He was 1,300 yards away from the land, and a new storm was brewing.
Wind at 30 twists and climbing.
Chop, rough, and deep.
The sky was covered in plates of weather.
Three weeks earlier, he had left the Canary Islands for Antigua, and now in the middle of the Atlantic, he was alone and scared and ready to give up. Throughout the day, he had been battling a number of qualms.
His little boat rose and fell over rocky swells as a result of waves crashing into it. He was pelted by the wind, which howled, and mist.
He tugged on a wire fastening him to a safety line to keep him from falling over and scrambled onto the board to take down the boats.
And consider that Jack Johnson and his partner Deby were recently racing their kayak in Alamitos Bay, with white sails adorning a violet sky. They adored summer championships, late afternoons on the water after function, and dinner with friends on the terrace of their yacht club.
Then tossed about like a dog’s doll, he was off course and little holding on.
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Jack had not thought of sailing single across the Atlantic, much less in a vessel he built himself.
However, in October 2020, he entered his credit card number and consented to a non-refundable loan toward a$ 10, 000 set of precut wood that would one day convert into a 191-foot yacht using adhesive, glass, and screws.
The thought had seemed absurd. Everyone was in shutdown, and COVID- 19 was spreading.
Jack had only been married for two decades when he was 47. He and Deby were building their coming, and they had family to consider. Her family had been given an Alzheimer’s diagnosis. How was he leave that and go elsewhere?
Yet she had encouraged him, because that is what they did for each other: help the best version of themselves.
When he told her about a solo race with a DIY ethos and an ocean to cross, she said,” That sounds right up your alley.”
He shared a connection with his companion Michael Moyer at first because he initially thought the competition, which is called Globe 5.80 Transat, was a little ridiculous.
They’d been friends since joining the Newport Harbor High School flying group. Moyer was always doing crazy issues. He and his wife, Anita, were genuine vagrants of the sea, sailing the earth.
Moyer embraced the concept and agreed to it. Jack agreed to help him build the ship but quickly realized he also wanted to join the contest.
He had previously believed that the text for his life had been written: go to school, find employment, live in. reverted to daily. Young and unconcerned, he saw himself dying only. Exactly ten years ago.
Deby had disproven him. Her passion opened up opportunities he always imagined. He then had a lover, four stepchildren, and a Persian cat with the name Punkin.
If his globe could change in that way, it might not be difficult to sail only across the Atlantic in a vessel the size of an F-150 pickup.
Even if it sounded mad.
Four sturdy crates arrived from North Carolina, containing 700 pieces of aquatic- quality wood cut, shaped and numbered for easy assembly. The two men spread the crossword puzzle out on the ground “like one great Ikea project,” said Jack, and got busy. They had leased a small business unit in a Santa Ana business area.
They laid out the bones and walls before the studs and planks as they worked on their specific vessels. They fastened the pieces, and as development progressed, the purchase took on the smells of wood and pine, polyester color and polycarbonate.
Moyer worked the day shift, and Jack, who had his engineering career in Fullerton, slept on his workshop, a package for a pillow, at night. He made Deby a cup of coffee as he raced residence in the evenings, a custom from their dating days.
When the ships were covered with glass, the two males began smoothing the areas for velocity. They burned through sheets of sand while wearing jumpsuits, sweatshirts, face masks, and ear gloves. They appeared to reside inside a snowglobe.
When ordering and registering their technology — GPS, motion avoidance techniques— they had to brand their vessels. The smallest keep types in the ocean-class sailboat class, Sunbear, was chosen by Miller.
For his favorite Van Halen melody, Jack chose Right Now.
Do n’t want rush’ till tomorrow
Why wait another morning?
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Their launch was delayed by nearly two years due to shipping delays, which included sails from France and sails from Sri Lanka. In October 2023, Jack and Moyer packed their ships in a shipping box and flew to , Lagos,  , in southwestern Portugal.
Before Jack left for the boathouse to complete rigging, Deby and Jack met up with pasteis de nat at a bakery.
On November 11, he rose at 4 a.m., left her sleep, and began silently transporting supplies to the ship.
Ahead of him lay the second leg of a race that may take him and four additional boats to the Canary Islands, a fairly healthy qualifier of 650 miles before they undertook the 3, 200- mile crossing of the Atlantic for Antigua in the northeast Caribbean.
