Solo sailor set for around-the-world race Portland man hopes to be first American to finish

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PORTLAND – In a brick building on the waterfront that once housed a 19th century locomotive foundry, a 43-year-old sailing enthusiast races against the clock to get ready for what might be the 21st century’s ultimate extreme sport.

Bruce Schwab is preparing his 60-foot sailboat Ocean Planet to compete in the Vendee Globe, a brutal around-the-world race for solo sailors who must complete the 25,000-mile course nonstop and without assistance.

In the months leading up to the race’s Nov. 7 start in southwestern France, Schwab divides his time between raising money and getting his sleek blue-and-white sloop as race ready as he can.

When he is not scrambling aboard the wood-and-carbon-fiber boat to complete a slew of refinements and modifications, Schwab works the phone and Internet to line up contributors and sponsors to help finance a venture that will cost at least $500,000, and perhaps twice that.

His goal is to be the first U.S. entrant to complete the Vendee Globe, a quadrennial race that has a limited following in America but is watched closely by tens of millions of television and Internet viewers worldwide. Boats from France, Great Britain, Australia, Italy and other countries line up corporate sponsors whose logos are displayed NASCAR-style on the hull, deck and sails.

Although he cannot match that kind of financial clout, Schwab hopes that simply finishing the race can pave the way for a future U.S. entrant to get the sponsorship that could lead to victory. Such an outcome would likely be as astonishing as Greg Lemond’s first-ever win by an American in the Tour de France.

For Schwab, a lifelong sailor from the West Coast who has spent much of his career as a rigger and in other boatyard jobs, the Vendee Globe would be his second around-the-world solo race. He sailed Ocean Planet in the 2002 Around Alone race, finishing fifth among the seven entrants in the 60-foot open class.

The Around Alone is a five-leg race with stops along the route. The Vendee Globe is more challenging because there is no opportunity for sailors to catch a breather or repair their boats while waiting for the next leg to begin.

“If you haven’t refined and tested everything before you leave, there’s a good chance you’re not going to make it. So that’s why it’s much more stressful to prepare for this race,” Schwab said.

Ocean Planet, launched three years ago at a boatyard in Portland, Ore., was built specifically to compete in the Vendee Globe.

Its design, which includes a narrow hull and unstayed mast, makes it easier to sail but swaps performance for safety, Schwab said.

“In the Vendee, where the emphasis is on finishing, we opted for a simpler boat with fewer things to break,” he said.

Since the boat arrived at Portland Yacht Services last November, Schwab has been making modifications and struggling to reduce its weight.

While all boats must carry mandatory safety equipment such as flares, a life raft and emergency water, it’s up to the skipper to decide what supplies and spare parts to take along.

“It’s that proverbial tradeoff between redundancy and keeping it lightweight,” he said.

While competing boats with corporate sponsors can afford to hire professionals to help prepare their vessels for the race, Schwab makes do with himself and a small corps of volunteers.

During the past couple of weeks, friends from Oregon, Wisconsin, Ontario and Rhode Island traveled to Portland to work on the project.

They hope to get the boat into the water in May or June for trial runs and to depart at the end of August for Les Sables d’Olonne, France, where a crowd of 300,000 is expected to watch the start of the race.

The boats will sail south before reaching the Cape of Good Hope and heading into the treacherous Southern Ocean, known for its five-story waves, icebergs and hurricane-force winds.

From there, they sail south of Australia and then pass to within a few hundred miles of Antarctica before rounding Cape Horn for the final run back to France.

The current around-the-world record of 93 days was set by French yachtsman Michel Desjoyeaux in 2000-01. In contrast, the Around Alone took 81/2 months, of which Schwab spent about 135 days at sea.

Schwab is aware of the potential dangers in the race – two yachtsmen have been lost since the event first was run in 1989 – but does not regard his attempt as foolhardy and believes preparation is the key to success.

“The race is 80 percent preparation and 20 percent execution, and even the execution is a result of preparation,” he said.

“Your experience and training in preparing yourself with weather analysis, navigation skills and tactical ability – that’s all preparation. You shouldn’t be learning it out there.”

Schwab expects to get little sleep during the race. In the Around Alone he napped for 20 minutes at a time, averaging five or six hours a day. But while tacking close to land off New Zealand, he went three days with no sleep.

To deal with potential medical emergencies, race officials have doctors on call who can communicate directly with the boats.

Schwab knows of cases in which sailors performed minor surgery on themselves – such as draining infections – by following instructions relayed by satellite phone or the Internet.

For now, Schwab is working on the little things: replacing hoses, checking the wiring, refining storage space, shortening the boom and struggling relentlessly to reduce the boat’s weight, a pound or 2 at a time.

“The devil’s in the details,” he said. “It’s a whole host of little things and it seems that it will take forever to get them done.”