Blake by Mark Orams

Author:Mark Orams [Mark Orams]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781869794309
Publisher: Penguin Random House New Zealand
Published: 2010-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

The Lion campaign was very frustrating. The boat was an absolute pig and there was nothing we could do to make her more competitive. All we could do was to drive her as hard as possible and hope the other, faster boats in the race had a breakage or stuffed up. I was ambitious and incredibly determined, and I drove Lion and my watch as hard as I possibly could. At times I think my approach was not respected by Blake and looking back I realise we had very different personalities. My entire approach to competition and leadership was that if we worked harder, drove harder and were stronger, fitter and faster than anyone else, that was how we would succeed and win. Blakey was different in his approach. Perhaps it was a bit of the old wise head and the young bull thing. At times, he would tell me to back off, to stop pushing the boat so hard — but that was counter to everything I was and so I tended to ignore his advice and we kept the foot to the floor.

In hindsight, it is amazing that I remained as a watch-captain under Blake because we had such different approaches. I found him at times to be aloof and even arrogant and perhaps a bit soft, and I am sure he found me to be brash, over-confident and cocky. We did learn a lot in that campaign, though — it was an apprenticeship in many ways. We learned about the importance of sponsors and supporters, about the importance of getting the right boat in the first place, and I thought I learned about the type of people we needed to win. I felt we needed tough, strong, hard-driving, determined sailors who would push the yacht 24 hours a day harder and faster than anyone else. I left the Lion campaign convinced that Blake would never win and that I could do it better. I was wrong.

The 1989–90 Whitbread campaign was the most important learning experience of my career. It was my first campaign as skipper, as the leader. We had a great sponsor in Fisher and Paykel, a great boat, and I selected the tough, experienced, hard men I thought we needed to win. Blake was now my rival. He ended up with a similar boat — I still reckon he copied us — but he had a less experienced, smaller crew with a number of inshore, small-boat ‘day sailors’. I felt we had it right and Blake, once again, would finish second. The result was humbling — Blake and his team won all six legs and the race. While we were competitive and close, we couldn’t beat them.

After that race I thought long and hard about what had happened. What I realised was that Blake had beaten us not because he was a better sailor but because he was a better leader. The Steinlager 2 campaign that Blake led was successful because he put together a

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