3

Nuzulu and the Start of a Winning Team

Ed Psaltis has been sailing since he was two months old, and it's not surprising he shares his father's passion for the sport. As a six-year-old he looked up to his father as a “hero of the Hobart,” and he became immersed in the drama of it all—following races on the radio and television.

From the beginning, Ed dreamed of sailing in a real Sydney to Hobart Race, but his father forbade it until Ed turned 18. Bill had taken Ed's older brother, Charles, when he was 18, then it was Ed's turn, and finally the turn of his younger brother, Arthur. But Bill was careful never to have all three sons on board at the same time.

In Bill's accountant way of looking at things, he worried to himself: Boy, the whole family could disappear in one go. He knew too well that there is always a danger for sailors venturing into offshore waters. He was willing to take chances, but he was intent on minimizing the danger: “When conditions are good it's great, but you may have to fight it out and hope for the best.” Like a good accountant, Bill wasn't taking any chances.

In 1979 Ed finally got his first chance to do the Hobart, sailing with his father on the unsinkable Meltemi. His first race was pretty scary. Ed had heard horror stories about the Bass Strait, and he knew the race was a fairly difficult thing to do. He was excited but also apprehensive about whether he could handle it.

With the help of his father, his personal hero of the Hobart, Ed stepped up to the challenge. At the finish of the race, he walked triumphantly into the Customs House in Hobart, where he was further inspired by the walls covered with photos of the sailing greats—ocean racers who had met the Sydney to Hobart challenge and won. Ed had learned from one of the best, an excellent seaman and sailor who had shown him the way. Now it was up to him.

As he grew older, Ed crewed on a number of well-known yachts, gaining experience and confidence. He came to realize that he knew at least as much about sailing as many owners and decided it was time to strike out on his own.

In 1988, Ed bought his first boat, Chameleon. It was too light to compete offshore, but Chameleon became a regular challenger in Sydney Harbour winter series races. In the process, Ed began to hone his style of skippering a boat. He stripped the boat of weight wherever he could, floorboards included. His Spartan approach worked: Ed and his crew came from behind in the last race to clinch victory in their division.

Ed was hungry for a more competitive boat, one that could participate in the offshore main event—the Hobart. After a careful search, he found a 30-footer called Nuzulu and purchased it in partnership with Michael “Mix” Bencsik and another sailor, Peter Ward. Mix's knack for organization was perfect for managing the tangle of ropes and lines that inhabit the cockpit of a racing boat. They were another step closer to building a winning team.

The Birth of the Ramblers

Nuzulu was the picture of aggression. The boat's black and red color scheme was highlighted by Assegai spears along her sides. The distinctive spear—designed by the legendary Zulu king, Shaka—revolutionized tribal warfare in Southern Africa. It was the perfect symbol for Ed Psaltis and his determined crew. With her raked mast, Nuzulu just looked fast. And over the next five years, she was going to prove that she was.

To race in the Hobart, Ed needed a navigator. His eye caught the name of one prospect who had posted on a notice board at the Cruising Yacht Club. Bob Thomas was a commercial captain and a master mariner. He had also done two Hobarts, and that was important. But Bob had another quality that helped differentiate him from the hundreds of aspiring sailors who wanted to do the Hobart.

The deal was sealed when Ed learned that Bob was still playing competitive rugby at the age of 39. To top it off, Bob was playing in the front row. Front rowers are sometimes the butt of rugby jokes, with the reputation of being slow, unskilled, and often a bit thick. But no one doubts that front row rugby players are tough, and Ed was looking for tough as well as smart.

Bob joined the team and was impressed by what was to become Ed's signature style of preparation. They trained for two weeks around Sydney Harbour and capped their groundwork with a trip to Bird Island. It was only 90 miles to Bird Island and back, but the journey gave the team valuable experience on the boat in nighttime conditions.

Sailing in the dark is far different than a day sail, and Ed wanted to use that difference to their advantage. Limited vision, fatigue, and lack of familiarity with a boat make everything more difficult at night, so a racing crew can be exceptional in the daylight but falter when the sun goes down. Ed and his team practiced until they had achieved an intimate knowledge of everything aboard Nuzulu. Sails, fittings, lines, and hatches became as familiar in pitch blackness as they were in bright sunlight.

