Strangers, squirrels, beavers, geese and dolphins
Unreal – fancy being scared senseless?
“Then I recommend a force 8 on a 46ft boat in St David’s channel at 4am with very little sleep for two days and all the food you have eaten having been relocated overboard. Waves twice as high as the boat and 10knots of boat speed. Cabin (inside) had its own tidal stream we had taken on that much water…
…110 miles, 18 hours with a favourable tide for two thirds and a pig of a tide versus wind for six hours in the middle and the weather is closing in (I can tell by my watch) – bring it on!”
We received this broadcast email from our MD Mr Hodges last week. To which Sarah, our Service Desk Customer Advisor immediately replied (obviously concerned for Mr Hodges safety)…
“#thankgoodnessforthewatch!! Could you not tell by the colour of the clouds in the sky?”
Mr Hodges’ actual watch
Mr Hodges penned a more detailed account of his adventure while waiting for his flight back. I thought this was a very fitting follow up from my last blog on positive mental attitude and a fantastic example of what can be achieved when a team of people work as one. Over to you Mr Hodges.
“People are strange, when you’re a stranger, faces look ugly when you’re alone!” It’s an interesting point from Mr Jim Morrison of The Doors, but having spent another week aboard Yacht Tonic – a Bavaria 46 owned and run by Elite Sailing of Chatham, I think we might need to look a little deeper.
Yacht Tonic
You rock up to a boat for a period of time. Sleep, eat, drink, sail, trust, talk to, bond-with and befriend a group of complete strangers, with whom you share some very exhilarating and challenging times in extremely close quarters. Then in a heartbeat you pack your bags and you are gone. Potentially never to cross paths again.
Now I understand better than most that life is transient. I am a big fan of the concept that people come in and out of your life for periods of time for shared experiences or portions of your life. Unless you are a ‘Facebook friend hoarder’, these are largely dissolvable moments in time leaving nothing more than the residue of shared memories and associated emotional anchors. But with sailing it is so intense, and so pronounced it is a genuine demonstration of the human capacity to adapt, integrate, tolerate and survive.
As I sit here in Dublin Airport, awaiting a flight to a birthday party in Dartmouth, reflecting on a fantastic week, largely spent at sea I can’t help but smile and draw life comparison with the world of business. In particular, a book I read by Ken Blanchard called ‘Gung Ho!’ in my research into high performing teams.
Just over a week ago I turned up to Penzance to meet Tonic and a skipper, a crew of two and one more joining the next day in the Isles of Scilly. The Skipper/Instructor was called Tom and then Simon, Paul and Nick respectively.
Simon and Nick were a few weeks into a fast track course circumnavigating the UK in Tonic and Paul and I were just gaining experience with a week on the water as crew from Penzance to Dublin via the Isles of Scilly and Milford Haven in darkest Wales.
So, I joined the boat with Simon, Paul and Tom where we spend a night in Penzance before heading off to St Mary’s where we would get our first 50 miles under our belt and pick up Nick who had taken a weekend away from his trip to attend a family event. Everyone was nice, friendly and welcoming as always and assisted by a few beers we were bonded.
Tom is a great skipper with a calm, controlled, authoritative but very friendly demeanour. He is highly experienced and knowledgeable but also relaxed in his approach which is very handy for keeping everyone calm and focused on the boat but also feeling secure and confident. Simon is also friendly, quite a reserved and quiet chap who listens far more than he speaks, but misses nothing. And, he has an exceptionally sharp mind, able to absorb and retain information in a way that I am most enviable of. A very nice man indeed. Paul is a very quirky guy, super-friendly, unwittingly funny and has a massive appetite for life. His propensity for “oversharing” (a brilliant term I have just learnt from Simon) and lack of conventional conversational filters was a mild amusement at first but I thought they might cause me some challenges over time. However, realising that this young man had got of his arse, joined a bunch of strangers on this boat and was embracing life and having a great time in the process, I reserved judgement. In the interests of having a convivial time, a few wince-making comments or not-entirely-appropriate stories could be forgiven right!? It turned out, as I got to know him (a great lesson in not jumping to conclusions), that he has an absolute heart of gold and a huge zest for life that many, many people could take some lessons from. But he does need to work on those filters!
