Brad Van Liew
By Rich Roberts
Reprinted from The Log
There are three new women in Brad Van
Liew's life, but they're all OK with Meaghan.
One is their new daughter, Tate Magellan.
Another---despite what Lloyd's Register says about a boat
now being an "it"---is the Open 50 he'll sail past
the third, Lady Liberty, to start his second Around Alone
race from New York Harbor on Sept. 15.
Van Liew, 34, is a California YC member
and USC graduate from the west side of L.A. whose home is
now Charleston, S.C., where the Around Alone used to start.
Meantime, he and Meaghan, who doubles as business manager,
triples as publicist and now quadruples as mother, have been
splitting their prep time between Newport, R.I. and a deluxe
Manhattan Hotel courtesy of their new sponsor, Tommy Hilfiger.
Four years ago Van Liew finished third
in Class II for boats 50 feet and under. He had hoped to step
up to an Open 60 in Class I but lacked funding until Hilfiger
showed up in June, long after Van Liew had settled for refitting
the Open 50 that finished just ahead of him in 1999: Mike
Garside's Magellan Alpha.
That's right. The boat has been renamed
Tommy Hilfiger Freedom America, but its old name, highly appropriate
for the offspring of a round-the-world sailor, stuck to Brad
and Meaghan's new daughter.
"It's a name that seemed to make
sense," Van Liew said.
The race is 28,800 nautical miles with
four stops: Torbay, England; Cape Town, South Africa; Tauranga,
New Zealand; Salvador, Brazil, and finishing at Newport. A
"prologue" race will start Sept. 12 from Newport
to New York with sponsors, celebrities and media on board.
There are 14 entries from 10 countries,
seven in each class.
Van Liew is one of three Americans.
Another is veteran singlehander Bruce Schwab, 41, of Oakland,
a rigger by trade. Schwab is sailing a new but underfunded
Tom Wylie-designed Open 60, Ocean Planet. Schwab has been
openly scrambling for sponsorship.
Tim Kent, 50, of Milwaukee, also has
extensive solo sailing experience. He is sailing a 1999 Open
50 called Everest Horizontal.
The lone woman entered is Emma Richards
of the UK on the Open 60 Pindar.
Among them all, Van Liew is the veteran:
the only one of the 14 ever to finish an Around Alone.
Q: How naïve were you last time?
VL: "I was naïve in 1990 when
I tried to do it the first time. In 1998 we knew it was going
to be a huge project. We had an older boat and didn't have
a lot of dough. We were fortunate to land Balance Bar [as
a sponsor] at the last minute when we were dying a slow death.
Things are a little different this time."
Q: What have you learned?
VL: "Because the boat is so sparse
people say, 'Oh, I can't believe you live here,' and I say,
'I don't live here. My home is in Charleston. This is my office.
This is where I work.' There are a few lifestyle things I
give up. I'm going really light on the comfort stuff. The
stove is just a little Coleman with a canister of gas. There's
no toilet."
Q: Uh, no toilet?
VL: "There are a number of different
locations, depending on the weather. It's a matter of being
competitive and keeping things light. The boat is built of
pre-preg carbon and Nomex. If you spend that much money making
a boat light, why give it up with a porcelain bowl?"
Q: You sound more professional this
time.
VL: "There isn't any doubt. This
is all Meaghan and I do. At this point my life has been dedicated
to it. When I'm not racing my own boat I'm getting hired to
go race somebody else's somewhere. Now I'm kind of an expert
in the Open boat [competition], whereas before I was trying
to learn."
Q: The reason for moving the start to
New York seems obvious.
VL: "It was moved to Newport, R.I.,
then to New York after 9/11 because of the Sail America event.
They were looking for a crescendo to that weekend event. Mayor
Bloomberg approached Around Alone and asked if they'd be interested.
It was something we were all concerned about . . . making
sure it's not perceived as exploitation.
"At first I was a little nervous
about it. The whole thing starts near Ground Zero, right off
Battery Park. My impression is that New York is still more
sensitive than people thought it would be. It's intended to
be a respectful remembrance in that we're carrying a message
of adventure and progress and discovery and world unity to
the rest of the world.
"[Also], we start on 9/15. One
of the reasons the race organizers wanted to wait that long
is, OK, 9/11's over, let's get on with it."
Q: How much does your kind of program
cost?
VL: "A winning 50 program? About
2 million bucks. This is as much a team sport as a Formula
One team. We have six people that work full-time on this project."
Q: How did you connect with Tommy Hilfiger?
VL: "It was very desperate. After
dedicating so many years to trying to be a professional program,
Meaghan and I could not believe we were getting into the same
position we were in last time. We were basically broke and
couldn't afford to finish the refit. Everything was about
to come to a stop.
"Like every other sponsorship that
happens, it was somebody who knew somebody. Tommy himself
is very much in management control of the company. Nothing
happens without his approval. They thought it was neat because
their company base has always been nautically based, and their
mantra is living the American dream. We fit the company profile.
They wanted to do sailing, but they wanted to do it with a
bit of an attitude. [Hilfiger] has been on the boat, and we
have taken a lot of the upper level management out in New
York Harbor to help them understand what we're doing and why
we're doing it."
Q: Any circumnavigation seems to experience
a calamity or two. Last time a small plane crashed near you
after the restart at Auckland, and later you lost your mast
off Brazil.
VL: "My biggest concern is the
things you don't have control over: hitting a container, whacking
an iceberg. Christophe Auguin said it best when he won his
first BOC in 1992: 'This sport is 40% good team and good skipper,
40% good boat and 20% luck.'
"I feel we have a good team a good
boat and I'm as experienced as anybody in the race. Then there's
that 20%."