The crew's ability to excel in every condition, along with their unceasing attention to detail, began to emerge as a core capability of the team. And there was another essential characteristic that would distinguish the team: There were No Rock Stars.

Though Ed had numerous chances to bring in superior sailors, he refused to push a crew member off the boat to accommodate a heavy—a top sailor with rock star credentials. This policy meant that the crew would come to know each other intimately. They would learn each other's strengths, as well as their limitations. Eight years later, this knowledge would contribute to their racing success. More important, it would be essential to their survival.

Three forces converged to create a cohesive Nuzulu team. First, their bonding was undoubtedly accelerated by shared experiences in team sports, especially rugby. The fact that most were front rowers—tough guys turned sailors—was one ingredient in their esprit de corps.

Second, the No Rock Stars policy cemented their bond. Everyone who consistently showed up for practice and gave their all was assured a place on the boat. There would be no Darwinian selection process. The fundamental assumption was that every competent sailor had a spot on the team. Individually they might not be sailing rock stars, but collectively they had the potential to be a Rock Star Team.

Finally, there was Ed Psaltis. Ed was the skipper, a superb sailor, and also the team leader. He was prone to losing his temper and could get so excited in tense situations that he would forget people's names. But Ed was a skipper who understood the power of a rock-solid team, and he worked to build that foundation from the very beginning. Loyalty from both sides, owners and crew, became the unspoken norm. And while Ed exercised leadership, he also assumed the role of player-coach, taking on the toughest jobs. Ed never asked anyone to do what he wouldn't do himself.

The weather during the 1990 Hobart, the team's inaugural race, turned out to be typical for the Hobart, but the finish was atypical for most of the crew. To Bob's great surprise, the team was awarded third place in its division. His initial ambition in racing to Hobart had been to one day crew on a vessel that placed in the top twenty. Nuzulu placed fifteenth overall in the race, beating many of the more favored competitors. Bob was excited. But what he didn't know was that the team was destined for accomplishments that would exceed even his wildest dreams.

Three months later, Nuzulu was back racing again, this time in another classic Australian challenge, the Mooloolaba Race. Held along the East Coast of Australia, the race from Sydney to Mooloolaba—an aboriginal word meaning “black water snake”—is not the Hobart; nevertheless, the 469-mile course is exceptionally demanding.

Nuzulu battled its sister ship, Pemberton III, tooth and nail the whole way. After Nuzulu recovered from a disastrous first night, rarely more than a mile separated the two boats. Nuzulu crossed the line first and was proclaimed overall winner. It was a tremendous victory.

Ed would have received the trophy along with Peter Ward, except for a rather long drinking session with the skipper and crew of Pemberton III. Although absent at the awards ceremony, Ed was eventually found curled up, fast asleep, nestled next to a coconut palm at the front entry of the club. The crew was disappointed at Ed's absence. Everyone was convinced his acceptance speech would have been exceptionally entertaining.

Nuzulu went on to win another Mooloolaba in 1994, and, though the team didn't win every race, they regularly finished among the top boats in the event. Ed and his crew were developing a reputation, and they were buoyed by the confidence that came from consistent success.

It soon became clear that the ream's ability to win wasn't restricted to any particular race or any unique set of racing conditions. They were consistently placing in all the major offshore races. The somewhat esoteric race names—like Blue Water Pointscore and Short Ocean Pointscore—may seem abstract to nonsailors. But in the sailing community, Ed's standing as a talented skipper with a talented team continued to grow.

One of their proudest moments came in the 1991 Sydney to Hobart. The team had done everything right and was leading the race on handicap for quite some time. A hundred miles from the finish line, they could taste victory. All they needed to win was for Huey, the weather god, to keep smiling on them. Even a slow pace would do if the wind stayed in.

It didn't. The wind died down to nothing in Storm Bay, about 60 miles from the finish. It was their first taste of things to come when helicopters and the media swamped the boat as they reached the finish. The crew was delighted at the rousing, warm ovation from the other competitors. They had won their division and were eighth overall.

The team was on a roll, and the sky seemed to be the limit. But their real test was to come with the fiftieth Hobart. It would be their finest moment and their greatest disaster.

Rogue Wave: The Challenge That Forged a Team

The moment of truth for Nuzulu came in 1994. The fiftieth Hobart race brought out the largest number of boats in its history—371 yachts showed up for the event. Boats had come from every corner of the globe, and two start lines were needed to accommodate the mammoth fleet.

