarabenedict?

uh, hello from san diego barbara.
Uh, I don't know, caught me onthe spot.

Oh man, I didn't mean to put you on the spot like
that.

Oh, no Sorry.

Barbara, but oh nope, I'm sorry, I got a little
cough and I'm trying to you guysif you would ask questions.
We definitely want.
This is an interactive podcast.
We got several, you know lotsof people watching and if you
want to ask him a question,please, oh, found you through

(01:01:57):
SWP Salem with Phoenix.

Oh yeah, there you go, yeah pretty amazing how many
eyes he had on him for sure, ohmy gosh.
We talked afterwards.
That was definitely prettyincredible For him to leave,
basically just a sailor, andthen arrive a month later,
famous like that.

Well, you and I both interviewed him three times
.
What intrigued you?
I know why you intrigued me,but, like with all your
experience, what intrigued you?
Uh, in the beginning.

I think it was just the, the fact that he was going
for it, that he he hadmentioned on one of his videos
that he had very littleexperience.
But you know, life was was tooprecious, and he was like I'm,
I'm going for it, and anybodythat's going to go for it like
that and say they're going to doit, I, I want to find out why

(01:02:54):
and what motivates them andcause so many of us, don't we?
We, we think of all the reasonswhy we shouldn't.
There's a lot of talkers we, we,we think of all the reasons why
we shouldn't.
There's a lot of talkers, ohfor sure, and and and that is
okay, because I know a lot ofpeople that want to be on the
dock working on their boat,talking about the adventure that
they know they're never goingto go on, but that's where they

(01:03:16):
want to be.
Right, phoenix or not?
Phoenix?
Sorry, oliver is definitely inthe other boat where he's like I
got to go do this, I got tochange my life, and so I just
reached out and thankfully, hehit me up and then, yeah, it was
cool because we do the podcast,but then we talk for a while
afterwards and it was great tokind of just be there with him

(01:03:40):
and messaging back and forth andI can't wait to see where else
he goes.

Yeah, I think the first time I saw him was maybe
October or September and I sawthat post where he had like gave
up my job emptied out the 401k,which he was, you know.
Let's just let's face it.
I mean, let's be honest, he wasa genius at that whole social
media thing oh he, he definitelydid a great well and he was

(01:04:07):
really diligent.

You know, it's very easy to get kind of bored and
think like, oh man, you know, Idon't know if any of this is
working who's listening?
yeah, and you don't want to besitting there repeating it and
stuff.
But I think he, I think he kindof had it in the game plan and
he was like you know what, thisis what I'm gonna try and do,
let's just keep doing it.
And he was diligent and uh, andhe was very authentic.

(01:04:30):
He wasn't.
He wasn't like dude, I'm, youknow, living my best life in the
, in the columbia river gorge,and it's you know this that he
was just like oh well, this isdoing today.

Yeah, I've never sailed out of the Columbia River
.

Yeah, I know it's so crazy the first time he goes
out of that pass he's goingacross, so okay.

So, victoria.
Hey, jerome, so glad Ken and Icaught the broadcast.
Hope you're doing well.

Oh.

Victoria, hey how we doing I do know her.

Where do you go?

next Any upcoming we are going to ask that
question.
Probably saved his life.
That's probably true.
You saved his life, okay.
So which onboard system seemsto fail most often under real
ocean miles or stress?

to fail most often under real ocean miles, or or
stress.
Oh, good question.
Um, hmm well, I wasn't usingany sort of chart plotter so I
couldn't really test that.
The the garmin inreach that Iwas using started to malfunction
quite really yeah, I think itwas just because the salt water.
I I would say honestly, any sortof electronics, anything that's
got to use electricity runningthrough a bunch of wires, is

(01:05:49):
going to fail on you at somepoint on a trip of that that
magnitude, which is why, know,shoot by the.
By the time I got out of theSouthern Ocean, my batteries
were completely toast fromundercharging for all that time.

Yeah, lack of sun, yeah.

I could barely keep .
The only thing I really kept onall the time was the AIS.
You know, you don't even usenavigation lights when you're
down in the Southern Ocean,because I only saw four boats in
four and a half months.

Did you have a um a wind generator?

