We are conducting a series of interviews with some virtual skippers during this grueling leg to Rio. Today, we have been discussing via email with a barefoot boy skippered by Richard Bohn: Hello Richard and welcome to the virtual interview's room. Firstly, congratulation on making it this far in this grueling fifth leg of the Virtual Volvo Ocean Race. How is the boat? And the skipper? When did you start playing with us and what were your results in the previous legs?
I love this boat Sebastien, it reminds me of an ancient Porsche I used to own before my divorce. A vehicle of transportation ... of ... 'movement' ... carries more then our body, spouse , kids , groceries and the family dog. A vehicle also embodies our sense of independence, our sense of individuality and freedom. In a word a vehicle also carries our ...... imagination. So it is in this way .. down below .. a barefoot boy ... carries my full cargo of dreams.
You ask, "... and the skipper ? "
Well ...I must come clean with you. The captain has fallen into another deep trough of ... ' virtual seasickness '. Peering into the mirror he sees two red dusk moons. He has become ' fogbound ' ... bereft of any mammalian intelligence. No longer cooking complete meals with green vegetables for himself . Only the clutter of discarded yogurt cups ( French vanilla ) , green Pelligrino empties and dozens of kalamata olive pits overflow the untended waste basket under his desk. His keyboard is sticky with bran muffin memory and when he logs in the keys make crispy, crackle sounds due to the microscopic shards of potato chips , fallen from the tips of his weary fingers.
Yes. I am disoriented and feel like a character in a film directed by Kafka. When I go to the store for bread and cheese I feel as though I were emerging into the light from out of a clinical study of sleep deprivation.
Let me clear ... I don't consider myself a pussy .. but .. sh*t .. Sebastien ... it's a long, tough, slow slog out here with eyes constantly pelleted by pixels ... !
I joined the Volvo Ocean Race only a couple hours after the fleet left Cape Town for the start of Leg 2 ... having found my way there from mistakenly clicking on a link..
My Legs have not been spectacular feats of sailing prowess ... although coming into Singapore on the last day of Leg 3 I was well placed ( for me being, somewhere under 3,000th ) when I went to bed yet woke to a ship run aground , eventually finishing at 7,874 th.
The 4th Leg I was doing very well yet mid race I entered delirium from lack of sleep and on impulse turned the boat south for Tonga with the desire to visit ancestral waters ( My grandmother was Tongan so I have always and forever felt I was an island boy with sea water in my veins. That is how I stopped smoking ... by visualizing microscopic, dolphin families in my blood stream grounding themselves on the beaches of my liver. ) staggered to bed and instantly fell into involuntary coma.
SD: >From a race point of view - How are you going in this leg? Are you happy with the way you have sailed so far? Do you feel you’ve made some errors and what would they be? What was the toughest moment for you during this leg ?
This leg I christened two new boats, Old Oolong and Han Shan. My plan was to clear the Friend List of all but a hand full of winners from previous legs and to allow each boat to follow and stay close to them. How can we not all admire the skill of Aldabra, Ariadna, and other many fine master sailors who we share the sea with. I was content to follow in their wake in order to better understand sailing. New Frontier had caught my eye early on in previous legs with his eclectic and purpose full and individual ... 'style'.
Well .. trying to follow these magnificent sailors required even more time and effort in front of the monitor and even less sleep then I was getting before. It was not long before I overslept my alarm clock and found my self left bobbing merrily along alone with not even an albatross to sit atop the mast.
My mistakes ? Not learning true and proper navigation. I usually bring up the big screen and use a transparent plastic straight edge to plot a course. I am also vulnerable to moments of poor and hasty judgement coupled with constant narcissistic ideation. Oh baby Jesus ... errors .. ? .... poor judgement ... narcissistic ideation ...
SD: How many hours a days are you spending on the game? Are you using outside sources of weather forecasts and which ones? What is the current weather situation for and your own analysis to reach Cap Horn/Rio?
I spend far too many hours peering into my monitor. I have real concern whether I any longer possess the ability to feed ,clothe and roof myself. Hours per day .. hmmmm ... at least 6 to 8 thoughout each 24 hour period. Really .. I bring up three different browsers .. one for each boat ... and rarely log off. I use Ugrib as a handy trance inducer. I really like to animate it.
SD: What are the main improvements you'd like to see in this game?
Better cartographic labeling. I really do enjoy learning the geography. To have the names of islands, seas and straits, hot linked to Wikipedia entries would be wonderful, and would be especially helpful for the many school classrooms around the world that may be sailing. Perhaps a toggle that would allow us to overlay with Google Earth if we wished.
The insertion of a Google translator box in the message box would be very handy . I wish the messages would stick around a bit longer and not disappear so quickly.
Your hot linked pop up Sebastien, is an interesting addition. Perhaps it could be an extra add on that could be turned on or off by yourself or other players.
