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From seasickness to sailing: The lessons an ABC reporter learned onboard a Clipper yacht in the Sydney to Hobart

By Kumi Taguchi
Kumi Taguchi onboard the Clipper 70 PSP Logistics

Kumi Taguchi onboard PSP Logistics ahead of the Sydney to Hobart yacht race.

Supplied: Juerg Kaufmann

There is a Christopher Hitchens phrase that has always stuck with me and I like to keep it in the front of my mind: "It is sometimes important to write about the things that are not happening and the dogs that are not barking."

Hitchens was of course talking about the stories - the people and events that shape our world - that don't command the most attention. We tend to turn our cameras on the barking dogs - they make great pictures and their stories are often the easiest to tell.

There is no denying that there is something incredible about a 100-foot yacht. The engineering and skill required to sail it through the oceans is a symbol of the creativity and ingenuity of humans. These masterpieces seemingly defy swells and seas that have humbled the strongest of men and can race 628 nautical miles in two days.

But there is also great courage in those who take a 44-footer across the same seas, over five days, and arrive battered by the southerly that the front-runners were able to avoid. The smaller boats sit much lower on the water, so each wave that crashes over the bow completely inundates those on deck. And for those below, it is an extremely unpleasant journey.

This year, the ABC decided to embed a journalist - in this case me - on a Sydney to Hobart yacht. The idea was to give our audience an insight into life below deck and on the oceans. I was going to call a Clipper 70, PSP Logistics, my home for four to five days. My trusty yacht was built to survive the ocean - heavier but safe - and was designed to house people for months on end.

I was also expected to be an active crew member. No preferential treatment. I'd be sailing and on watch rotations, and I'd be cleaning and cooking, too. This was a call to Hitchens' non-barking dogs. Or, the way I see it, the big quiet puppy that is life below deck. Where what is normal at sea is abnormal on land, and what is different becomes the norm.


Yes, it exists and yes, it is debilitating.

There were very few of us not on some form of seasickness medication. Two of our crew were out for days, lying helpless, unable to function. The southerlies and swells and jolting and night sailing are manageable - you can have some level of control over how to move your body and what actions to take.

But once seasickness takes hold, it has you in its grasp. Even when you don't have it, you worry about getting it. And once it starts to hit you worry that it will get worse, and so begins an anxious cycle. Cooking smells and airless living below deck make it worse.

The Heads

They are no fun. There is no real privacy and there is no time or space for modesty. Multiply that discomfort by a thousand when the boat is heeling or crashing head-on into waves: you can't sit straight and you are doing all you can to stop falling off, or to prevent any waste from falling out of the bowl. And waste does spill over. And yes, it's your duty to clean it up.

It's not uncommon to see crew members cursing as they head on deck with a plastic bag of their own mess - unable to pump it properly away, and basically having to dispose of it themselves over the side.


There is no washing. You use wet wipes to "clean" yourself. But staying as clean as possible is one of the rules of the yacht and it's seen as a disservice to your fellow crew members to let your cleanliness slide too much. Having said that, it's not unusual to stay in your clothes for days on end.

One story that does the rounds is of a woman who was on a six-week leg and didn't change her leggings the whole time. Once she got to dry land, she had to soak in a bath before taking her leggings off, because the hairs on her legs had grown all the way through the fabric.


It can be deafening. Imagine 31-tonnes of metal, crashing into waves. With no suspension. When the sudden jolts come, they are frightening. Communicating while on deck when the seas are rough is a huge challenge, especially when everyone has their wet weather gear on and their mouths are covered. There's a lot of shouting.


Or rather, lack of. You really don't sleep, You doze with one hand gripping lee-cloth or a rail and if you have a top bunk, the winch on deck is just above your head, so you can hear it grinding away during every sail trim or change of direction. You hear the calls for a sail change or "ready to tack" as you dream, you wake with a start worrying whether you have missed your watch change. Sails are being hauled up from below, spinnakers are being untwisted next to you as you try to sleep, you're subconsciously aware of how fast you are travelling or whether you have hit "the doldrums".


The thought and strategy is amazing. A tack may be planned hours in advance because of a future wind change.

