Sail of the century

THEY FINALLY touched land late last Monday afternoon, felt terra firma for the first time in almost two months, but even then they were dizzy and unsure of themselves.

They had been gone 58 days, nine hours, 32 minutes and 45 seconds. That was all. The record for sailing the seven seas were theirs, shattered by a good six days.

Even given the ambition of their skipper, this must have surpassed Steve Fossett's wildest dreams.

Round the world in less than 60 days, there's a sort of ring to it that captures the enormity of the achievement. Even Jules Verne allowed his fictional creation, Phileas Fogg, 80 days to complete his journey.

And right up until the end, there were doubts that didn't recede with the tide.

"What a long night last night was," Justin Slattery wrote in his weekly diary of the final night of their ground-breaking voyage. "We've been delayed by light winds as a high pressure ridge formed over us yesterday. Five more hours at this pace! Determination evident on everyone's face! Nobody wants to spend another night out here!"

Nobody did.

Multimillionaire adventurer Fossett docked his 125ft catamaran, Cheyenne, on the French Island of Ouessant a few hours later. Among his hand-picked crew of 12 were the cream of Irish Ocean Sailing, the aforementioned Wexford native Slattery and Damien Foxall, from the tip of SouthKerry, who is getting accustomed to breaking records in Fossett's company.

Two years ago, in the same catamaran, then called PlayStation, Foxall was part of the crew that made the fastest transaltantic crossing ever. Five days. A normal working week for most of us, a record that is likely to stand for some time.

It's been three days, but life hasn't really slowed down since they docked. Foxall was looking forward to a relaxing Easter and sinking some of the black stuff back home in the Kingdom. It's hard to get good Guinness in the middle of the Southern Ocean, although they each managed a bottle of hidden Heineken to celebrate Paddy's Day as they passed Cape Horn.

"That was a beautiful day," Slattery recollects. "It was really clear, so you could actually see the whole of the Cape. Up ahead were dark, stormy clouds. Just as we passed Cape Horn, a small plane flew by from Ushuaia. That was our first contact with the outside world as we saw land for the first time in 39 days."

Cape Horn wasn't the only famous landmark they passed. The treacherous seas surrounding the Cape of Good Hope and Cape Leeuwin were also negotiated in the 21,760-mile trip. The possibility of sinking was a daily occurrence and the Cheyenne was actually in grave danger three times; only a week and a half into the trip a forestay on the starboard hull collapsed.

"That took almost an entire day to repair," Slattery says. "Luckily, we had Micheal Beasley on board, who was top of his field in this kind of repairs and he manufactured something out of a sacrificed pin that was able to take five-to-10 tonnes of weight."

Ingenuity, it seemed, was in wide supply on the voyage. And it needed to be.

In fact, Fossett chose his crew with that in mind. Each of the 12 might have been outstanding sailors, but, according to Slattery, they also each brought special skills that would be needed should times get tough. They each had an expertise in boat repair, whether it was electronics, sails, carbon fibre, rigging or boat-building. With each passing day, as the record looked more and more achievable, this created the dynamic that grew with every near escape.

While Fossett insisted to the media last week that Cheyenne was never in danger of beating the record, Slattery recalls his very first morning on the catamaran. The record attempt was almost cut short before it started.

"It was funny, before we even got started, we hit the roughest seas we were going to experience," he says. "Because of the way the climates are around the world, we have to set off in our winter, just to get the right weather patterns around the world. And that meant that some of the worst conditions of the whole trip was trying to get to the start-line. It was our winter and our waters are rough. It took us 16 hours just to get to the start-line, we were hitting 60 to 65 knot winds. I was only getting to know the boat, and here I was, trying to help us negotiate some of the roughest water in the English Channel."

The story of how two Irish lads, Slattery from Wexford via Cork, Foxall from Caherdaniel near Waterville, helped the most famous millionaire adventurer in the world to another world record isn't unusual.