The 3D tracking program of the 'real' Volvo race is fantastic. Could it be adapted to VORG ?
SD: A little bit about you now: Your Age? Where do you leave? What is your Profession? How’s the family/entourage feels about your involvement in this race?
I will turn 64 on June 27 of this year, the very day the Volvo Ocean Race concludes in St. Petersburg.
I live along a river flowing out of Canada near the Washington- Idaho border region of the Pacific northwest coast of America.
My family has been anxious yet supportive. My daughter Auria who lives in Dublin sails the ... Marana .. and my friends Sherry and Stefano sail ... Flying Shams .. and .. La Candela ... , respectively. It is great good fun to share the adventure.
Over the past 20 years I have made my living making art. I paint with black soot ink on thin sheets of mullberry paper , using bamboo handled brushes holding hair plucked from wild, Tibetan ponies. My style is in the manner of those Buddhist and Taoist recluse's who lived forgotten deep in the mountains of China and Japan. A styhle which was last popular during the late 1700's.
I also form terra cotta heartrs which I bludgeon .. ( well perhaps that is too harsh a term when really it is more a tap done with the grace of a Tel Aviv diamond cutter ). I break these hearts with a venerable, wooden meat mallet which I call .. " Mama Mia ". After breaking , I gather up the shards and submit them to the further fire of experience .. and when they cool .. I 'mend' them whole and healed by using the white glue most favored by archaeologists. I have broken over 700 hearts and ' healed ' them as well. Michelle Obama gave one to our new President.
SD: Are you a sailor? Casual or racer? And what is your sailing resume? Real and virtual?
I lived for a decade on the pine lined shores of a North Idaho lake ... and where I moored a humble yet eager Coronado Capri 15. She was the enchanted flying carpet on which I taught myself to sail with book, life jacket and prayer. I sailed near everyday from the plum blossom bloom of April til the November fall of snow petals ... still .. I have never been blessed with time upon the sea in a real sailboat.
SD: Anything else you would like to add to wrap up this interview? An anecdote about what you might have experienced throughout this journey maybe? The relationship you might have with a player(s)?
I had tried to get the form of what I was feeling for weeks here in this oceanic world of the mind and yet it is sad for me to say it took the tragic death of our fellow voyageur, Ameera, to concentrate my perceptions and solidify my feelings. I didn't know him. Nor had I ever sailed alongside his ship or heard her name. But when I saw his little boat sailing on alone without the spirit of her captain at the helm , I knew he was just like me.
At the time of Ameera's passing we were early in our entry to the Pacific Ocean, consequently our screen opened to a wide vast vista of... deep blue ... Emptiness. I remember feeling a little, anxious too as I looked down on the scene ... a bit ... wooozie wooo ..... seeing my little boat bobbing upon all that spacious wateriness. I wondered how far down it was to the bottom of the sea beneath my boat ... and tried hard not to imagine .. what was down there.
When I learned of Ameera's sudden death I entered his name in our search function and waited as the ' Big Eye ' of search swooped around looking for him .. find him ... then slowly glide down like a great sea bird to hover over his boat.
I made him friend.
And then I pulled back to gain higher altitude. I wanted to see where he was in relation to my boat.
This was for me ... the moment the virtual became real.
I knew the little green and red lights suspended in all that blue sea below my gaze were both friends and strangers but they were more ... they were .. us .. and they were all alight with life.
There we were .. each of us ... full hearteded in our engagement of The Journey. Hero's and heroine's subject to Nature's wont to be blown ... or not .. by the breath of God. Each Captain pondering force and consequence and in this moment I recognized the importance of this virtual world of ours.
There is no boundry here.
Only the boundries we set around ourselves.
There is no nationalism here.
Only a healthy respect and appreciation for the beauty and value of each culture.
There is here .. the natural inherent and healthy pride of being human and of the recognition that this earth is ours and does not belong to governments or international corporations.
New Frontier's, Captain Jan was one of the first to extend his warm and welcome hand just after we made passage near to one another through the Ryukyu Islands . It was Jan who introduced me the world of Groups..
Liberation Tigers.
I love the name.
To fight like a Tiger for what is good and true for the benefit of all.
Inspired by Creative HeART's skipper Danny. A group whose credo embodies the heart of this virtual world.
MultiKulti founded by the captain of the .. aididit.
Devoted to multicultural exchange including myriad reciepes for calamari.
In the end .. the future is here and now within this virtual world.
I have babble far too long and want to close with these words from the eminent Swiss psychiatrist , Carl G. Jung .... " In the end , the opus ... is the imagination ".
SD: Thank you for sharing these thoughts with us and I do apologies in advance if this interview brings you a flood of boat messages. We are looking forward to follow your boat as the journey continues.
