Sailor with Maine ties finishes ninth in race

Solo sailor Bruce Schwab, whose ninth-place finish Friday made him the first American to complete the Vendee Globe, hopes to capitalize on his experience by organizing a campaign aimed at winning the around-the-world yacht race four years from now.

Schwab’s 109-day nonstop journey ended when he sailed the 60-foot Ocean Planet across the finish line on France’s Atlantic coast, where supporters greeted him with champagne, brownies, Mexican egg burritos and homemade salsa and chips.

Rain squalls and uncooperative winds forced a one-day delay in Schwab’s arrival in Les Sables d’Olonne, where friends and well-wishers waited. But the gray skies yielded a burst of golden sunlight as he skippered the Ocean Planet to the finish.

Some fans draped American flags over their shoulders, recalling on a smaller scale the hoopla that greeted countryman Lance Armstrong in Paris after his Tour de France victories.

Gov. John Baldacci of Maine, where Schwab prepared for the race, telephoned him during his news conference to offer his congratulations.

“The entire state of Maine is proud of you,” said Baldacci, who invited Schwab to a spaghetti dinner at the executive mansion.

The U.S. ambassador to France, Gary Clements, paid tribute to Schwab’s courage, tenacity and navigational talent.

“Lance Armstrong has made the Tour de France famous in America, and you have raised the awareness of the Vendee Globe there too. Thank you for building the bridges of comprehension to enable a better understanding between the Americans and the French,” Clements said.

Amid the partying on the boat, Schwab said it was hard to put his emotions into words.

“There’s an awful lot involved – personal pride, pride to the people who helped me get there. … And I still have to figure out how to pay for all of this.”

Operating on a bare-bones budget, Schwab set the goal of completing the race, and he designed and outfitted the boat accordingly.

Just the second American to sail around the world alone without stopping, Schwab said he was gratified by the outcome of an endeavor that lacked major corporate sponsorship and relied heavily on volunteer help and in-kind contributions.

Because of debts owed by himself and his nonprofit foundation to finance the venture and lack of insurance coverage for Ocean Planet, Schwab said he was compelled to sail “very conservatively.”

“We weren’t able to afford insurance and have a lot of loans secured by the boat – there was a lot on the line besides my ego,” he said.

Although he doubts that there is another solo circumnavigation in his future, Schwab is looking ahead to 2008 and the start of the next Vendee Globe.

“I don’t see myself as the ‘jockey’ again,” he said. “I’m a ‘preparation’ guy, and a lifetime sailor, and in the end that is why I succeeded without a big sponsor. But there are a couple of guys that might be able to sail faster if I set them up with the right boat and program.”

While it has a limited following in the United States, the quadrennial Vendee Globe is watched closely by tens of millions of television and Internet viewers worldwide. This year’s winner was Vincent Riou of France, who finished Feb. 2 in a record 87 days.

The race was the second around-the-world solo race for Schwab, 44, a lifelong sailor from Oakland, Calif., who has spent much of his career as a rigger and in other boatyard jobs. He sailed Ocean Planet in the 2002 Around Alone, a five-leg race with stops along the route.

Schwab prepared for the Vendee Globe in Portland, Maine, where he divided his time between working on the wood-and-carbon fiber sloop and raising money for the race. He plans to return the boat to Portland this spring.

The refinements were made at Portland Yacht Services, where volunteers drifted in periodically to help Schwab. The yard’s owner, Phineas Sprague, was among the contingent of Schwab supporters who were at the finish to greet the skipper.

“There is great honor in finishing this effort,” said Sprague, applauding how Schwab overcame his lack of major sponsorship by preparing “an affordable and innovative boat that had little chance of winning but would allow a creditable but conservative race.”

The Vendee Globe began Nov. 7,with the 20 boats in the starting field sailing south to the Cape of Good Hope before heading into the treacherous Southern Ocean. The route carried them south of Australia and to within a few hundred miles of Antarctica before it rounded Cape Horn for the final run back to France.

Schwab covered more than 23,680 miles of often choppy waters in 109 days, 19 hours, 58 minutes and 57 seconds at an average speed of 8.98 knots.

His trip came 13 years after countryman Mike Plant was lost at sea during the race. Plant’s overturned Coyote boat was found by a container ship in the North Atlantic in the inaugural Vendee Globe in 1989-90.