Sailing a Superboat Across the Atlantic in Record Time

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(wake thundering and hissing)
- [Narrator] A few years ago,
entrepreneur Jim Clark envisioned a boat
built purely for speed.
A boat so light, so fast,
that it would shatter every record it attempted.
In 2014...
That dream became a reality,
with 100-foot monohull, Comanche.
- [Ken] It's by almost any measure
the fastest monohull in the world.
- [Narrator] With her revolutionary design,
she has since been dominating
the world of professional sailing,
blowing competitors out of the water.
Now, skipper Ken Read is on a mission
to break one of sailing's most prestigious benchmarks,
the transatlantic record.
- It's one of the holy grails of ocean-going records.
- [Narrator] A grueling journey of 2,880 nautical miles
from New York to the southern tip of England.
The crew's success depends largely
on how elite navigator, Stan Honey,
can predict, harness,
and adapt to the Atlantic's fickle weather patterns.
If broken, this record will secure Comanche's place
among the most successful racing boats in sailing history.
(slow mysterious chiming)
- Overview of Comanche is really simple.
It's, uh, Jim and Kristy Clark's dream to have
the ultimate race boat, the ultimate monohull race boat.
- [Narrator] Clark's team analyzed every aspect
of the modern monohull, then set out to build
the next iteration of racing boats,
principally designed to break open ocean records.
- [Ken] The build team that we assembled
are the best of the best.
- There was no expense spared in creating this thing.
It's either carbon or titanium.
- With the engineering structure,
with the use of carbon fiber,
with this canting keel mechanism,
this boat is literally half the weight
of a boat like this, even 10, 15 years ago.
- Ken Read, the skipper, and Jim Clark, the owner,
gave the designer a very, very clear mission,
which was to design and build the fastest possible boat
that was legal to enter into
the major ocean races around the world,
and to, ideally, set the course records for these events.
That sort of clarity of objective was, I think, critical
to the boat coming out the way it did.
- You know, it's meant to make a statement
in the sailing world, and you can just tell
by its outward appearance, it makes a statement. (laughs)
- The level of detail that they take in building these boats
then filters down throughout the whole sailing team.
- Ken is among the best sailors in the world.
He's a commentator for the America's Cup,
he's extremely knowledgeable, you know, about sailing,
and he's a great skipper.
- Ultimately, what I'm pretty good at doin'
is getting a compatible group of all-stars
from all around the globe,
that can actually handle a boat like this.
It's like a Formula One car:
You let it get away from you, it'll get away from you.
- It is a very dangerous boat.
Everybody who is onboard this boat
either has America's Cup, Volvo Ocean Race,
Grand Prix high-end racing background.
It's their career; it's their job.
- My job, specifically, is really quite easy:
I get to sail the coolest boat in the world.
I guess, as the skipper of the boat,
I'm ultimately responsible for the safety of the crew,
the big decisions, you know?
I work very closely with Stan Honey, the navigator,
on where we position ourselves in the ocean.
It's critical, because the navigator and the skipper
work together very closely.
And then where we overlap and work together,
is in the tactic area.
- The boat's a 100-foot screamin' machine,
that has been built to break every record in the world
that we can, and she's on her way to doing that.
- [Stan] Once in the water,
Comanche went straight for her competitors.
- Wild Oats is the boat to knock off,
and we're here for a reason, but there's also
three or four other really good boats in this event,
that could do the same exact thing,
so we've just gotta go out and sail well,
and let the chips fall.
- [Chris] The sheer size of it, it looks different
to any other boat out there at the moment.
(crowd cheering)
- I think it's fair to say,
we've got the fastest 100-footer in the world.
You saw what it did off the starting line
and what it did down that first run,
and we were 30 miles ahead when we broke.
We love this boat.
- [Jim] We've had good luck, racing in those races
and setting the records.
- This boat's unique,
because it's the fastest in the world. (laughs)
- [Narrator] With wind in their sails, the Comanche team
set their sights on sailing's most prestigious prize,
the transatlantic record.
- Stan Honey is a legend in our sport.