Foxall has been helping Fossett in various record attempts for years, Slattery is one of the top ocean sailors in the world. They both completed the Round-the-World with Slattery coming third in News Corporation, Foxall fourth in Tyco.

Unsurprisingly, as world record holders, both feel their next goal should be to win the Volvo Round the World Race.

Foxall attempted to break the world record last year on board Ellen McArthur's famous Kingfisher. Somewhere in the middle of the Southern Ocean, that attempt came a-cropper.

Alongside Damian on that trip was Guillermo Altadill. The Spanish sailor was part of Fossett's crew.

"When you are at sea with 12 other people for that long, the whole trip stands out and it is hard to pick one specific memory, but when myself and Guillermo were coming to that point where the attempt went wrong last year, we put on our life-jackets and survival suits as we sailed past and then had a little celebration afterwards. It was a bit of fun that will stay with me."

The Kingfisher broke down in one of the most isolated points in the world, almost equidistant between Fremantle and South Africa and had to be towed back to the Australian port. It sums up the isolation of the Phileas Fogg wannabes. And in the Southern Ocean, the isolation is at its most pronounced. You learn a lot about yourself and your crew members.

"You gain a whole new perspective on something like this. It's not just the sustained team endeavour but the isolation. We spent a month down in the Southern Ocean and all we passed was one other cargo ship," Foxall says. "It is only yourself and ocean swells, a few albattrosses and the odd iceberg for company."

Fossett skippered the boat, but the crew broke the record. The 12 sailors were broken into three groups of three. They were given four-hour shifts, one group on watch, one group on standby and one group would get their heads down.

"But, even if it was your turn to sleep, there would be so much bobbing it would be very hard to sleep. Even if you got your head down, you might only get an hour or two's sleep," Slattery explains.

"When we got past Cape Horn," Slattery remembers, "any number of things could have happened us. We were running two days ahead of schedule but the weather can easily turn against you. When we got to Brazil, we ran into a ridge of low pressure. 20 hours after we left, it developed into the first cyclone that hit the South American coastline in 10 years. We missed a storm that had the potential to destroy our whole record attempt by a few hours.

"Then, we got into the doldrums and the ship had suffered a lot of damage by that stage. We were basically nursing the boat all the way home. We could still drive the boat home, but with all the damage, there was a constant threat, always an element of concern that something would go wrong."

IT is this concern that sense of danger which drove the crew forward. Having experienced heart-break with Kingfisher, Foxall was doubly determined it wasn't going to happen with Cheyenne. And right up until the end it could have come asunder.

"Five minutes before we reached the lighthouse near Ouessant, about 15 minutes before the finish, we experienced some of the most severe waves of our whole voyage," Slattery says. "These swells were pretty severe they were able to bury a 125ft yacht. So, at the start and at the end, we experienced some of the worst conditions, but we came through.

"When we shattered the transatlantic record in PlayStation two years ago, that record of five days, is something I thought would stand for a long time. And I think it will be the same with this achievement, because it has taken so much off the previous record.

"My next goal would be to compete in the Volvo(Round the World) and try to win it, and my longer-term goal would be the Olympics, focusing on China. But sailing is one of the few sports where you have a long time to keep improving yourself, you can make a short-list and keep your eye on a longer list of goals.

"It is not like many sports when you reach a certain age, you start going downhill. Sailing is a great sport for the number of years you get at it," Foxall says.

Fossett is Fossett however, he is the big news, holding now 14 of the 22 titles accorded by the World Sailing Speed Record Council. Justin Slattery and Damian Foxall will slip to the margins again, after weeks labouring in howling storms, boiling swells and getting a clear glimpse of Cape Horn on Paddy's Day.

When they reached their port of heaven last Monday, they truly saw the sights Jules Verne only dreamed of, sailing with the wind and sometimes against it.

But sailing always, never drifting, towards their goal. And in less than 60 days, they and 11 others managed to make the world seem a little bit smaller than it had already become.