On such a big yacht, a lot has to be pre-planned so everyone is in position and the correct halyards or sheets are engaged. A reef may be put in half an hour before it may be needed, to guard against predicted squalls. Tonnes of force travels through each rope and hands can be ripped off if incorrect techniques are used. Or heads can be taken off if people are in the wrong place when a gibe or reef is being done. It takes four strong men to take down a sail in even semi-windy conditions. And a team to fold it up, bag it and drag it below deck.


Is your normal. Nothing is predictable and yet every possibility must be considered and catered for. On the third day, we realised we were taking on water because of a leaking ball-bearing on the rudder. On every watch after that, at least one of us was hauling up buckets, full of the salty sea, and throwing them over the stern. The automatic bilge pump only worked when the boat was relatively horizontal. We managed to keep the leak at bay, but when we arrived in Hobart we were sitting in the water at least a foot lower than identical yachts.


Silly things become incredibly funny. A few of us laughed for a whole watch and into our next one, about Tiramisu. It's one of those, "You have to have been there" kind of jokes, but you lean on these like a crutch and that spot of laughter and a shared moment, can lighten fatigue and cold like a campfire in the night. Camaraderie comes not from shared concerns about the nature of life, but by helping each other pull a sail down, or by asking if someone is feeling OK, or by deliberately saying "Tiramisu", just when someone needs a bit of a laugh.


And just when you need a big lift, nature steps in. It's incredible. You might have been on deck for a few hours, not making much progress and along comes a pod of dolphins, frolicking in the waves besides the boat. They don't need to play alongside you but they do. And just when you're all smiling, they leave as fast as they came. I saw three pods (I like to think they were the same dolphins) and each time, they showed up when we needed them most.

Or on those night watches, when it's 2:00am or 3:00am - the phosphorescence is so bright it's as if someone has lit a green light below deck and is shining it out the port holes. Green dots dancing in the waves, green dots splashing over the deck and onto your gloves.

Or an albatross, gliding effortlessly and gracefully in the same winds you're battling - a reminder perhaps that if you just let go and trust whatever comes, your path will be smoother.

Or on day 3, heading directly into the long-awaited southerly. It's the most eerie feeling, to be deliberately moving towards danger - but that was where we needed to go. And, above the dark lines of clouds, a brilliant, directed shaft of light. Right above the point we were aiming for. As if nature was saying to us: yes. this, is where you are coming to, it's going to be OK.

Or a sole turtle, lying on its back in the middle of the vast ocean. Where did it come from? How come it looks so peaceful? What is it doing? Nature provides the most wonderful, necessary moments to force us humans to shift our thoughts and change our perspective. Just when we need it.


You see it in bucket loads. Every single person is beyond tired. Bags under the eyes, physically and emotionally drained. But despite that, everyone would be up 45 minutes before their watch started - drugged with fatigue, struggling to get layers of gear on as the boat defies gravity and slams back to the seas again; getting up on deck in time to relieve their opposite watch, the night black and cold. Dragging up an alternative sail at the end of a watch, hoisting it, and changing it back five minutes later. Every part of your mind and body wants to quit but no-one says a word. The job just gets done. There is no, "I'll do it later."


There is no doubt about it, when you look up at the stars and hear the waves below your feet, you cannot help but feel connected to the adventurers and explorers who mapped our world and shaped it for us. We did our race in four days, with navigation instruments and high-tech clothing to keep us warm. To think of those who set sail, never knowing if they would ever return, in the most rudimentary vessels, is humbling and inspiring.

I am a huge advocate for giving a voice to people and stories that sometimes fall by the wayside. And those stories are everywhere. Normal people doing extraordinary things - and we can tell their stories more easily now. We are helped by advances in technology: smartphones, better data transfer and cheaper satellite phone calls. There are so many cost-effective and efficient ways to add value to our reporting. And as technology advances, so too will our ability to give the quiet voices time in the spotlight.

Apart from the life below deck, there were people on my yacht who would fill a documentary on their own. The woman who mentors displaced teenagers and runs outdoor camps for them. Or the cordial maker, who named the flavour called "Love", for his wife. Or the woman who has sold up most of her possessions to sail around the world for a year - a life change after her 12-year marriage ended. Or the young helmsman who seemed to skip lightly across the deck while the rest of us crawled - somehow, at one with the yacht. Or my skipper, who at 10 was asked what he wanted to do when he grew up. "I want to drive a big boat."

Well, how's that for a story about a dreamer. And one who steered 20 of us to safety, in what's called the toughest ocean race in the world.

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