Around the world in 954 days(Global Times)

 

Zhai Mo
By Zuo Xuan
The sea turned ash black. The wind gauge registered an unexpected squall that was gathering strength in the southern Indian Ocean.
No one to come to his rescue. No insurance. No visitor's visa. No English. He couldn't swim.
It was July 19, 2007, six months after amateur Zhai Mo had set sail on his solo circumnavigation of the planet.
Unlike experienced sailors on their way to compete in the Vendée Globe around-the-world race, Zhai was equipped with an obsolete secondhand yacht the Rizhao he had purchased by selling his own oil paintings.
In his log he wrote, "Sea elevation: seven meters. I met up with the situation I feared most: Southeast trades."
For three days and nights, the ocean tossed Rizhao in the air and seriously damaged his rigging.
Zhai tied a knife to his leg.
"In that atrocious weather and faced with the bottomless deep, I felt … I felt killing myself was a means to free myself of the fear," he wrote later.
Toward the end of the third day, the driver bit broke on the rudder of his boat.
Zhai had to insert a steel bar underwater that connected the rudder to the steering helm and hold it tight "asleep or awake".
"Otherwise, my boat would have gone round and round in circles.
The storm lasted seven straight days and nights, veering Zhai's yacht 360 nautical miles (about 667 kilometers) south of his planned westward route across the ocean from Jakarta, Indonesia to the Cape of Good Hope, South Africa.
He arrived at an island that he later learned was Diego Garcia, a military base set up by the United Kingdom and the United States.
"I was so happy to see human beings after days of drifting in the sea alone – even though they pointed at me with guns," Zhai said.
"At first the American soldiers offered me two penalties to choose from for my intrusion: to be fined or to be detained. I joyfully picked the latter so that I could have a good rest on land."
After several rounds of interrogation and identity checks, the soldiers fixed his ruined helm and ordered Zhai to leave immediately.
Zhai returned to his route, passing by Mozambique to South Africa, and then on across the Atlantic Ocean to Panama, Mexico, Hawaii, Guam and the Philippines. On January 2009, the 41-year-old arrived in Sanya on the southern tip of the island of Hainan.
Seven months later, he returned to the port of Rizhao in Shandong Province, the first Chinese known to have successfully completed a single-handed circuit of the globe.

 

Zhai Mo left the port of Rizhao on January 6, 2007, and returned on August 16 last year. His secondhand yacht Rizhao is named after the prefecture-level city in southeastern Shandong Province.
Arctic & Antarctic
It might seem a somewhat insignificant achievement to professional sailors or people from traditional sailing superpowers: American Joshua Slocum was the first to complete a solo circumnavigation in 1898 and Poland's Krystyna Chojnowska- Liskievicz made it in 1978. Britain's Ellen MacArthur even set a women's around-the-world record of just 71 days in 2005.
But in a country without much sailing tradition in its modern history, Zhai's expedition is notable. Sitting in his newly-furnished office on Changan Avenue of Beijing, the 1.8-meter(six foot) native of Tai'an in Shandong Province laid out his next plan: to sail around Antarctica and the Arctic.
"To go around Antarctica is relatively easy. But no one has made it around the Arctic," Zhai said.
"If I can cover the three circuits, I will become a world champion in solo sailing."
"In sports, people only hoist flags for the gold medalist. And only the gold medalist has the bragging rights.
"I hope China has that right after I finish the sailing."
Alongside his individual initiative, his sailing club is organizing a nationwide TV show mobile phone vote for the best sailor in China. The activity, supported by the Ministry of Transport, will send selected members to retrace Zhai's circuit of the world late this year.
As the youngest son of a miners' family from Tai'an, a prefecture-level city by Mount Tai in western Shandong Province, Zhai knew more about craggy peaks than winsome waves when he was growing up. He started oil painting at 17.
In 2000, he did "quite well" selling work at an art show in New Zealand. During the show he met a captain who had sailed around the world. Zhai found he was instantly fascinated by the freedom.
"As soon as I bought my first boat I started daydreaming all day long," Zhai laughed. "I rolled out the map and asked myself where I wanted to go. Then I just went for it with my boat."
Of all transport modes the freest is the sea, he said. Zhai's enthusiasm for nautical adventure has apparently not yet resonated with Chinese society.
Zhai in 2003 sailed along the coastline of East China, trying to get sponsorship for his circumnavigation. He failed.

