Sixteen years ago, Nick Moloney slept in containers on docks in Europe. As a professional sailor, if he’s not winning, he could wind up back there. But currently Moloney’s status in Europe, the home of adventure racing, is enormous. It all turned around for him when he won the Sydney-Hobart and other major events in ‘96. Moloney has achieved two of his life’s goals by competing in the Whitbread Round the World, and setting a solo speed record. As you read, he’s chasing the third, sailing solo around the world in the Vendee Globe.  Before he left, he spoke to Robert Drane.

What’s it like being alone on the ocean, with horizon on all sides?

The first time solo around the world, my biggest fear is solitude, going bonkers because I’ve lost the plot and I’m lonely, missing everyone and can’t handle being on this floating platform on my own. It’s happened. More than half don’t finish. Mental breakdown is an issue. A mate of mine had a breakdown en route in this race, he was so determined to finish.

What does “round the world” mean? From where to where?

Speed records start in the Northern Hemisphere. They start on an imaginary line between the UK and France, between a lighthouse on a headland called The Lizard in the UK and a French island called Ouisson that has two lighthouses. You cross it heading south and you finish heading north, after rounding Antarctica. You turn left at Cape Horn, back up the Atlantic and finish.

So what do you do to prepare for the Vendee Globe?

First thing you do is make sure the boat’s ready. My clothes and food are on the boat.  We’re totally ready to go. We chose mood colours to reduce stress, to make you feel warmer when it’s cold, cooler when it’s hot. I’ve started meditation. I’ve got amazing tools on board. I can live video conference, I’ve got the internet and sat phones so I can call from anywhere in the world. But I don’t use sat phone a lot because when I call home, I’m in mum and dad’s lounge room. I hear the TV in the background, and my niece and nephew having an argument. When I hang up, it really hits me that I’m on my own, and all you hear is crash, crash, crash.

But then there’s nothing more peaceful than when everything’s going right and you’ve had a good position report, the weather files are coming in and they’re showing no big storms for the next day or so, and you go out on deck and there’s this awesome sunset, and the boat’s set up well and you’re powering along. You might open a meal, put on some music. Once every week that you might get that mellow period. But you’re normally navigating, setting the boat up sail trim, fixing stuff. We’ve got to get around the world non-stop so I’ve spent the last year trying to learn how to be a diesel mechanic in case the generator packs up, an electronics engineer in case the auto pilot fails, or your navigation instrumentation breaks down or your sat phone dies.

Do you ever come across each other out there?

I don’t sleep much in the first day or so because everyone’s together, and I like that element of it. Then you may come across a guy on day 50 or something. On the other hand, you may see a guy for 10 days, and then not see him for a day, then see him for 20, then lose him for five. Generally when you’re with someone, your average speeds go up. You’re trying get away from him all the time and put him to bed. But, particularly between New Zealand and Cape Horn, if you have a cock-up down there, you’re three days away from any real aid. So your reliance is on your closest competitor.

Does the fastest boat win?

If Schumacher and Jensen Button took off around the world flat-knacker in their cars, Schuey would be gone. We use the same technology. Some of us don’t have the horse-power. But the good thing is that we could get smarter on a wind system and catch up again. So it’s not as simple as sticking a boot in it and going. Someone could run out of wind and we just sail up to him.

Tell us about your experience out there on your own before.

The first time I tried to race across an ocean solo, in 1999, was in the Bay of Biscay, between Spain and France. I’d just finished being the first bloke to windsurf non-stop across Bass Strait. Mentally and physically I felt strong. I wanted to crush everyone. Day four, I’ve completely lost the plot because I haven’t slept, I haven’t eaten. This big storm smacks us all. I was trying to fix the damage and fell off. I’m on a harness tether, dragging alongside the boat. The boat ran me over. I’m trying to get to the surface, but scraping along the smooth bottom. The pain in my chest was so intense I had to take something in. I inhaled a lung full of salt water. I thought ‘You’ve just swallowed the cyanide pill.’ I gave up the struggle and thought, ‘Dead, for sure.’