When you think of all the great navigators,
Stan is one of those guys right at the top
of the list who comes to mind.
The amount of work that he puts into it,
to make these attempts happen,
without him, it wouldn't happen.
- So, uh, the transatlantic monohull record is
probably the most prestigious sailing record of any.
- [Narrator] In 1905, the transatlantic record
was first set by the schooner, Atlantic.
It took her 12 days and four hours to cross,
a benchmark that stood for 100 years.
Since then, only four boats have improved on her record.
- [Ken] The current project we're setting out to do
is to try to set the monohull record
for the fastest transatlantic passage.
That record is currently set at
six days, 17 hours, by Mari-Cha.
- Mari-Cha did as well as any boat could do
in that tactic, where you're gonna have to use two systems
to get across the ocean.
So what we were trying to do
was to take an entirely different approach,
which nobody had ever done before in a monohull,
but take a single system all the way across.
- You know, he watches the weather, just religiously,
looking for all these small little things
that might happen.
- I had access to 11 years of historical weather data,
so I routed Comanche every six hours
for each of the last 11 years, from June through November,
and what I discovered was
that there was only two possibilities per year, on average,
where Comanche could stay ahead of a southwesterly storm
the whole way across.
- You can't take the ocean for granted.
This is man against ocean, this is man against the elements.
If I've learned anything, you start to just
get a little cocky in the ocean and it'll bite you, hard.
- [Narrator] July, 2016.
Stan Honey spots a moving low in the westerlies,
potentially favorable for an Atlantic crossing.
Within a day, the international Comanche team
is assembled in New York City, waiting for a green light.
- It was kind of a cruel turn of fate
that it turned out that the perfect weather had evolved
at a time when Kenny couldn't join us.
- For Ken, it just came at a period where
he had a prior commitment with the America's Cup,
but that's the nature of weather.
- [Narrator] If Comanche launches,
Captain Casey Smith will take the helm as skipper.
- I'll (expletive) my pants to start with. (laughs)
- But at that point, Kenny knew just how hard it is
to find these opportunities, and said,
"Okay, well, I can't make it, but you guys gotta go."
- To be able to be told that,
"Hey, you're gonna be the guy in charge,"
and I was really, really happy to be in that position
and trusted like that.
- Casey is an enormously experienced sailor,
and he was the boat captain, so he's the guy
in charge of moving the boat around between events,
so nobody knows the boat better than Casey.
- Casey in the pit, Nick Dana at the rig.
- The transatlantic was a very interesting one for us,
because we had three false starts.
You're waiting for that exact window
and you have to be ready at any moment,
so your life's pretty much on hold.
At this point, we're not that confident
that this was actually, the one.
- We are getting constant information from Stan.
- We wanna start as close as we can to the front,
but ahead of the thunderstorms,
because if the thunderstorms catch us,
you guys know what happens.
- [Nick] It felt like a bit like launch day for NASA,
where you're waitin' for that exact window,
and you have to be ready at any moment.
- [Stan] This is the...
put yourself in harm's way to try to do something
that nobody else has ever done before.
- [Casey] And then when we pushed off the dock
and started motoring out, that's when it really was like,
"Wow, we're doin' it, we're gonna go!"
Amazing.
(tense music)
- It's real, it's happening.
We positioned ourselves about a mile away
from the Ambrose Light, which gives us enough runway
to hit the start line at full speed.
We had the sail combination that we wanted to use,
we had the perfect wind, it was time to let it rip.
- [Nick] The acceleration, doing 25 knots to 30 knots,
- Honey!
Oh, this is perfect, guys.
- [Nick] Doing that jump in such a short amount of time
can often put you on your butt.
- Copy, 16:58.16.
- And we came past the Ambrose Light fully lit up.
Everyone gave a huge hoot and holler
as we went past the start line, and off we went.
(wake hissing)
(dramatic drum-heavy music)
And, it's pretty radical.
You've got all the sail area up,
you've got all the power in the world you need,
so, you know, for a start, you don't want to mess it up.
(wake hissing) (dramatic music)
- New York's there, England is there, 3,100 miles now.