Zhai Mo lands at Diego Garcia on July 25, 2007. Diego Garcia is a controversial military base set up by the United Kingdom and the United States.
"Chinese entrepreneurs overestimated the risks," he said. "They asked me what if they became sponsor and my boat sank in the middle of the sea.
"You see, they considered first the negative impact on their brands if my voyage broke off, not the spirit of adventure embodied in the whole process.
"That's a big difference between Chinese and Western enterprise cultures."
Not even his family members understood and supported his voyage.
"We had thought he bought a boat to catch fish in the ocean," said Zhai's order brother Zhai Hongchang, who works for a mining company in his hometown.
"But when we knew he indeed was going to sail around the world, we objected to the idea for his own safety."
According to Zhai's brother, a man in his late 30s should be having a wife and starting a family, not gallivanting around the globe.
"I know my younger brother," Zhai Hongchang said. "Once he has made up his mind, no one can pull him back.
"So all I could do was to switch my mobile phone on 24 hours a day, seven days a week in case he called me for help."
Zhai sniffs at such conservative ideas. In fact, he regards lack of ocean awareness and bias against the sea as key causes of China's nautical backwardness.
"These views are incorrect," Zhai said. "If you have the necessary knowledge of monsoons and ocean currents, you will know that the water is the safest transport in the world."
Wu Yuzhu, a sailing coach at a club in Qingdao that hosted Olympics sailing, said Zhai's voyage boosted his students.
"If an amateur can make it, the younger kids have an even better chance."
Back from his voyages, Zhai said he became ultra sensitive to weather, especially the wind.
"When the wind is blowing on my face I can tell you its speed immediately," he said.
He still carries a skin disease he picked up in all the seawater. Some-times at night, he confessed, he awoke himself with his own crying.
Asked if he had ever felt afraid again after completing his daring adventure, Zhai quoted an old Chinese saying: "Once on shore, one prays no more."
Xu Pingting contributed to the story.

What do Chinese have against the sea?
 Modern China is not junior to Western countries in terms of human resources, application and technology in marine competition, said Yang Guozhen, a professor of marine history at Xiamen University.
"But our seafaring is behind by more than a century. Why? It's mainly because of objective conditions. Starting in the late Qing Dynasty (1644-1911), there was a loss of naval supremacy, frequent wars and corrupt governance. It was quite impossible for Chinese to sail around the globe.
"European civilization has its origins in Greek and Roman civilizations. Greece and Rome, both bordering the Mediterranean Sea, rose on the basis of convenient traffic and trade provided by the sea. Therefore Europeans have been attached to the sea since then.
"Whereas looking at China, the Pacific Ocean we face does not have the same high economic and military value as the Mediterranean Sea."
The ocean – "too vast to cross" – was a stumbling block rather than a stepping-stone, argued Xiong Feijun, an independent cultural scholar, in his blog. "Therefore Chinese civilization inevitably turned inward toward the continent."
A professor and ex-captain of the Navigation School of Dalian Maritime University said cultural background was an important factor.
"Many Westerners like adventure and therefore seafaring is quite popular with them," Hong Biguang said.
"While in China, the spirit of adventure is less emphasized and so the foundation for nautical seafaring is quite weak.
"For example in the West, captains are respected but in China few people know much about that line of work."
 

Source：Unknown | Author：Karen | There People read | Time：2011-04-14 16:59

^Top