Me dragging along the bottom made the boat slow down enough for me to pop up the side, and I got myself back on board. Straight away I’m vomiting that hard it felt like salt water was coming out of my eyes. It felt like my chest, stomach, everything had imploded. I couldn’t get anything in to inflate myself again. Then I started to get really small grabs of air, and finally started coughing and breathing again. I was a total head case because it was just so close. I pulled into a port in Spain eventually, and in all the effort I’d broken my arm. I didn’t realise because I was trying to hang on. I ended up in hospital and the whole gig was off.

How did that affect your relationship with the sea?

I grew up on the water. It was my playground. I’d never thought it could take my life. I nearly gave the whole thing up. I came back and worked with our paralympic team. I spent a day helping men and women out of their chairs and into their boats and thought, ‘This shitty piece of plaster comes off in three weeks. These guys are confined to wheelchairs for the rest of their lives.’ That changed my life completely. I had to get back on the wagon to achieve my three goals. It led to me getting the speed record around the world. So that was two down. The Whitbread and the speed record. Now I had to go solo, around the world.

Tell us about the speed record. What happened?

It was the largest solo race in terms of competitors, called the Route de Rum, from France to Guadaloupe. I started training and realised I had all these ghosts and demons saying ‘You’re gunna fall off the boat’. Every time I stood out of the cockpit, I felt I was going to fall off again. I never had it with a crew. I felt backed into a corner. I had a sponsor and there were big bucks involved. I thought, ‘I hope the weather’s kind. It can’t be that bad again.’ I worked hard on trying to manage my time properly, sleep and eat, and don’t push myself to the state of fatigue I did in ’99.

I got to the start and sure enough, forecast is a big storm. I’m thinking, this is bad news for me. I went into the storm and fought my guts out, with this massive anger. More than half the boats got hammered. I was getting reports that so-and-so flipped over and this guy was being rescued. I just turned all my coms off, didn’t want to know. Four-and-a-half days I just punched away. I came out of the storm, flipped on my coms and I’m in the lead! I fell into the trade winds after the storm, stuck the boot in and finished 230 miles ahead of the next guy and set a new record. So that day, we said ‘Let’s try and do this Vendee Globe thing.’

So what was it you learned that turned things?

A mixture of fatigue and determination is deadly. If you keep fighting something, you stay awake for a long time, and your decision-making process is poor. At my highest point of fatigue when I had the accident, I was looking over the side and saying ‘you’re not even moving.’ I would have been doing five or six knots of boat speed. In this race, I slept and ate and thought ‘I’m not going to fatigue.’

But the other boats flipped. Yours didn’t…

I did something bizarre. I filled by boat with water so it wouldn’t flip. Now, if you’ve got all that surging water in any old boat, it just tears it apart. But our boats are divided up in seven water-tight compartments. In case you hit something, you won’t sink. During the storm, I opened the hatches up and let the water in.

In the ’98 Whitbread, you sailed with Dennis Connor. He’s known to Australians, of course. During the 1983 America’s Cup campaign, he was the most hated man in the world for Australians. What was he really like?

A great bloke. He was a huge hero of mine, along with John Bertrand. I did the America’s Cup with John in ’95 and the Whitbread with Connor in ’98. He was one of the best sailors ever sailed with. At the World Championships in Australia this year he was racing in a class and one Aussie guy broke his mast. Dennis gave him his spare and he said, ‘Don’t tell the press. You’ll ruin my reputation.’ He’s a big bloke and when it got rough you’d have to tie him in the bunk because he’d just tear the boat apart. Everything he hung onto he just ripped off. He and Bertrand respect each other more than they dare to admit.

People come back from the moon believing in God…

Yeah, it’s real. I grew up in a Christian Brothers school and I thought, ‘You can have it.’ But it would be impossible to see some of the things I’ve seen– big twisters in the middle of the ocean, whales breaching. I think there’s some greater being creating all this. Emotions, sights, opportunities. I think I’ve developed a fair bit of faith. If I’m in a shit fight out there, I look up and say ‘Hey if there’s anyone out there, look after me – now…’

Published in Inside Sport, October 2004