Nope, no wind generator.
I really wanted to keep thedeck and everything as sparse as
possible.
Um, just cause I figured, youknow, there's going to be
situations where big breakerswere coming and just slamming
into the boat over and overagain and anything.
You know, you see a lot ofthese, these boats that have
solar panels, that are on somepretty fragile mounts and things

(01:06:52):
like that, and even mine, whichwas on these heavy duty gallows
, eventually, years later, gotripped right off the boat.
And you know, again, trying tokeep the boat as as clean and
clear on deck as possible isreally, really important for
that type of sailing.

Look at this um, both you as you, Salty and
Jerome gave critical advice.
Remember I was talking aboutthis.
Salty said $500 rig check wouldbe a very well spent.

Well, cause you don't get to inspect.
You know half of it, you onlysee the bottom.
And you know I, every once in awhile you might climb top of
the mass.
But in a trade winds route, Imean, you're not, you're, it's
always going to be windy outthere.
You're always going to havethose waves, and that's one of
the things you know.
You can't just climb the mastwhenever you want to.
Sometimes that thing isswinging around so hard that you

(01:07:44):
it'd be very dangerous to go up.
So that was.
That was really really goodadvice on your part.

And Barbara says drum said check every day.
Yep, we were talking about thattoo.
Yeah, so I don't remember youmentioning that you were clipped
in.

Oh, I thought we were going to get through this,
that you were clipped in.
Oh, I thought we were going toget through this.

You know, it's one of those things where I would
do that too, and I would take apicture of myself on the bow
with no, and then people go whatare you doing?
And it's like oh, I guessthey're right.
You know cause you?

fall off.

That's it, that's it.

Yeah, and it's one of those where I always
recommend people do what they'remost comfortable with, and if
you're with other people on avessel, for sure safety
equipment harnesses, lifejackets those are going to help
to save your life if you end upfalling overboard.
For me, I like to move aroundthe deck as freely as quickly as

(01:08:44):
possible I hate it, but in 55not winds or yeah no, I I've got
some clips of me, uh, actually,in the earlier stages of the
southern ocean, where I wastrying to film some of the swell
and the waves from the mast andI almost, almost jibe
uncontrollably at one point andthat was when I stopped, you

(01:09:07):
know, filming or trying tocapture a lot of this sort of
stuff, because, yeah, I wasn'tclipped in.
Um, I clip in a little bit morethese days depending on the
weather situation, um, and Ithink you know there's a little
bit of youthful arrogance andignorance on my part, but I do
think that, um, the one thing Ialways worry about about tethers

(01:09:29):
and things like that, is thatthat tether is is good but it's
not foolproof.
And when you have the fear thatif you fall overboard you're
going to die, um, I think thatfear is is probably one of the
biggest lifesavers, because itmakes you not only hold on
tighter, be really aware ofwhat's going on around you, but

(01:09:52):
it also makes you think long andhard before you do anything on
the boat and you come up withyour plan and you take things
slower and more methodicallybecause you know you're going to
pay the ultimate consequence.

and okay, so your daughter is going around the
world on a boat.
What do you tell her?

well, I don't have a daughter, so I know, okay,
your mother, your sister, yourgrandmother I would, I'd tell
them do do exactly what, whatyou feel most confident and
comfortable doing for sure, okay, all right.

If it was your daughter, you'd probably feel
differently.

Probably probably Okay.

Repair that made you feel an absolute legend
afterward.
Oh, geez.

Well, there were a lot of those, but I think one of
the coolest ones was when mymain sheet, where it's on a
traveler which has got this bigcar that moves across this
traveler and it's all connectedthere in the middle of the night

(01:10:59):
and all of a sudden sales goingcrazy and I'm up there in my
pajamas fixing this, justgetting totally splashed and
took about an hour to geteverything sorted out and
replaced Cause I had to lash abunch of stuff.

But when that was over I was like I think I think
I do belong out here and you usesome sort of steel wrapping or
something and you use some sortof steel wrapping or something.

What did you use on that uh, that one?
I just used some uh spectra toto basically winch it back in,
and then I had a spare car, butI I knew that I couldn't just
let that one go.
So after I put the new car onand connected everything back up
, I then rebuilt the old, sothat became the new spare,
because I only had one extra.

Okay, I feel like I just heard that story.
It was on Sunday when.
I was listening to your book.
Okay, so let's talk about thebook.
What's the one takeaway fromSailing into Oblivion?
From sailing into oblivion, youhope every land lover gets.