Nuzulu was one of the smallest entrants, a tiny boat in a big crowd. And there was one other twist to the race. The handicapping system had been changed entirely that year, so boat designs shifted to accommodate the new rating standard. This effectively meant that Nuzulu was in its competitive twilight. The team had a chance to perform really well, but it was also their last shot at the Tattersall's Cup on Nuzulu. This was a really big year.

There were other developments as well. Ed's brother Arthur had just come back from working in the United Kingdom and joined the crew for the first time in a long while. Arthur had been away for four years, and he felt like a bit of an outsider because the crew had scored so many successes in his absence. Though part of Arthur felt like a rookie, he also felt connected to the core team.

Years before, Ed, Arthur, and Mix had sailed for hours at a time on the Parramatta River near the Psaltis home. Ed would steer, barking out orders, with Arthur and Mix serving mostly as ballast and sobbing because they were afraid of getting wet. They got more and more adventurous, sailing to nearby islands. In their youthful imaginations, these journeys were smaller versions of the Sydney to Hobart Race. Not like the real thing, of course, but it was all preparation.

Joining the two Psaltis brothers was Ed's brother-in-law, John Whitfeld. “Jonno” was given the unenviable job of forward hand, or bowman. As the name implies, the station of the forward hand is in the very front of the boat, where waves come over the highest and hardest. In this position, Jonno was responsible for making sure sail changes went smoothly and for organizing and running the front end of the boat—most of which was underwater much of the time.

The forward hand has, by most accounts, the toughest job on an ocean racing crew. It's much like being a gymnast or a rock climber: Balance, strength, speed, and the ability to think ahead under pressure are all essential skills. Not only is the job difficult, but being a forward hand on Nuzulu was even tougher than on one of the big maxis. On a small boat, the bowman is constantly underwater and relentlessly knocked around as the boat careens through the waves.

Forward hands are carefully selected on a racing boat, and Jonno was one of the best. Not only was he nimble, he also demonstrated an unusual ability to withstand and absorb pain. Somehow, Jonno just handled whatever came his way and kept going without complaint. Among a collection of tough guys, he was one of the toughest.

Jonno's value as bowman was impossible to overstate, but one of his most important duties began after the race was over. He was the official crew exchequer, responsible for handling the communal drinking funds for the celebration in Hobart. It was a much easier job and a lot more fun than being the forward hand.

The crew was excited to be sailing out of Sydney Harbour, surrounded by a forest of white sails. It was an extraordinary sight. Nuzulu got a great start, and it looked like it was going to be a fun bash and a nice run down the Tasmanian coast. It didn't turn out that way.

They had a fairly light crossing through the Bass Strait, which was unusual. Nuzulu made it two-thirds of the way across and was one of the top boats in her division. Then a major line squall, a cigar-shaped cloud, hit Nuzulu in the late afternoon.

As they sailed into the night, the crew was constantly changing the sails to accommodate the uncertain wind. When the wind speed increased, they reefed the sails. The reef points allowed the crew to pull down the mainsail—the big sail behind the mast—effectively creating a smaller triangle exposed to the wind. When the wind slacked, they had to take out the reefing lines. On again and off again, they flogged the main as the sail snapped back and forth in the wind.

Nuzulu was well into the race, just north of Tasmania and in a very good handicap position, when things started to go seriously wrong. It happened as they sailed through the southernmost part of the Bass Strait, in a treacherous stretch of water called the Banks Strait. Named for an early British botanist, Joseph Banks, his legacy waters were known to be dangerous and, as the sailors sometimes put it, “confused.”

Nuzulu was sailing on a knife's edge with two reefs in the mainsail. The wind was blowing hard—a steady 40 knots, with higher gusts. It was a lot of wind, though not so unusual for the Hobart. As a precautionary measure, however, they decided to take down the big mainsail and replace it with a storm trysail.

The storm trysail is a small sail that, as the name implies, is intended to be used in very heavy weather. The sail is small, but the job of rigging it in strong winds is not. All hands were needed for this cumbersome task, and Arthur and Mix were called up from below to help.

Before they could get their wet-weather gear on, Arthur and Mix heard Ed call out, “Bad wave!” And it was a bad wave. The incoming tide, pushing against the southwesterly wind, had created a rogue wave. It was big, but its size wasn't the only problem. The shape was the ugly part. It went straight up about 20 feet and was covered with white water and foam at the top.

