7

Sayonara—The Big Yank Tank

Larry Ellison became reacquainted with sailing relatively late in his life.¹ In 1994, Ellison was working out on a StairMaster alongside a friend, David Thompson, who casually asked Ellison if he sailed. The question got Ellison's attention. He had been an avid sailor, but had given up the sport.

Ellison first learned to sail when he came to California in the mid-60s. He took to sailing right away, and his enthusiasm led him to remark that he attended the University of California and “majored in sailing.” Ellison began with a tiny 14-foot “plastic boat,” later graduating to a 24-foot boat, and finally a 34-foot racing sloop.

Ellison also read stories about sailing. He was fascinated by people like Robin Lee Graham, who sailed his 24-foot boat, the Dove, around the world. And Ellison loved sailing enough to borrow $25,000 to purchase the 34-foot Galilee Hitchhiker. His sailing adventures ended rather abruptly, however, when his first wife, Adda, came close to going overboard during a California race.

It wasn't just that incident that created problems. Adda was so worried about the money that Ellison was spending on his sailing habit that she sought counseling to deal with her anxiety. Ellison was finally forced to sell the boat, having concluded that “eating came before sailing in Maslow's hierarchy of needs.”

All that changed when Oracle went public in 1986. The lower-order needs of safety and security had reached an entirely different level. Ellison was now rich, and he could afford to buy whatever toys he found appealing. He proudly proclaimed, “I'm now world-class at buying things. I moved from Rolex to Patek Philippe. I still have a Mercedes, a couple of them actually, plus the new BMW Z8, a McLaren F1, and a Bentley. It took me a while to learn how to spend money, but once I got started, I discovered I have a real talent for it.”²

Ellison had acquired considerable talent for buying things, but purchasing another sailboat never entered his mind until Thompson's question. Then, when the conversation turned to racing—and when his friend raised the possibility of sailing on one of the ultrafast maxi boats—everything changed. With money no longer an object, the world of sailing reentered Larry Ellison's life.

It could have been something else, of course. Ellison had contemplated buying the New York Yankees but gave up the idea because he couldn't play on the team. With sailing, it would be different. He would own the boat and he would hire the crew. And if Larry Ellison wanted to drive, nobody would tell him it was against the rules or that he wasn't qualified.

Ellison was not a person to do things halfway, and he set about using his money to buy the best of everything. He found Bruce Farr, a world-famous yacht designer in Annapolis, Maryland. He signed up Mike Cookson and Steve Wilson in New Zealand, known for their expertise with sails and rig design. Ellison found what he considered to be the best in every aspect of sailing and put his team to work building what he hoped would be the fastest maxi in the world. His new boat, Sayonara, was “designed as an all-out race boat whose only purpose was winning.”³ Ellison hired an experienced sailor, Bill Erkelens, who agreed to live in New Zealand for the six months that it would take to build this extraordinary boat. And when Sayonara was finally launched, Erkelens became Ellison's campaign manager, accompanying him on races as he got the feel of the 80-foot racing machine.

Ellison immediately set his sights on “winning” the 1995 Sydney to Hobart Race. He was not concerned about being declared the overall winner, holding the Tattersall's Cup, or having Sayonara's hull on the wall of the Cruising Yacht Club. These were things that passionate sailors with smaller boats might aspire to, but Ellison wanted to cross the finish line first. The distinction between line honors and overall winner was not an issue. If Sayonara made it to Hobart first, Ellison could forever say—without qualification—that he had won the Sydney to Hobart Race.

Sayonara did take line honors in ‘95, and the taste of victory only whetted Ellison's appetite for more. No matter that the overall winner that year was a boat from Victoria named Terra Firma—half the size of Sayonara—and that Scott Carlile and Dean Wilson had been awarded the Tattersall's Cup. Larry Ellison had been first across the line, so he had won the Sydney to Hobart Race. And he was ready to do it again in 1998.

In ‘95, Ellison was a novice and far from an accomplished helmsman. Winning line honors a second time would prove that Ellison had achieved his rightful status as a sailing heavy. It would show just how much he had improved as a driver. It would give him the ability to showcase his skills. It was the perfect chance to prove himself.

Then there was one other reward. It would also give Ellison a chance to steal the race record from Hasso Plattner, a fellow software mogul who had sailed his boat, Morning Glory, to line honors victory in 1996. Ellison and Plattner had a much less than friendly competition, as evidenced by one regatta in which Plattner was said to have saluted Sayonara by dropping his pants and displaying his posterior for all to see. Plattner later denied that the incident ever happened, but it became fodder for an ongoing feud between the two competitors.⁴

Altogether, it is easy to see why the 1998 race had such appeal to Ellison. It was a unique opportunity to demonstrate his sailing skills, to set a new race record, and—symbolically, at least—to return Plattner's backside insult. It was a win-win-win, with little downside risk.

Of course, there was the reputation of the Hobart as the Everest of offshore ocean racing. But Ellison had little concern about physical danger. Though the Hobart was a demanding race, in Ellison's view, it was “one of those events that everyone thinks is cool because it's dangerous. But it's not really a dangerous race. I mean, it's not life-threatening, it's just a hard, demanding race. You have to be reasonably fit to cope with the pounding in Bass Strait, but it's pretty unlikely you'll get hurt.”⁵

So the stage was set for Ellison's victory in the ‘98 race, but his formula for winning was incomplete. Though he felt that his skills had improved greatly, Ellison left nothing to chance. He had the best boat in the world as his platform, but he couldn't sail Sayonara by himself. He would need more than skill and Bill Erkelens. He would need a world-class team, the best that money could buy. And he found that team in New Zealand.

With his talent for spending money, Ellison hired a crew that included ten members of the New Zealand America's Cup team—the same crew that had sailed Black Magic to victory in 1995 and who took the trophy back from the Americans. Ellison was willing to pay top dollar for talent, and he was fully prepared to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to have the sailing equivalent of the New York Yankees at his command.

Ellison now had the best boat and, in his view, the best crew in the world. All he had to do was to get Sayonara to Sydney by December 26. As he did in ‘95, Ellison solved that problem with a container ship that transported the Big Yank Tank—as Australian sailors derisively nicknamed Sayonara—across the Pacific.

Poised for victory, Ellison arrived in Sydney a week before the race, accompanied by his then girlfriend, Melanie Craft. Craft did not share Ellison's confidence that the Sydney to Hobart Race was simply a demanding event that others perceived to be dangerous. There was some talk that a major storm could be brewing, and she tried—as she had done repeatedly before—to discourage Ellison from competing.

Larry Ellison brushed aside her concerns, confident that the Sydney to Hobart Race was only perceived to be dangerous and that there was nothing to worry about. He was going to do the race, and it was going to be cool. Very cool.