Open 50 undergoes sex change

James Boyd caught up with leading Around Alone class two competitor Brad Van Liew

One of the joys of hanging with the Around Alone fraternity is some of the extraordinary characters you meet. At the prizegiving staged at the Imperial Hotel in Torquay prior to the restart I was sat next to a Portugese gentleman, who sounded like he came from France, but lived in Holland and who had spent 10 years as a treasure hunter in Mozambique. At the table next door, within earshot was Lady Di's mum, Countess Spencer.

Brad Van Liew, the present leader in class two is another larger than life figure. He had an endearing background as a riding child star and was the Pacific Coast Stock Horse Champion (13 years and under!) on his champion steed Maxi Check, before moving into off-road motocycling, working with the Honda team.

Professionally he is a pilot and during his time living in Los Angeles he has moved in Hollywood circles teaching Maverick himself, Tom Cruise, how to fly and action man Kurt Russell how to be a stunt pilot.

But sailing also courses through the Van Liew blood line. He is related to the Johnstone family, as in the J of J/Boats, and spent considerable time running and racing boats on the East coast of the States during his youth and college years.

Around this time the departure of the 1986 BOC Challenge captured his imagination but taking part in the singlehanded round the world race only became a reality for the race four years ago, when he fielded the inherently uncompetitive but heavily breathed on class two entry Balance Bar. At the start of that race he cannily kept quiet about his sailing background, but impressed everyone not least the two class two leader JP Mouligne and Mike Garside, sailing brand new state of the art and well funded Groupe Finot designs, by how often he nipped at their heels.

This time round Van Liew is back in the former Magellan Alpha, Mike Garside's boat which nailed him into third place four years ago.

"My motivation is entirely different," explains the burly 34 year old Californian. "Last time it was whether I could do it. Now that I’ve done it, Meg [his wife] and I had to search whether we wanted to continue with the whole thing. We decided we did but with a different goal. So the motivation this time is to win class two rather than just to go do it."

Originally Van Liew had hoped to be mounting his own Open 60 campaign and went to some lengths working with designer Alan Andrews on a concept. Unfortunately, as ever, economics got in the way.

"The entire financal and business dynamic shifted when 9/11 occurred," he says. "That was the moment we decided to refocus into class 2, where we felt we could generate the necessary sponsorship dollars and come up with a boat that could be competitive and focus on a win."

He came up with an extremely good deal with his former competitor and friend Mike Garside to acquire Magellan Alpha which he delivered from the UK to Charleston, South Carolina last autumn. He and Meaghan then moved from LA to South Carolina where he set up base camp at Charleston Shipyard working with Around Alone veteran shore crew Serge Viviand and former Team Adventure crewman Jeffrey Wargo to put the boat through a top to bottom refit.

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