After 25,000 ocean miles, 109 days and 20 hours bucking across 30-foot swells, dawdling in the doldrums, quarreling with mean storms, fixing the mast, avoiding icebergs off Antarctica, sleeping in 20-minute sessions and strumming his "back-up paddle" of a guitar to keep himself company, Oakland's Bruce Schwab is a man who has seen enough sea for a while and is back on relatively dry ground in the Bay Area.

At least for now.

"The first storm near South Africa was the worst one, and it kind of knocked some sense into me," Schwab said earlier this week while visiting his yacht designer, Tom Wylie, in the very landlocked town of Canyon on the back of the Oakland hills. "That storm convinced me to take it a little slower and focus on finishing," he said.

And finish he did. Just last month, Schwab became the first American to complete the celebrated Vendee Globe, a nonstop, solo, round-the-world, endurance ocean race beginning and ending in France and known as one of the most difficult sailing competitions on the planet. Out of 20 entrants, only 13 finished, and Schwab came in at a very respectable ninth place.

The course took him around the tip of South Africa, across the globe, around South America, then back up to France. Only one other American sailor, the late Mike Plant, has ever competed in the European-dominated race, but he was disqualified for getting assistance during the event in 1990.

"You can stop and anchor and fix stuff yourself, but you couldn't go onland or have help," Schwab explained. "That's why I raced conservatively. There's always stuff to fix. I cracked my boom. I had the mast pop out."

So now Schwab, 44, is lubbing some land. He's enjoying all the food choices here in the Bay Area — much better than three months of freeze-dried snacks. He's putting together video logs he made along the race for a documentary and making plans for classroom and local appearances. (He'll be at the Strictly Sail boat show at Jack London Square at 2 p.m. April 17.)

But this mild-mannered land life won't last long. The official awards ceremony for the Vendee Globe is in France in May. And Schwab's boat, the 60-foot Ocean Planet, is still there, too. So he'll fly back for the ceremony, then sail Ocean Planet back to Maine. Just a short walk in the park across the Atlantic for Schwab.

"Then I'll be looking for sponsorships and raising money to race the boat in other races that haven't had an American presence," he said. "Maybe the Transat Jacques Vabre. It's a double-handed race from France to Brazil. It's the next big race on the Open 60 circuit in France."

Schwab is a very compact guy. Wiry, with intense dark eyes. He talks so fast it's sometimes hard to keep pace. He grew up sailing and has lived and raced in the Bay Area for the past 20 years.

He is a member of San Francisco Bay's Single-handed Sailing Society and has won nearly every West Coast single-handed race there is. As a professional rigger, he ran Svendsen's Marine Store in Alameda for about two decades, leaving in 1999 to begin work on the Vendee Globe project.

His Vendee adventure swept up a huge fan following. He's a big star in Portland, Ore., which now claims him as its hometown hero, too, because his boat was built there. And so does Portland, Maine, where the boat was refitted and where Schwab spent much of the year before the race.

Plus, Schwab posted daily reports on the Internet with his laptop and satellite phone connection. So friends, supporters and school children from all over the world followed his voyage.

And the French love him, giving him the biggest welcome of all the Vendee contestants when he sailed into the French harbor Les Sables d'Olonne, he said.

"It was such an amazing thing," he said. "Press boats usher you in. Coming into the channel, there were thousands of people lining the channel and chanting 'We love Bruce!' in their French accents. The French really want to like Americans. All you have to do is not be a jerk."

Oakland Tribune
401 13th Street
Oakland, California 94612
(510) 208-6330 Switchboard
(510) 293-2709 Online Content
www.oaklandtribune.com