2002

Ocean Planet Report – by Brian Hancock
Thursday, November 28, 2002

Ocean Planet Report – by Brian Hancock
Thursday, November 28, 2002
Landfall – Cape Town.

It was in a gloomy pre-dawn light that Bruce Schwab finally sailed his Open 60 Ocean Planet across the finish line in Cape Town this morning. Earlier the skies had been clear and Bruce reported seeing the spectacular sight of Table Mountain from afar, but no sooner than he had cross the finish a light, persistent drizzle started. It was a wet ending to a long, arduous passage.

Schwab is a quiet, soft spoken Californian who freely admits that he is still getting to know his boat. The Around Alone is only the first of many long distance races he plans to compete in, and so he is using this event to learn how to get the most out of himself and his boat. The fifth place finish in Class 1 does not bother him. “I knew leaving England that I would be behind the other Open 60s,” he said. “I still had work to do on my boat after replacing the boom, and once I stopped in Spain I was out of contention anyway.” The rest of the leg was spent in a close race against fellow American Brad van Liew on Tommy Hilfiger Freedom America. “I enjoyed racing against Brad. He is very experienced and helped a lot with weather and tactics. It was great to have someone like him to race against. I look forward to the next leg when I can get back in the mix against the rest of my class and really show them what Ocean Planet is capable of.”

During the leg Bruce would send a daily update that gave us a small insight into his moods and frustrations. He was one of the few skippers that regularly attached images to his emails and from the logs and images we have been able to get a look at life on board Ocean Planet these last six weeks. Bruce’s last log of the leg was one of the most thoughtful. It follows here in full:(see Updates, 11-27-02)

Now that Bruce has arrived on these fair shores we look forward to more stories, and more importantly, the hearing the new songs Bruce will have composed on his long passage to Cape Town. The sun has even come out to warm the day so all in all the future looks bright for Schwab and Ocean Planet.

Brian Hancock (great.circle@verizon.net)