Nick & Simon on their way to a Yachtmaster qualification.
Morning one we headed for our first passage, all contributing and taking turns we headed for St Mary’s Island with a long, but innocuous crossing and the usual mix of chat and silence that provides the wonderful balance that attracts me to this pastime.
The next morning Nick flew in from his event, we pick him up and headed off for Tresco for a ramble round the isles, a few pints and a nice meal out. Nick is also a superb chap. A highly successful businessman with a wealth of business acumen, fascinating insight and a very engaging personality. I warmed to him immediately due to some shared business acquaintances and some similar interests.
Our team was complete and we got about the business of positive seamanship, cooking, cleaning, and running repairs on the boat, putting together passage plans, pilotage notes and relentlessly checking for weather updates.
This is where I first started to draw the comparison between sailing life and what I had read in Blanchard’s book. The book describes a successful turnaround of a failing industrial plant in the US by a businesswoman – largely through the learnings of three key observations of nature via a Native American member of her team. It’s a great book and my summary will do it no justice but what I took from it was the following.
The ‘Spirit of the Squirrel’ focuses on preparation. The squirrel works when there is no direct NEED to labour in order to prepare for when a ‘need’ arises, preventing the need to work harder when circumstances are potentially tougher. So when times are good it finds and stores food so that in the winter when times are harder and resources and energy are more limited, it doesn’t have to work so hard to get the things it needs. The same is true of the yacht, the team pulled together provisions, fuel, water, and spares and even cooked ahead of when food was needed so in rough seas or late at night, the minimum effort would achieve the maximum result. Wet weather and safety kit was located in easy to reach places and the boat was ‘shipshape’ so that in the event of challenging or adverse conditions – God forbid – an emergency, we could find whatever we needed very easily.
Instructor Tom
The ‘Way of the Beaver’ is interesting in that in a beaver colony there is no “Chief”, no overall leader. Everyone knows what needs to be done and works collaboratively to achieve the common goal. Each beaver is independent and in control of its own activity but the shared objectives and collaborative approach ensures success. There was no CEO on the boat. No explicit leader. Yes, Tom carried the responsibility of ensuring the safety of everyone and that our overall plan was adhered to, and at any one time one of the Yachtmasters were responsible for planning and skippering the leg of the journey but there wasn’t a ‘boss’ so to speak. After all we were all just independent free spirits who had paid a not-insignificant sum of money to be part of an adventure. We were effectively equals.
Then there is the Goose. A constant source of encouragement and active and passive support, ready to take responsibility at any moment in time for being the head of the V formation. Be that in terms of keeping up spirits or taking control of a situation. But, the goose is then being happy to fall back and join the formation letting someone else ‘head up’ the V. Again this is exactly what happens on the boat. Whether due to a watch pattern, or just through the natural ebbs and flows of fatigue, focus or function, anyone might need to assume position of ‘leader’, Mr Motivator or of calming influence and then retire this position into the gang.
My favourite demonstration of these things on our week away was when adverse weather and a rough sea state combined to make for some very challenging hours on the water. They were the worse conditions I had ever sailed in and I think that was true of four out of five of our team. Light on experience but chock full of determination and focussed on our common goal, we headed out into the Celtic Sea while others around looked on in amazement. We worked a watch pattern that was much altered due to the conditions and it was nothing short of relentless. Navigation was challenging, maintaining our course very tricky and sleep almost impossible until exhaustion forced the issue.