I would say, if anything it, I would just hope
that it might make you thinklike, hey, if this guy can do
that and he's just a regular guyhe didn't have much money and
he was able to take this oldslow boat all the way around the
entire planet Yep.

(01:12:24):
Then you know that one thingthat I want to do, or that I've
been dreaming about doing sinceI was little, or anything like
that.
I think maybe this is the yearto go for it.
Not only go after it, but makethis the year to go after it.

And that is sailing with Phoenix's story,
right.

Yeah, yeah, exactly .
And that's probably why itcaptivated me so much was that
he's going for it.
He's not waiting until nextyear, not waiting until it's a
perfect time, because it's nevergoing to be perfect.

Well, there was a couple of trolls that were
trolling my videos.
When I interviewed him, sayingthat you know so what A lot of
people have done that, and thenall his followers would, I
wouldn't have to say anything,his followers would jump on him.
It's not the point, it's him,it's.

(01:13:13):
You know it's his whole story.
You know that wasn't the point.
The troll was missing the point.
The troll is just being a troll.

They're always going to be that, and it's just.
You know.

Yeah, it's just yeah, I.

I I that the unfortunate part is that there's
those comments and those typeof people.
Um prevent me from even divinginto the comment sections on 99%
of any content I put out, causeI'm just like nah, it's just
going to leave all that forsomebody else to deal with and

(01:13:50):
it's very rare for me with.

He's got 2 million followers now.
So, yeah, it's going to it'sgoing to happen for sure.
But he, he seems that he's gota great attitude, cause I
haven't even seen that.
Everything I've seen has beenpositive, so he's got the right
attitude for it, okay.
So, Victoria, here's thequestion have you already set
the next impossible horizon?

I have not.
It's always going to be a bitfluid.
I do have a new mainsail and anew staysail on Mighty Sparrow,
which is really one of the keys.

I love that name, by the way.

Oh, thank you yeah.
I always liked it a lot.
It's actually kind of halfnamed after the Calypso singer,
mighty Sparrow, and then alsothe fact that those sparrows
they're such small birds butthey have that huge migration
pattern and you find them all inthe edges of the earth.

Isn't that the bird that people get the tattoo?

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, definitely.
I learned about that on thepodcast.

No no, it's a.
It's a number of miles or so.
I learned about that in my onmy podcast interviewing people.

It's amazing Nice.
Um, so um time will tell,though I definitely want to do
at minimum one more.

Well, you're going to get the tattoos.

What I want to know .
Oh, I am tattoo free still, butI, I, I promised myself I was
going to do something after theAppalachian trail, but then I
never did and I don't know.

I'll get something .
There's something to be saidfor being tattoo free.
Okay, so you're not sure whatthe next trip is going to be.

Not yet I do.
I do kind of in 2022, I wasgoing to do a figure eight
around the North and SouthAtlantic.
That was the trip where I gotturned upside down and probably
one of the worst storms I hadbeen in and broke everything and
then had to limp back.
I would really like to do thattrip and complete it, but it

(01:15:47):
took me two years to get pastwhat had happened that night and
how close I got.

So I'm back at the point where I'm comfortable
We'll have to have anotherpodcast, cause I want to hear
about that story.
Yeah.

That one's pretty intense, for sure.
That was.
The only benefit with that thatactual trip was that it makes
for a really, really good storyand a great presentation, not
only for like inspiration butalso for like a learning
experience.

So I use that in a face of failure, that sort of
thing boat and how you dealtwith it.
Well, why don't you go first?

I don't know.
You didn't have to worry aboutthat on the trip did you?

Yeah, no.

Because I'm a blue water sailor.
I've never I don't thinkSparrow has ever touched the
bottom.
From what I understand, it'sreally.
It's just one of those thingslike if you can wait it out and
the tide is going to come in,you just wait to float it off.
If you can motor out of it, Iguess that's the biggest thing.

(01:17:09):
But it depends on the type ofthe boat and what you're hitting
on the bottom.

How dangerous it is or what if it's going to mess
up your boat.

Yeah, yeah, because anytime you're going to run
aground and hit really hard, italmost needs to be hauled out of
the water so everything can befully inspected.

