1 SAIC LA JOLLA STORY from Interpersona ... - Interpersona Oy

pletion of the work. We watched over how the work
proceeded with daily quick meetings and if needed
transferred resources to a place behind schedule. After
we arrived in Wellington the yacht was ready to sail
in record time and the crew could leave for vacation
in high spirits, while the boat in only four days was
cleaned, serviced and almost ready to start off on the
next leg. During the last two days before take off we
could relax, enjoy Wellington’s wonderful summer and
lively supply of culture as well as watch the other crews’
last minute “busy doings”. We left off on the third leg
very well rested and in a positive atmosphere.
The spirit was high when SAIC La Jolla crossed the goal
line in Sydney.
We changed the sailing roles quite a lot after the second
leg, we wanted to share the responsibility on more
shoulders in order to make the journey more interesting
for all of us and also to ease the burden on the skipper
and hence avoid weak moments, when the setbacks
took the skipper and with him the whole crew down
to the lowest spirit levels. One of the watch chiefs was
changed to a young and during the journey enormously
developed Julian Colls, who took the new challenge in
a marvellous way and immediately gained the support
and trust of the crew. We named assistant watch chiefs
to both watch chiefs, and their tasks were to serve as
bouncing boards in tough decisions and if needed let
the watch chief take a rest under deck. The second
men also had the task to keep the watch chiefs awake
– we all have our weak moments and then it’s good to
now who is named to kick you in the but. Jim Walker,
who was transferred from his task as watch chief after
the second leg, got new roles – speed doctor & assistant
tactician. Jim took the change in a positive manner,
he was actually visibly relieved that his work as
watch chief ended and gave his full support to the new
man for the task. As speed doctor he kept an eye on
the numbers on deck and constantly searched solutions
for increasing the speed. As assistant tactician he
worked in the navigation station with the skipper and
the second skipper. There his tasks were helping and
serving as bouncing board in analysing weather reports
and information on the locations of the other yachts
as well as in making route decisions based on those
analyses. In this way Jim, who quite loudly criticized the
route decisions on the second leg, entered in the roots
of decision making. He was constantly conscious of
where we went and what we aimed at and acted very
constructively during the whole leg, both on as under
deck. As Jims counter watch we had another speed
doctor, Steve Wotton, who came out in a completely
new way since he got his own role in maintaining the
capacity of the yacht. Steve is an experienced racing
rower and of very competitive nature. In the beginning
of the race he was a complete novice as yachtsman,
but is already one of the bearing forces on foredeck
and now also a central part of the velocity of the boat.
We developed the routine processes
We made changes in the routine processes concerning
among other things the watch system, the daily crew
information and the follow-up of the results. Most of
the watches were divided into new compositions, we
wanted everyone to get a change of environment, circulate
experiences from one watch to another as well
as make the free watches more efficient by extending
the length of the night watches from four to six hours.
On the leg, which was estimated to take only a week,
we skipped the daily meetings and instead the skipper
wrote a “newsletter” for each day. In these he informed
about the current situation and the tactical plans for
the race, shortly commented on the so called domestic
matters, listed the need of technical service, transmitted
the greetings and encouragements that arrived
at the yacht and gave necessary information about
the harbour arrangements etc. in Sydney. Due to this
nobody had to give up their free watches because of
a meeting and the skipper could choose the most suitable
moment for going through matters. Each morning
before the first breakfast was served a fresh newsletter
was waiting on the table. The crew was also informed
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