The crew could feel the boat being moved by the mass of water long before the wave hit. Down below, Arthur and Mix heard the crashing noise of the water as the wave broke over them. The wave hit Nuzulu from the side, and the boat slid down the face of the wave and nearly turned turtle—almost completely upside down. Water rushed through the open cockpit hatch. The mast was submerged, and the keel of the boat—the weighted fin designed to keep it upright—was up in the air.

Ed was steering and, because of the heavy weather, was wearing a harness for safety. But the ironically named safety harness had wrapped around the tiller used to steer the boat. Ed was trapped, drowning and wondering when and if Nuzulu would right itself. Arthur and Mix were in the water as well, stuck below and kneeling on the overhead of the cabin, which had now become the floor. Arthur's mind raced: What would happen next? Would the mast break? Would they be rolled again? Please come up, he thought, with a silent prayer.

Up on deck, Bob was in the water just like everyone else but was his usual unflappable self. Floating in the water, he estimated the angle of Nuzulu's capsize to be about 130 degrees. He remembered that the life raft was securely stored in the cockpit, where it could be retrieved in case the boat failed to right itself. Then Bob thought through what might happen next.

There were three possible scenarios. First, they could be rolled 360 degrees, and the boat could fill with water and sink. Second, the mast could be ripped out by the force of the sea, with the same result. Finally, it was possible that the sail could rip from the pressure. If this happened, the boat would recover and flip back upright.

It seemed like hours, but in a matter of minutes Nuzulu gave a shudder and chose the last of the three options. She popped right side up, though filled with lots of water. Water was everywhere, shooting down the mast and through the hatch, and showering everyone below.

Soon everyone was on deck, coughing, spluttering, and swearing. They looked around, expecting that the mast would be gone completely, but it was still in position. The outline of the sail was perfectly in place but—with the exception of the tape at the edges—there was absolutely nothing left of the brand-new sail.

All the reefing and flogging the night before had weakened the Kevlar material so much that when the wave hit, the sail simply vanished. Had it not given way, the mast would have been ripped out of its base. In theory, the boat might eventually right itself, but that could take a long time. Then the crew would have had no choice but to dive for the life raft in the cockpit and hope for rescue. In view of the alternative, losing the sail was a sacrifice but a small price to pay.

The crew took stock of their situation. Arthur commented dryly that viewing the boat from the inside while upside down was interesting. Bob surveyed the cockpit and was reassured to see the life raft securely in place. Then he realized that the knife they would have had to use to cut the restraining line was gone.

When Nuzulu capsized, the knife must have slipped out of its pouch and fallen to the bottom of the Banks Strait. If they had needed to cut the lashings, they would have had to use their teeth—and the knots holding the raft could not be undone easily. Dismissing that unpleasant thought, Bob resolved to tape the knife to the life raft casing in the future.

Then Bob looked down below. Everything was in complete shambles. Bags were scattered everywhere, and the contents of his navigation station had been emptied when Nuzulu was unceremoniously upended. Bob saw that his precious sextant—the one he used to find their position by the sun and the stars—had come out of its case and was floating around the bottom of the boat.

Their shot at the Tattersall's Cup was over, gone. A feeling of deep disappointment settled over the crew. With no spare mainsail, they knew they had no chance of winning the race. It was a harsh realization. But their mood turned quickly from disappointment to resolve.

Arthur, in particular, felt the shift. He had pulled out of two Hobarts before, and he wasn't going to make this a third. The loss of the mainsail now became a challenge. How could they finish the race? If they weren't going to quit, what could they do so that they would be able to say that they finished the fiftieth Hobart?

No one wanted to pull out of the race, but they needed a sail that would power the boat. Then Huey smiled, and the winds shifted so that they could put up their spinnaker—a sail that ballooned out in front of the boat like a parachute, pulling Nuzulu along behind. Boats were passing them that never would have under normal circumstances, but Nuzulu was still sailing.

Then the wind shifted again and started coming directly from the front—hard on the nose. They were 40 miles from Tasman Island, with 110 miles to go. Without their large triangular mainsail, Nuzulu was helpless. They zigzagged across the face of the wind, but they weren't making any ground. They couldn't go forward; they could only go sideways. They were losing ground, and, at points, they were actually sailing backward.