Yeah, um the the what you said about.
Uh, if you wait, you can floatoff.
Or if boats are going by,sometimes a wave will just take
you right off of it.
And I wait for that first andthen the last um in the end.
If you can't, then I call CTO.
Yeah, and they pull you off andit's only like, uh well, it was

(01:17:50):
$189 a year for unlimited.
It's definitely worth it Ifyou're going to be near a coast
or in the intercoastal oranything.

Yeah.

For sure.
I think, it might've just goneup um next year.
I think it's going up over 200,but still totally worth it.
I one time had to have 11 hourtow.

Oh, wow.

Because of my fuel injectors opened up and fuel
went into or I'm not a mechanic,I think the fuel went into the
oil or vice versa and 11 hourtow free.
That would have been $20,something, oh geez.
So tip of the day tip of theday or your towboat us, I have

(01:18:34):
both towboat and sea tow I have.

I, I don't have either.
But there have been times where, like, I'm going into an inlet
or something like that and I'mthinking to myself, man, if this
engine fails right now, how amI going to get out of this?
And if you don't want thatworry, then something like
towboat us or CTO is a goodthing to get well worth it.

Well, I think, when you're, if your engine went
out and you're about to hit therocks or something, you're
going to throw out your anchor.

I got the anchor I always got my main halyard, on
my main sail ready to raise, andthat's one of the things I
teach a lot about right?
You know, whenever we leave thedock or we're headed in for the
day, we never disconnect thehalyards and we always are ready
to raise those sails just incase.

Oh yeah, and that's another thing.
Another way you can get off umbeing grounded is you sometimes
can sail off of it.

You can just sail up.

I mean, it all depends on conditions, right?
Oh, he said.
Thanks for the tip.
I'm told there are two types ofcoast cruisers those who are
grounded and those that willexactly I'm sure I will at some
point.

I'm headed up to maine later this uh this summer,
so hopefully not there it'sactually those that are telling
the truth and those that arelying.
Yeah, yeah, right.

Because you will do it eventually.
Okay, a blank check adventure.
Where do you point the bowfirst?
You got a blank check.
No money worries, oh, check nomoney worries.

Oh, no money worries.
Geez, I would do.
I'd do a.
Uh, I'd get a boat on the westcoast of the us and I would sail
it back to the east coast viathe trade winds route, no
questions asked.
It would be wonderful.
That's actually kind of theretirement plan.
Take like three years to do it.
Oh, that'd be the best.

Well, if it's a blank check, you could just
transport mighty sparrow acrossand flop.

Oh no, no no, that one, I, I'd want to do it on a
larger vessel so that I couldbring other people with me for
whatever legs.

Okay, well, you got a blank check, so why not
just yeah, yeah right?

Well, honestly, yeah, it'd be something in the
50-foot range so that myself andthree to four other people
could go and just hit everyplace you could on the way back
to the East Coast.

Well, I think that you should include.
You said you want to go throughthe Panama Canal and the
Sandblast Islands.

You know those yeah , I've heard about, I've never
been though I learned about itin a podcast.

Oh my gosh, that's definitely on the list.
Uh, I've got, do you?

um, I don't suppose you would have a favorite
anchorage oh yeah, yeah,absolutely north sound virgin
gorda, I mean, there's okay onvirgin gorda.
There are a ton in the bvi ofof great anchorages.
There's one very special onedeep water there well, I mean,
that's the thing you go into,north sound and and there's

(01:21:34):
places where it's 10, 15, 20feet, where it's great holding
you're tucked right up in thislittle spot.
Um, there's a couple secretones that I definitely don't
want to divulge.

Oh, come on.

They're a little dangerous to get into and there
are places that are off limitsto the charter boats.
But you put me in North Sound,on Virgin Gorda, and I'm going
to be a happy guy for sure.

Okay.
Well, I always like to askpeople what their favorite.
I've learned about so many coolanchorages doing that on my
podcast.
Well, I always like to askpeople what their favorite, and
I've learned about so many coolanchorages doing that on my
podcast.
Well, I guess that's it.
I mean, we've been on an hourand 23 minutes.
Do you guys have any morequestions?
You got some fans on here, soTikTok 10, 9, 8.
So, if you want to ask Jeromeany questions, well, I did.

(01:22:22):
I wanted to ask you about yourspeaking and your and your
teaching people how to beoffshore.

