Key Players: Pitman

Thursday 14 May 2009 13:00 GMT

Orchestrator, choreographer and conductor, there is just one sound that the pitman never wants to hear and that is the sound of silence.

Not the silence of the boat, nor a lack of acknowledgement of instructions given and received, but the sound of the engine cutting out just as he is about to co-ordinate all the moves necessary to swing the boat on to a new course.

No engine means no power, and a big drain on the batteries as that keel is swung from one side to the other. Too much of that can lead to catastrophe.

These days there are new ways of improving crew communications. Experiments continue with microphone links, though salt water and micro-technology are unhappy bedfellows, anything that improves this pivotal communications job is worthwhile.

Shouted instructions cannot be heard above the din, hand signals cannot be seen, you just have to have a feel for the boat, know where everyone else is and rely on a sixth sense. This is teamwork on a plane of its own.

The pitman has the crew’s lives in his hands as he directs the principal jobs in conditions which can be a plain nightmare. Working everything out on a training room whiteboard can be little more than digging out the manual from last time and telling people things they already know.

Changing a sail on a sunny afternoon trip out from the training base should be a matter of almost balletic precision. But try doing it at night, being constantly bounced by the jerky motion of the boat, drenched in icy green water and struggling to shout and he heard above the racket.

Sometimes the pitman is one of the central players in both a organisational and practical sense, sometimes he can concentrate more on just the organisational. If he could have three hands it would be better.

The job starts in the long training sessions before the race, practicing over and over again the standard moves, throwing in the curved balls of an emergency situation. He has to know that everyone is in place, knows their role and can make even the handling of a crisis look routine.

There can still be dramas, and no-one can legislate for someone losing his false teeth in the middle of a hectic manoeuvre, as happened once. So, as ringmaster, he directs the show from the middle of the boat, makes sure that all the right ropes are attached to the right sails and winches, have not contrived to grow a few knots in the minutes since they were last checked and everything is ready to run.

And not just when the move is planned; fast and effective reaction to the unplanned, though not unexpected, is also part of the repertoire.

If the pitman can deliver a well-timed move, the bowman’s job is made all the easier, the helmsman’s role smoother, and the performance of the boat is only minimally affected.

These are no-nonsense operators, people who know that, without the seamanship skills required to control a powerful machine about to career into a life of its own, the finish line will just be a lost dream.

They are strong men, with strong opinions, and need to be both confident and decisive.

This article appears in Life At The Extreme, the Volvo Ocean Race 2008-09 Official Souvenir Programme. Available to download here in four languages.