The puzzle of how to finish the race became more complex. They had to devise a way to get power to the back part of the boat where the mainsail used to be. They had no sail material, and it seemed hopeless. Desperate, they tried a number of jury-rigged contraptions, but the sail dynamics weren't right. Even with these concoctions, their forward speed was less than half a knot. At this rate, they would have been lucky to finish the race on the 3rd of January, and it was the 29th of December. They were patient and determined, but not that patient.

The crew tried for hours, experimenting with every contraption they could think of, but nothing worked. Arthur was persistent to the point of aggravating everyone. He kept suggesting idea after idea. Ed was discouraged. No, that won't work. No, that's no good. No, no, no. Forget about it. We're done. But Arthur kept experimenting until he came up with a solution. In the end, it was so simple. Simple, but nobody had even considered it.

They had a small sail with a series of eyelets down the front. The holes were designed for severe conditions. If the sail were to pull out of its track, the crew could lash the sail in place. It occurred to Arthur that the eyelets could be used in a different way: With short pieces of line and knots on each end, the sail could be inserted into the track that ran up the mast. It wasn't pretty, but it worked. They started sailing and were going faster. They weren't going to win the race, but they weren't going to drop out either.

It wasn't going to be easy. Every time they changed course, the wind would shift as well. It was always on their nose. It was as if Huey was testing them. In Arthur's mind, Huey was saying, I'm going to make an example out of you fellows.

Arthur would not give in. He was not going to fail the test. There were only another, maybe, twenty-four hours to go, and he resolved to stick it out. Yes, he thought, boats are passing us, but let's put that out of our minds. It doesn't matter. Just finishing the race will be great. We have to say that we finished the fiftieth Hobart race.¹

Still, it seemed so unfair. The wind kept shifting, and the more the wind changed, the more frustrated the crew became. It was tempting to give up. They were all thinking, We can be at the pub having a beer in twelve hours or we can continue the race. At this pace, it could be three days with no trophy. We don't need to do all this. We've finished other races, and we will finish future races. Why kill ourselves?

Even Ed was tired of it. He knew that there was a shortcut to Hobart—through the Schouten Passage then down into the Denison Canal. But taking the shortcut would mean dropping out of the race. Ed turned to Bob and said, “Look, I've had enough of this. I can't handle it anymore with these boats passing us. We're going to be the back end of the fleet, so let's forget it.”

Mix, standing nearby, overheard the conversation. It was his third Hobart, and he had pulled out of the first two. He wasn't about to relinquish the third. Mix stared ahead and said, “Don't even think about pulling out of this race. I won't forgive you. We have got this far and we have to finish this race. If we do, we will remember this as one of our proudest moments.”

With his unremitting resolve, Mix shook Ed out of his funk. And as hard as it was, they did keep going. This had become more than a sporting event; it was a nearly impossible psychological challenge. The team had become used to racing at the top of their game, and they had no chance of winning with their jury-rigged sail. It was demoralizing watching other boats pass them, and in the home stretch on the Derwent River things got even worse.

It was one thing to sail across the Bass Strait, where they had room to maneuver. It was another to navigate a constricted channel with limited control, trying to reach the finish line. By the time they completed the race, more than seventy boats had passed them. It was the only time in the five years of racing that Nuzulu was defeated by an equivalent boat in a major offshore race.

In spite of their poor performance, the Commodore of the yacht club in Hobart came out with his family to welcome them. Crews of other boats found them as well, and they knew what the crew of Nuzulu had accomplished. That was the victory. It was not about winning the race. It was about setting a goal and never deviating from it.

It was a defining moment in the history of the team. Though they did not win the race, they accomplished something even more important. They worked together and solved a huge problem. The experience of having finished the race using their skills and resources gave them a new sense of pride. It galvanized a spirit that the crew would need later—and upon which their survival would depend.

After the race was over, the team sat down over a drink for an intensive postmortem, reviewing everything that had happened over the last few days. Ed was feeling his age after the ordeal. He remarked, half seriously and half sarcastically, “We're getting a bit long in the tooth for a thirty-footer.” Bob laughed. He was ten years older than Ed, so a logical conclusion would be that he had been too old for Nuzulu all along.

No one argued with Ed—they were ready for a larger and more competitive boat. But what would it take to get a boat that would give them a shot at the Tattersall's Cup? Their new challenge was to find an answer to that question.