The race was first conceptualized as a “poor man’s Transatlantic” in 1977. At the time, wealthy sailors and multi-million-dollar yachts were the main competitors in offshore sailing. To buck the trend, organizers designed a safe, uniform and inexpensive boat that competitors could build by themselves.
Although there was no prize, Jack was eager to see what he was capable of and refute those who had claimed he was crazy or foolhardy.
However, when he was finished loading the boat, he went back to sleep as if attempting to fend off the inevitable. All that he had worked for was now happening, and as hardened as he was to the prospect of being alone, he realized how un- alone he actually was.
Deby, his stepdaughters, and the club’s members have all worked together for the past three years to assist him in accomplishing this objective. He cried “like a 6-year-old with a skinned knee” when the time came to say goodbye to her.
He hugged and kissed Deby at the dock one last time. In a few days, she would return to California. He started phasing out his tears and moving straight to the starting line. A low fog blanketed the mouth of the harbor.
Sunbear, with its bright yellow hull, stood in front of him. In high school, he and Moyer had engaged in a fight, and Moyer had always prevailed.
Today they were up against three other boats. Lanzarote, the easternmost of the Canary Islands, was the finish line for the first leg.
Despite choppy seas off Gibraltar, the fleet made good progress with the wind at their backs. They had heard about , orcas sinking boats , in this region of the Atlantic, and Moyer even brought window cleaner, figuring the ammonia would drive them away.
Jack sagged in accordance with the rhythm of the days spent at sea.
He rose at first light, snapping through the night. Breakfast was leftovers from dinner. He researched charts and the weather before attempting to coax as much speed from his boat as possible.
Although he had previously sailed for a long distance, he had never done it alone or on a self-built boat. He hoped experience would see him through, but he also knew, as the adage goes: Life tests you first, then provides the lessons.
He would listen to podcasts to break the monotony. He would consume a tortilla filled with peanut butter and honey, and at the end of the day, he would enjoy a glass of rum and uphold a promise he made to Deby.
She asked him to take a picture of every sunset, and his phone filled with colors of the western sky, laced with clouds and distant storms.
The fleet arrived at the aptly named Marina Rubicon, a well-known launching pad for Atlantic sailors, after less than a week. Moyer, who came in second place, was first, and he was aware of his underestimating the competition.
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After a 10- day layover, the boats left for the Caribbean. Only four boats plowing down the coast of Africa, including Morocco, Western Sahara, and Mauritania, in search of the trade winds, have left one sailor who had left.
A pack of Nutter Butter cookies and a flash drive of photos and videos she had created were Jack’s birthday present that he had stowed on board and celebrated his 51st birthday three days later.
” I am so amazed at all that you have accomplished”! she included in her card.
The days were sunny and soaked in sunshine. Nights were as dark as the inside of a glove. The rainwater was brown with desert dust and blew in from the Sahara for taking showers and washing clothes.
The sailors slammed into the trade winds and began charting west after a week at a distance of 70 miles north of the Cape Verde Islands.
On Dec. 11— halfway to Antigua and in first place by almost 100 miles — Jack celebrated, opening Deby’s second gift: a small bottle of Hendrick’s gin and the requisite accompaniment of tonic.
She wrote in this card,” You are my rock and my sunshine.” You sane me and make me smile.
Longing to hear her voice, he picked up the satellite phone. She would be getting ready for work at home in the morning in California.
She yelled out, shocked to hear his voice.” Hello, I’m sorry. Was everything OK?
He calmed her.
Was calling breaking the law?
They’d be all right, he said, so long as they did n’t talk about the race or the weather.
She sat up and waited for their turn. Deby had been making the long drive to Lake Havasu alone to visit and check in with her parents, and the girls were all doing well. He asked whether she got the card that he had buried in the second drawer of her dresser. It was his gift at the halfway point. She succeeded.
” Hurrying to see you”, he had written.
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The jet stream, which is constantly shifting, has altered its course, making the trade winds closer to the equator, governs the Atlantic like the Pacific Ocean. For the sailors a patch of ocean riven by errant low-pressure fronts and violent storms like the one Jack was fighting three days later, along with the overheated water of the Atlantic .