We're gonna knock this bastard off.
(thunder rumbles) (wake hisses)
- [Narrator] But just as they're off,
things take a dangerous turn,
as Comanche tangles with a formidable thunder storm.
- The worst part of it,
the most dangerous part, weather-wise,
was actually the first night and that next morning.
- We started ahead of a front,
and the thunder storms preceding the front
came out earlier than expected,
and kinda gobbled us up, which was unexpected,
and you know, we definitely had to change our plan,
adapt on the go,
sail a course that we weren't expecting to sail,
and the first thing in my mind is,
"Is it over?
"Are we done?
"Are we sailing home and going on standby again?"
- [Narrator] For hours, the team battles
through the wind and waves
of the unforeseen lightning squall.
- You know, you can't control the lightning.
The lightning does what it wants to do,
and so you basically just put that out of your mind
and focus on the sailing.
You focus on what you can control.
- I thought it was over.
When the thunderstorms came, I thought it was actually over.
But luckily, we were able to find
a little narrow bit of breeze, up close to land,
and escaped.
- And we managed to just wiggle our way out of it
and, uh, keep on going.
- Well, tough morning, day two.
The thunder storms, which were brewed up
over the Central America,
came out and got us.
Now we've popped out the other side,
and we're back in the forecast winds.
- [Interviewer] Looking good?
- So we're heading east at pace.
- It's probably closer to a dive expedition.
We spend a lot of time underwater.
All of our gear is our only line of defense
from becoming totally saturated,
turning into a giant raisin.
- You've got 18 guys onboard,
and it's for 5-1/2 days,
so it's pretty tight quarters,
even though it is a 100-foot boat.
You're sharing bunks, sharing bowls,
you're sharing water bottles
for drinking and everything.
- This race we just did a simple four-on, four-off,
you know, traditional watch system.
- [Casey] That's a challenge in itself, you know,
waking up every four hours
to come on deck and do your watch.
- No, you're off the lock!
- [Casey] And then off you go again.
You might sleep for three hours out of that
when you're down, when you've eaten.
- [Nick] If you're lucky, you get your four hours off watch,
but you never miss your four hours on deck.
- When you're off watch, you gotta do everything else.
That's when you gotta do the cooking,
do the tidying up, do the eating,
and try to get some sleep.
The four hours goes by pretty darn quick.
- So, you have your helmsmen, who are...
They'll drive the boat for two hours.
You've got your trimmers of the sails,
who are basically the engine, making the boat go fast.
- So I'm one of the bright individuals
that is on the front of the boat,
that's basically taking on
a lot of the dangerous situations.
Up front, we deal with all the sails going up and down.
- [Casey] And then you've got a lot of the guys
who are required for the muscles and everything,
to pull those sails in.
- The more prestigious of the records
are set by boats where all of the sail handling
is done with human power.
- We have six grinding pedestals,
so we have to pull any sails up or trim them in.
We have 12 guys just going at it,
until, you know, the trimmer's happy or, you know, the sail's up.
- [Casey] You're working the sails, you're grinding,
you're steering, you're always sort of losing,
losing, losing, losing against the, the sleep.
- [Stan] There's no place I'd rather be,
even though, it's a terrible place in a lot of respects.
- Oh, I wish I had new boots. (laughs)
(wake hissing) (crew chatting)
- Being onboard Comanche in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean
is something that, you realize how small you are out there.
You realize that you're a speck.
Personally, I love the silence.
You know, when you're flying an airplane across
and you look down, you're never gonna see us.
It's huge.
You know, if we were to lose all communications and everything,
you'll have a hard time finding us.
- Another thing that you tend to notice early on
is how big the ocean is.
You know, if you're sailing around the world,
you can just sail for day, after day, after day, after day,
even on a really fast boat.
- You have a lot of time to think, when you're out there.
The day slows down a lot.
You're living every hour.
(water splashing)
- It's kinda cool to just disconnect,
and you're out there, in the elements,
the wind and the waves...
It's nothing like it, it's crazy.
- You have a lot of time to reflect on
everything in your life, but as well,
you have a lot of time to appreciate
where you are in the world.
