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ocean and create waves of over 20 feet. Waves are measured from the middle, so when you’re in the trough of a wave, the wall of water in front of you is 40 feet high,” said Goldman. Around 2 a.m. on the first night of his journey, in the pitch black of the night and 100 miles offshore, a wave hit the 40-foot Cutter Rig Sloop and knocked the mast into the water. “I was about 110 degrees from vertical,” said Goldman, who was fortunately inside the cabin when this happened. “I could see green water through all my portholes…I grabbed on and waited to see if the boat would right herself or if we were going to go fully inverted.” After 30 long seconds, the boat started to come up and was vertical once again. Turning off autopilot and double clipping himself into the safety harness, Goldman hand-steered the boat for the next 25 hours straight. LIFE AT SEA After a challenging start, a daily routine was set. Goldman got himself into a polyphasic sleep schedule, meaning he slept 30 minutes every four hours. “Believe it or not, that’s all the human
body needs. I have to say that getting up after 30 minutes of sleep at 3 a.m. is not the easiest thing to do, but I got used to it,” he said. Food was prepped and frozen before setting sail. “Eating at sea is very important. Even though I had plenty of food for my journey, I never ate that much, sometimes only an apple all day. I think I lost 15 pounds during the race. And I forgot to bring any soda — I really missed a can of Diet Coke,” recalled Goldman. By the end of his race, he would still have 50% of his food supply. Something he never could have prepared for was the loneliness of the journey. “I
TIPS FOR SOMEONE WHO IS JUST GETTING INTO SAILING: “Have fun! Don’t put any expectations on yourself. Go out in beautiful weather and in light winds. Start off slow, go out with people who know more, and read lots of books. Sailing is supposed to be fun and relaxing, not scary and stressful. Let the wind catch your mainsail, grip the tiller lightly, and head to weather. You’ll love it!” — AJ Goldman
a rainbow illuminated by the moon. I had never even heard of this before, let alone seen one. It was shades of grey and I stared at it for hours,” said Goldman. Of course another favorite memory, and happiest moment of his life, was completing the race and seeing family and friends waiting on the beach cheering him in on July 10, 2010. Goldman was the last of 15 sailors to make it to Hawaii, but winning wasn’t the goal — finishing was. NEW GOALS Goldman has his sights set on new goals — participating in a different race to challenge himself in a new way and maybe one day solo sailing around the world. “If I were to do this race again, I would sail it with more of a focus on winning, not just finishing…my competitive side would kick in and I’d want to push the board hard and try to win first overall,” he said.
trained for almost every situation imaginable, but feeling so lonely took me by surprise. I really wanted someone to interact with, but that was not possible until I finished the race,” he said. The most important part of life at sea is making sure you are taking it all in — from seeing all kinds of sea life to unexpected surprises. “One of my fondest memories was, during a night watch, I saw
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