Wind at 30 twists and climbing.
Chop, rough, and deep.
The sky was covered in plates of weather.
With the sails down, waves slamming against the hull, he scrambled onto the deck to set a sea anchor, a small device tossed overboard that would help keep the boat from rolling and swamping. However, the knot he tied fell and the anchor vanished.
He curssed himself, climbing back into the cockpit and remained on the tiller, attempting to survive the 40-mph winds. The storms the night before — and now this — had taken their toll.
“… chaos, absolute chaos… tired and wet and sick of being here and sick of sailing and just not having a great time,” he recorded in a voice-to-text log.
The sky eventually started to lighten. He had gotten through the worst of it. The winds were easing.
Jack tried to fall asleep by raising his sails, turning on the autopilot, and trying to sleep. He had a story to tell Deby, for sure, but he’d downplay it so as to not worry her, and he’d get back on track with those sunset shots.
He opened up the cabin and examined the boat for damage the following day, laid his gear in the sun to dry, and inspected the boat for damage. Although a rigging weld was cracked, it was still manageable.
He was pleased with how the boat had held up. Boats sink in offshore racing. Sailors trip overboard. Masts snap, and equipment breaks, and in this part of the Atlantic, rescue can take days.
Most of all, Jack was frustrated and concerned that he was far behind Moyer and no longer competitive with the other sailors.
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Then the ocean changed to a state as glass. The windless days were hot, and nights brought rain. Despite his preparations, Jack never anticipated boredom. Nothing plus nothing was equal to nothing. He slept more than ever.
I’m not thinking clearly, I’m not sailing quickly, and I ca n’t bring myself to care; I’m sick of it. I just want to go home, kiss Deby, and declare my love for her before going away for a while,” he said.
Three days before Christmas, he encountered a whale almost as big as his boat. He was relieved that it was n’t an orca and climbed up on the deck to take a photo. The lugubrious creature appeared next to the boat, cut across the bow, dived, and then submerged.
” … has n’t shown any real aggression but I imagine they do n’t until they do”, Jack observed.
He would look up and there it was whenever he fell below or lost himself in a task. He considered jumping in. What would it be like to swim beside a whale? It was gone after five hours.
More rain fell the following night. As he was putting on his foul- weather gear, a wave hit the boat, and he fell headfirst into a grab bar mounted in the ceiling.
Soon, the world began to spin around him. After 28 days at sea, he made a special effort to make sure he was securely clipped onto the safety line whenever he went on deck. He was dizzy and worn out.
With no wind, he drifted along, until almost a week later, his sails gently filled, and he started to fly. The wind did n’t let up as the sea was flat as the night came to an end. Antigua loomed over the horizon.
At dawn, Jack crossed the finish line in first place. In 33 days, 21 hours, and 2 minutes, he had completed 3,086 miles.
He called Deby and the Alamitos Bay clubhouse, where his friends had gathered, after which. The building echoed with their cheers.
When Moyer arrived 24 hours later in second place, Jack gave him a handshake, a hug, and a rum and Coke at the dock.
The sailors left for home with dinner at a tapas restaurant before the final celebration in Antigua was anticlimactic. Jack has been told there is a trophy but has n’t seen it.
Every Thursday night, Jack and Deby race their small dinghy in Alamitos Bay, where the wind is typically light. He has been taking her on the lengthy drive to Lake Havasu to visit her parents and still rises early each morning to brew her coffee before work.
For nearly four years, he had been focused on crossing the Atlantic in the boat built with his own hands, and he’s now wondering if it’s time to push himself in a new direction, away from sailing perhaps, like into a dance class. He is both enthralled and terrified by the idea. He acknowledges that he is a poor dancer, but Deby can give him a chance.
” So much is easy for so many of us”, he said. ” We can go out and get something if we want it. We are not challenged to do the things we find challenging in our daily lives, and as a result, the smallest things get in the way.
Still he’s trying to decide whether to continue with the race when the fleet leaves Antigua for Panama, then Tahiti and around the world next year. He would n’t have Moyer, who recently sold Sunbear, with him, and he’s put Right Now up for sale or charter as a result of his own ambivalence.
He fears that anyone will be interested, which would be fine.
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