“My relationship with the boat is definitely a love, hate relationship,” says John John Florence.
BeachGrit readers will have followed, some with breath bated, others with fingernails bitten entirely to the quick, the voyage of John John Florence and his brothers, Nathan and Ivan, as they attempted to cross the Pacific in their little catamaran Vela neé Falcon.
Initial reports by media outlets suggested the trio were headed from Vanuatu to their home in Haleiwa, Oahu, a treacherous three thousand nautical mile voyage to the north-east.
Many risks were forecasted en route, including medical emergencies (five days away from a hozzy), crew fatigue (one bad decision, capsize), equipment failure, sudden wind gusts (cats flip if caught broadside with full sail) and so on.
Surf fans gripped anything close to hand as thoughts and prayers were transmitted to the lonely boat somewhere out there in the big blue.
John John Florence’s Epic Yacht Journey
And earlier today, prayers and positive affirmations were answered when the Vela made landfall on Queensland’s Gold Coast, Australia’s version of Fort Lauderdale let’s be frank, loose women, looser men and a vacuum of existential angst, a paradise to be sure.
“Made it to land!” John John Florence told his two million fans. “1311 miles. 9.2 mph average. Five days twenty three hours. Was a great closing, didn’t break anything. Lots of different weather. Lots of sail changes but overall great. And a great crew.”
John John Florence bought the 48-foot gunboat Falcor, renaming it Vela, from the snowboarder Travis Rice shortly after declaring, “My ultimate goal with sailing is to be able to travel fast, cover long distances, and go surfing. I want to combine the two.”
Vela ain’t no dinghy. It has three “queen berths” (everyone’s a queen at sea), one thousand feet of sail area and a main saloon where all sorts of naughty and dangerous activities often take place at sea.
Not quite rum, buggery and the lash, the three pillars of the British imperial navy, but one never knows these things. Loneliness and freedom from the strictures of societal norms can produce more fruit than even the most bountiful harvest on land.
“My relationship with the boat is definitely a love, hate relationship,” John John Florence said. “Sometimes I’m like, this is the most amazing thing ever. Look at it. We’re sailing at 15 knots and it’s beautiful and everything feels great. And then the next moment something breaks and I’m like, this is the worst. I hate this. I don’t know why we’re doing this. Why do I put myself through this stress? I’m selling the boat. When we get to Fiji, I’m selling the boat, we’re done.”
That was two years ago and as every boat owner soon becomes acutely aware, these things ain’t easy to sell and a boat with a million three price tag swinging off its mast ain’t goin’ anywhere fast. Just keepin’ that thing in shape and in the water is fifty or a hundred gees a year.
Your old, real old, pal DR, knows. I threw a couple of hundred and two years of my life into the boating dream, not so quickly realising that without at least one applicable skill, diesel engineering, shipwright, a Master 5 ticket, I’d be turned into a walking ATM for every spiv, scammer and hoodlum in the biz. A twenty-gee fit-out became one hundred, to change a throttle cable on New Year’s Eve, a thousand bucks etc etc and etc.
And that was before getting that thing out of the water and on a slip for repairs.
Happiest day was cashing that thing in and taking the biggest loss of my entrepreneurial career.
Don’t they say the two happiest days of a boat owner’s life are the day you buy it and the day you sell it..?
“Loneliness and freedom from the strictures of societal norms can produce more fruit than even the most bountiful harvest on land.”
Grapes of Wrath-level Dez.
So Nate changed his name to borjamelga?
Break
Out
Another
Thousand
Imagine hating a multimillion dollar catamaran you can completely afford to own
I can totally imagine. My cousin is really into sailing. Got brought on board a time or two. Lured in by the romantic notion of pacifico’s on the deck while the sun sets. Needed me to add weight to the rails when going down wind. Switching from starboard to port with a beer in hand sucks. Changed a sail or two. Got yelled at a lot. Almost had a boom take my head off. Fuck that. Give me a yacht with staff.
They don’t call it a Boom for nuthin.
A lot of shouting goes down on boats. Fishing, sailing, on all kinds of boats shit can happen fast, and gets urgent. Don’t take it personally. And captains can tend to be heavy handed and very foul mouthed when at the helm of their craft.
I’ve started crewing on a boat with a bunch of old boys. First day, asked them what the plan was, what I should focus on, where I station myself. They said it was all pretty casual and it’d figure itself out. Start horn went and they just started screaming at me.
That’s awesome love to hear their side..
That was upwind, Sean, you Sausage. One need not man the gunwales off the wind, unless you were on a very tight reach. Hoist the Gary!
As the old joke goes, “A boat owner has two happy days in his life: the day he buys his boat and the day he SELLS his boat”.
Closest I’ve ever been to owning one, was motorboating a large-asseted GF at age 20.
What have been the top 5 losses DR?
Just as a mild counter- my son has made a tidy little small biz out of buying clapped out tinny’s for fukall, doing them up a bit and onselling for a tidy profit.
As in the boat? Or biz’s in general? If in general, boat biz only loss, but a big one. In life, divorce, but a new appreciation for the importance of money ain’t a bad lesson.
2 losses pretty good record.
Trying to avoid a third right now. How’s your win-loss record?
Just the standard L’s- no big W”s except for the good fortune to be born in a time and place when you could live a life like mine without being born into money.
Boat = a hole in the water that you throw money into
I agree. That’s why my Pelican Catch Mode 110 fishing kayak with a 36lb transom motor is perfect for getting north of Gaviota this season.