Oh yeah.
Well, it's the speaking stuffI've been doing, you know, since
, since I got back, and thoseare a ton of fun.
We speak everywhere, fromschools to Were you a speaker
before.
No, but because I was in theresort industry, I was up in
front of big crowds of peopledoing award shows and

(01:22:52):
presentations, things like thatall the time.
So I became pretty comfortablewith it.
But yeah, it essentially we didthe University of Wisconsin.
We do a lot of private clubs,venues, yacht clubs but the
corporate stuff that came outstarted doing that last year and
those have been pretty fun.
Definitely a different sort ofchallenge.

(01:23:14):
But yeah, obviously there's alot of relatable things between
setting sail and going off intothe world of the ocean and
equating that to going throughchallenges in business.

Yeah, you got to tie it in, don't you?

Yeah, absolutely, but it's always based around a
really good story with a lot ofgood footage, so it's more of an
interactive presentation thanit is just like me up there with
a couple of slides.
But yeah, it's been a lot offun doing that and it's great to
meet people and some celebritypodcasts that those corporate

(01:23:51):
gigs are tough crowd.
Uh, I don't know.
I've never had any issues withthat, because I don't know if
it's the trips that I've gone on, or if it's the footage, or
they're sitting in there.

I'm in a corporate office.
This guy's out sailing aroundthe world.
Oh, I hate my life most people.

You know I have to talk them down off the edge of
like I'm never going sailing.
What is wrong with you and?
Let me, let me explain what Iget out of this, because well,
they don't have to go that far,they can.

Just they can go to St Martin.
Well, the footage.

The footage from the disaster voyage is, uh is
pretty intimidating sometimesand it definitely you hear a lot
of oohs and ahs and and a lotof questions get asked after
that you're crazy boy, yeah, ohyeah, for sure, for sure but
it's a lot of fun to share theexperience and same with with
the coaching and the consultingas, uh, it's been great to sort

(01:24:49):
of, because every adventurer hasa day where they have to hang
up their adventurer hat and it'snice to know that I can still
help, uh, the next generation or, you know, anybody that just
has a couple of goals in mind.

So you are making a living at all this.

Barely, but it's getting better.
Well, we're trying to help youhere.

We're trying to sell your book.
It's in the comments I mean Imean in the description the link
to the book.
Please use that.
Yeah, and hopefully you'remaking some money on social
media.

Not really.
No think I think it helps, uh,get my foot in the door for some
of the speaking stuff and, andyou know, if anything can help,
that that's always a good thing.

Well, I've heard that speaking is pretty um
lucrative, so yeah it can be.

It's just uh, when it's, it's a little few and far
between but um sometimes it'skind of like when it rains, it
pours.
You never know.

Gotcha, okay.
Well, if you guys don't haveany more questions for Jerome,
somebody is going to have oneright when we get, when we sign
off.
Uh, well, anyway, okay, thankyou so much for coming on.
Thank you that was absolutelywonderful, okay, thank you so
much for coming on.

Thank you, that was absolutely wonderful.

I really appreciate you having me on the
show and taking your time tochat Fascinating and I want to
have you back, maybe after thenext adventure, or at least
maybe come back and talk aboutthat incident that happened in
the Atlantic.

Yeah, yeah, I'll be .
I I'm kind of all over theplace for the summer, but
there'll be a few times once Iget up to Maine where maybe I'll
reach back out and we can talksea survival.

Oh, that sounds great.
Okay, well, barbara says niceinterview.
Thank you, barbara.
Okay, well, that's it.
And the way I always end is tosay Salty, ab salty, abandon out
.

All Episodes

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

On Purpose with Jay Shetty

Dateline NBC

Stuff You Should Know

.css-15opob5{left:0;position:absolute;top:0.8rem;} All Episodes

.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Salty Podcast #63 ⛵ Jerome Rand of @SailingIntoOblivian's 29,805-Mile Solo Sail Around the World aboard Mighty Sparrow

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

.css-r6mb8g{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:1;overflow:hidden;}On Purpose with Jay Shetty

Dateline NBC

Stuff You Should Know

All Episodes

Salty Podcast #63 ⛵ Jerome Rand of @SailingIntoOblivian's 29,805-Mile Solo Sail Around the World aboard Mighty Sparrow

On Purpose with Jay Shetty