Who Are Those Guys ?

by Marcia Peck

The Singlehanders: Peter Hogg

I’ve been asking why single-handers do it. Can you believe, Peter became a singlehanded sailor because he didn’t want to have to find a woman’s purse! This isn’t exactly the whole truth, but it sounds like a good story, doesn’t it? More about this later.

Peter Hogg’s sailing accomplishments read like the Guinness Book of Records. In fact, he is in the Guinness Book, several times! However, his life did not begin in this direction.

Born in the beautiful seaport of Wellington, New Zealand, Peter never sailed. Instead, he started playing rugby at the age of five and played competitively for thirty seasons. He was soooooo good, he went to graduate school at Stanford and was on the #1 ranked team in the United States. Finally, at the ripe old age of 30, he discovered sailing in the Bay Area. He crewed on a Lapworth 36, owned by CYC member, Don Jacobs, and other boats. After racing for ten years, he helped deliver Freya, a three time Sydney-Hobart winner, to the Caribbean. The crew thought 120 miles a day was good. Peter thought it was really slow. Thus, began his search for a record-breaking boat.

Dick Newick was a designer out of Martha’s Vineyard. Peter couldn’t get a boat design out of Newick, unless he proved himself with a big catamaran win. He did, and Newick designed his first “cat” Tainui. Peter had mixed results in his first attempts on this boat. But he successfully completed three Singlehanded Transpacs with her.

The last time she sailed he was double-handing with his partner, Shama Kota, in the Windjammers Race to Santa Cruz. Unfortunately, they hit a whale. When the whale dived, his tail cut the boat in half. Shama said to Peter, “What do we do now?” Peter replied, “I think we need to build another boat.” Shama answered very loudly, “no—NOW, NOW!” Peter got on the radio and called for help. In very heavy seas, another racer finally came to their aid. Getting aboard was going to be very dangerous.

Peter put Shama in his giant orange survival suit and strapped her in the inflatable dinghy. He was just about to start lining her over to the other boat, when she said, “I forgot my purse!” Peter dutifully went below and found her purse. He tied it on her belly, and as he tells it, “she looked like an otter with a rock” as she went floating off in the dingy toward the other boat.

Peter then hooked up with designer, Jim Antrim. This partnership produced Aotea, his 40’ trimaran. She was sporting the mast from Tainui, all that was left of the whale collision disaster. On Aotea, he continued his assault on the single-handed records. In 1992, he broke the record from San Francisco to Japan, and then the single-handed TransPac multihull record in 1994, almost eclipsing Merlin’s record. In 1995, he lost Aotea in the Double-handed Farallones race, finding her remains fifteen months later in Micronesia, after she had sailed across the Pacific alone, upside down!

The loss of Aotea created the situation to sail with world adventurer, Steve Fossett. Peter was famous enough by now to get the man’s attention. Peter joined Steve’s team and they immediately broke the Honolulu to Tokyo, and Tokyo to San Francisco records on Lakota. Subsequently they broke the San Francisco to Tokyo record on Lakota. On Stars & Stripes they broke the Newport to Ensenada, Swiftsure, and Chicago to Mackinack records, among others.

Then came Playstation, a one-off, custom 125’ x 60’ wide cat! They launched her in December of 1998. They immediately got the 24-hour distance record of 582 miles. Then the boat caught fire, and a series of bad luck events occurred. As of this writing, they will be leaving to attempt to break the transatlantic record from New York to England.

Peter said, “the reason I singlehand is for the challenge, the success or failure that is solely yours. I enjoy the quiet, and the solitude.”

When I asked what’s next, he replied, “land sailing in the Black Rock desert of Nevada”. To break the land sailing speed record, naturally.

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