It was certainly exhilarating, there is no question of that, and at times even me, with my dismissive philosophical standpoint of fear – being that it is nothing more than a human tool to sharpen the mind and fortify the senses for the benefit of fight or flight – was pretty anxious at times! No amount of understanding of the Vanishing Point of Stability can quite offset the reality of the wind, the current and the waves that we encountered that night.
At one point we were accompanied by a pack of dolphin, one of which I managed to capture on the video – which you can see below – a useful distraction from the conditions but other than that we had NO company for the journey over, not another vessel was seen for the length of the trip such was the environment.
Throughout the entire passage we knew we were well prepared. We all knew we had an individual contribution to make to the outcome and we all took our non-defined turn to chat, comfort, laugh, lookout or keep quiet as required. We had prepared like the squirrels, collaborated like the beavers and encouraged and supported like the geese – the entire way to Wales.
And as for the strangeness of strangers. Here I was, in the middle of the sea, on 46ft of fiberglass and wood, with a bunch of complete strangers who I had known for barely 48 hours and now not just sharing my personal time and space with them but also trusting them with my wellbeing, and – in reality – my life. They did brilliantly. Calm and focussed, they asserted our position on the sea and made steady progress, until finally landing in Milford Haven – safe but shattered.
Interestedly Blanchard’s principles don’t just apply in times of stress or danger. The next few days there was another passage, a much calmer sail to Dublin and a couple of nights round the meal table and out for beers at pubs. The routine around the boat followed the same pattern of Blanchard’s description of high performing teams. People cooked, people washed and dried up, tea and coffee was made, shopping was done, heads were cleaned, bilges were bucketed out, engines checked, tides tracked and weather reported on with near constant regularity. Like a well-oiled machine everything was done in a calm, collaborative way with no raised voices, not too much ‘instruction’ and very little hierarchy. Just lots of banter, lots of willing and an underpinning sense of a common purpose. I would like to say (one for you there Nick)… it was amazing!
Team Tonic – Irish Jig Pt 1
I have really enjoyed my time on Tonic with these four guys. All very different, very interesting and very lovely people. It has been a brilliant experience once again, and once again it left me feeling thoroughly fulfilled. But the underlying conundrum of the reality of it – being an intense fleeting moment in time – still perplexes me (given I am yet to meet up or keep in touch with anyone from the many other trips I have been part of). What it shows, however, is what can be achieved by people and the correct mind-set. People can come together as strangers, work as a team, look after and protect each other, achieve something great in adverse conditions and do it collaboratively with regular moments of micro-leadership, excellent communication, a defined structure (seamanship and boat rules) and a common purpose, without the need for constant instruction, bossiness or ‘orders’.
Maybe Jim is right, maybe people are strange? Strange in their ability to come together for a period, no matter how temporary, to unite, bond, trust, protect, assist, lead, follow and accommodate. Or, maybe that isn’t strange at all. Maybe that is just what normal looks like.
As I move on to my next adventure – a party in Dartmouth – I know that my shipmates are off to the Guinness Storehouse. Continuing their adventure, and soon to be united with yet more temporary and transient relationships as people join and leave the boat on its round Britain trip. I can’t help but smile as I think about some of our shared experiences over the last week and the momentary bond we had. I wish them safe onward travels, and for those staying with Tonic for a further four weeks – fair weather and kind seas. I wish Simon and Nick all the very best in their Yachtmaster assessments if they choose to pursuit it to the end.
Little old me
For me, life goes back to normal Monday until my next adventure. While this trip has offered me some interesting philosophical stimulus and given me much to cogitate over, while also helping me in many ways to demonstrate Blanchard’s principles to my leadership team back at Astro, I can’t help but chuckle to myself as I recall drifting off to sleep, at 2am, in the middle of St Georges Channel with the words from Watch 1 up on deck. “Don’t just hold it, tug on it…” which I am still hoping was the mainsheet!
Farewell for now Tonic,
And thank you Elite Sailing – www.elitesailing.co.uk
All the best teammates!
Hodges. Out.