All of us were
definitely captivated by the sea at that point.
- It's amazing.
- You get the clouds getting lower, and lower, and lower,
and the sky turns more and more gray,
and then you get this sort of drizzle, as it starts to rain,
and that's what we had, all the way across the ocean.
Just kind of this gray drizzle.
- Things move differently
compared to other keeled boats I've sailed on.
One minute you're doing 10 miles an hour,
and then you blink, and honestly,
you're up to 20 to 30 miles an hour.
- The thing's a weapon.
It just goes forever, and it's not a really short awesome,
but things being awesome for days on end.
(tense music)
- Okay, guys, there's ice contours we're keeping track of.
- [Narrator] Day three,
Comanche faces its greatest obstacle,
navigating through an area known to have icebergs.
- There was a very small patch of south-westerly
that we had to stay in, and that patch of wind
took us right through an area
where there was known to be ice.
(tense throbbing music)
- Couldn't see more than
100-feet in front of the boat.
Fully engulfed in fog.
You know, doing 20 knots,
100-feet isn't enough warning to avoid the ice.
- And it sounds crazy,
to have guys on deck keeping a careful watch for icebergs
when you can't even see the bow,
but a funny thing happens when you get close to an iceberg.
The icebergs are just unbelievably white
that they appear to glow.
You know, you're sailing along and the pea soup fog
suddenly gets a little bit clearer,
and then a part of the horizon looks funny,
'cause it looks like it's glowing.
- The consequence of hitting icebergs
is so severe and it's like you just
turn it out of your mind.
We just can't. You prepare for it, but if it happens, it happens.
- On the leeward side of an iceberg,
you can get these small bits of ice called growlers.
They're too small to see on radar.
You know, they're like the size of a pick-up truck.
If it hit the boat exactly wrong,
it's potential, that it could punch a big enough hole
into the boat, so that the boat could sink.
- To be fair, it's hard to sleep
when you're off watch and go down below,
because you know the other watch is going through
exactly the same thing, so it's a little bit nervous.
Not my favorite part of sailing.
I don't like it, yeah.
- That's why, when we sleep down below,
we sleep with our feet forward,
so if you stop suddenly, your feet'll take the impact,
not your head.
- Hey guys, we're out of the area
that there are known to be icebergs,
and we've got 20 minutes till we're out of the area
where there's any possibility of an iceberg.
- Yeah, right now, by the GPS
we're at 22 miles, a little over an hour to go.
- We knew we were on the pace.
We knew that the time was right.
(winches ticking)
- And a lot of transatlantic records fail
right at the finish.
Boats get within a hundred mile of the finish,
and then they stop, due to the light air.
And I knew, once we were 2/3 of the way across,
that that wasn't gonna happen,
that that low was powerful enough to push that ridge
and we were gonna have good breeze all the way in.
- [Interviewer] What are you looking for?
- Land, yeah.
We're looking for the Lizard.
Should be on the bow, about 10 miles,
can't quite see it yet.
- And the finish is off the Lizard Lighthouse
in southwest England.
- Now! (cheering)
- [Casey] Thank you very much, mate, good on ya!
(speaking in foreign language)
- Essentially, we had crushed the record.
- The goal was to improve Mari-Cha's record by a day.
We were able to improve it by one day, three hours.
We pioneered a completely new tactic,
which is the tactic of doing it in a single system.
And it was just barely possible to do that
with a boat like Comanche, and I don't think
it would have been possible
with a monohull that was any slower.
- This boat was built to do that.
It did it.
We're all very happy.
- It's such a special thing,
to be able to break this transatlantic record.
Huge thanks to the weather gods
to allow us to do it, as well,
'cause that what it really took.
- I'm happy, I'm tired! (laughs)
- I think, for everyone in the crew
it was something they're real proud of,
because these records live forever.
- [All] Hooray!
- A record like the transatlantic record
is one of the most prestigious events in all of sailing.
Even if somebody beats our record,
it'll always show that Comanche took one day, three hours
off the previous one.
(laid-back synthesized music)
(fireworks whistling and cracking)