The Ocean Globe Race lasted over seven months. Tapio Lehtinen and his crew reached the finish line early on Thursday.
Dreams were still short when the sailor Tapio Lehtinen shared his feelings by phone on Thursday afternoon after finishing the Ocean Globe Race.
The Galiana WithSecure boat, skippered by Lehtinen, arrived in Cowes, England on Wednesday at 0:12 local time, i.e. early Thursday at 2:12 a.m. Finnish time. There were revelers with bottles of sparkling wine on the pier and there was no rush to rest.
“It was a thorough party. We went to the classic sailors place, the Union Inn pub. There was a lot of people sitting there in the evening. In the bar until the end of the day, and then instead of sleeping came the news that the French race partner Evrika was coming to the finish line. The whole group spilled onto the pontoon to receive the next one,” says Lehtinen.
Leaflet the boat crew set out with 12 members on September 10 from Southampton. Along the way, two participants decided to leave the journey.
He was the first to leave Juho Sattanen in Cape Town. Sattanen said in an interview that he suffered from homesickness after leaving.
“Juho’s departure was due to non-sailing-related matters outside the boat, which I will not comment on in more detail, as he himself has not told about them publicly,” says Lehtinen.
Read more: Juho Sattanen went sailing around the world, then something happened – “We broke up as friends”
The last to leave was Lassi Liimatainen, which left Punta del Este. Liimatainen appealed to conflicts of values.
“In Punta, it became obvious that my and Tapio’s ideas about managing people and communicating were too far apart,” said Liimatainen.
Liimatainen’s views have also reached Lehtinen during the competition.
“There is really nothing else to comment on. I started the project with the idea that I want to offer Finnish sailors an opportunity. I am a demanding skipper. Among the ten who sailed to the end, we reached the finish line with a smile on our faces,” says Lehtinen.
Lehtinen says he was satisfied with Liimatainen. When Sattanen left, Liimatainen took his place as watch chief. Lehtinen says that Liimatainen performed the task excellently. According to him, there was no push from the boat.
“I am very sure that our boat had the lowest turnover among the 14 competing teams. We were the only boat crew that reached the finish line so that everyone who sailed to the finish line had been involved in every leg. Lassi talked about values, but it can be a matter of taste whether we talk about values or personal chemistry: It was disappointing that Lassi missed out,” says Lehtinen.
Read more: Already another sailor left Tapio Lehtinen’s boat in the middle of the trip – “There was a conflict of values”
Leaflet the fourth and last stage of the race was challenging for the boat crew, when the headwinds got tough, while the bigger boats got to the downwind and finished in a flurry.
“We left on the treadmill to sweat in a tearful mood. I am proud of the young team. Many others could have slammed their paintbrushes into the sand and had a tantrum. The atmosphere, the amount of laughter and smiles did not decrease. The level of jokes went down, if possible,” Lehtinen describes the end.
Lehtinen reminds that, for example, you have to remember to take care of safety until the end, even if the finish is getting closer and you feel like taking it a little more relaxed.
“That was the central message of the last team meeting. You have to avoid the ‘just a little bit left’ attitude towards the end of the int, even if you feel you know how. It’s safer to set the hook as soon as the conditions even slightly require it.”
The crew celebrating reaching the finish line.
To the competition the participating group learned a hard lesson from a tight situation last summer, when the mast broke in the middle of the race, where they were training for the Ocean Globe Race. That’s when almost the entire group got seasick and vomited at the same time as the fatigue started to hit at the end of a long day.
Similar situations did not occur in the Ocean Globe Race. Technical concerns shined through their absence throughout the more than seven-month contract.
But other kinds of problems were not avoided in the same regions where the mast broke last summer.
“Now the wind calmed down completely and the tidal currents were strong. We had to lower the anchor to the bottom with a 150-meter rope so that we don’t sink back into the Atlantic”; Lehtinen tells.
“That place is near Weymouth, where the 2012 London Olympics sailing was contested. Both my children Silja and Lauri were doing well then. Daddy has bad karma in the same waters.”
Lehtinen has also sailed around the world alone. Now there was a crew. With that, the whole job was completely different.
According to Lehtinen, there are similarities in that you have to try to get around the problems. When you’re alone, it’s even more pronounced.
In a group, the atmosphere is definitely different than when sailing alone.
“It’s different to be alone with albatrosses than twelve or ten people in a space that doesn’t even have the square footage of a student dormitory and we’re together 24 hours a day, seven days a week. There is nothing more intense than that.”