Flying High Speed Through the Sea

25-year-old professional sailor Andrew Lewis has encountered huge swells, navigated icebergs, and worked his way into sailing's elite core

by HILLARY CRAMER
Sun Correspondent
Archived September 2007 article

Finishing off the school year at Kahala's Wilson Elementary, the sailing couple gave 11-year-old Andrew the choice between summer school and junior sailing lessons at Waikiki Yacht Club. Andrew opted for the latter. The yacht club's summer camp ignited a passion and skill for the hobby that would rocket launch when he reached high school.

Olympian sailor, John Myrdal of Kaneohe, took notice of Andrew's raw talent while Andrew was still only a jovial scrub racing around in Lasers (one-man sailboats) with his buddies. Steering Andrew toward competition meant traveling outside of Hawaii. Andrew began to compete and build confidence and focus. Andrew credits John Myrdal as, "...the reason I got my foot in the door. When I was 15, he took me under his wing. He told me, 'You really need to go to the Mainland to do Mainland events.' I said, 'I'm just having fun doing this.' I went over to Texas and won the high school nationals and was like, 'Jeez, maybe there's something here.'" That was an underestimated deduction. In 2004 Andrew entered the Athens Olympics trials. He had one shot to qualify for Athens. The trials consisted of one regatta, and only the first finisher would continue to the Olympics. Andrew tied for third and did not qualify.

Back to life in Honolulu: the senior at Assets School faced career options and questions unique to his peers. Andrew said, "I wasn't sure what I was going to do, if I was going to keep going. It was hard fundraising...and at the Olympic level, the highest level of yachting, it's very physical and I like that whole aspect of the sport. It was hard to keep going though. There's the next level of professional sailing where you're sailing big yachts for real high-end owners like Larry Ellison and Paul Allen in the round-the-world race, which is called the Volvo Ocean Race, or America's Cup, the two real big events out there."

After a set of trials and interviews in Miami and Portugal, Andrew was selected at age 23, out of 1800 applicants to compete with an eight-man crew in the Volvo Ocean Race, the 36,000-mile race around the globe. "The Volvo Ocean Race is a billion dollar thing just to get it off and going around the world...It's like the Formula 1 of offshore sailing," described Andrew. Andrew speculated that the Dutch bank, ABN AMRO, who sponsored his two-boat team, spent 40 million dollars on the campaign. Their eight-month voyage would weather Andrew with both a huge professional feat and a tragic personal loss.

Earning a spot on the ABN AMRO Two boat, Andrew trained with his teammates for seven months prior to setting sail in the Volvo Ocean Race, which began in Viga, Spain. The dicey tour took them from Spain to South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, Brazil, North America, England, Scotland, The Netherlands, and ended in Sweden. They flew high speed through seas, encountering huge swells and navigating around icebergs. They were powered with freeze-dried meals, minimal sleep in a hammock, and lots of coffee. When asked about running across pirates, he replied, "There are [pirates] but you know, we keep away from those areas." Andrew's crew broke the 24-hour world speed record during a leg in the Southern Ocean. The following stretch however, Andrew explained, "We had a tragic transatlantic leg. We lost a guy overboard and we recovered him but we weren't able to get him back. It was a really hard blow to our team." Five days out of New York, on their way to England, they hit a storm in the middle of the night. As they raced downwind, the skipper ordered the crew to one-at-a-time get their safety harnesses below deck and clip themselves to the boat. As Dutch team member Hans Horrevoets went to get his harness, a wave hit the boat and Hans fell overboard. A crew member immediately hit the "man overboard" button marking the exact longitude and latitude where Hans fell and they let down the sails so they could turn around to rescue Hans. By the time they reached him, he was floating facedown. Team members applied CPR for an hour but were unable to resuscitate him.

With Hans still on board, they sailed toward the UK. On their way there, they came across a Spanish boat, Movistar, also in the Volvo Ocean Race fleet, that was taking on water and needed help. Andrew's team went to their assistance and shortly after the Spanish crew boarded Andrew's boat, ABN AMRO Two, Movistar sunk. The two teams sailed in together, and a royal Dutch Navy ship met them at sea to retrieve Hans's body. ABN AMRO's CEO and a sports psychologist arrived off the coast of England and met with the team for two hours to pow-wow about the grave and extreme circumstances. With the support of Hans' family to continue the race, the team decided to sail the remaining two legs of the race. They sailed into an emotional finish in Sweden with ten thousand fans applauding at the dock as they placed fourth overall.

On the home front, Andrew's parents still live in Kahala and together run the fitness company, Total Fitness USA. Eager to get home whenever he can, Andrew took a brief break after the 2006 Volvo Ocean Race to hang out with family and friends, eat at his favorite local joint, Irifune's, windsurf at Diamond Head and sort out his finances. "Irifune's is a family tradition. I don't even have to order; they know what I want. My parents and I know all the waitresses there," said Andrew.

Getting back to work, Andrew moved to Valencia, Spain for the year where he trained and then competed in the elite America's Cup race. Returning to the United States this past June, Andrew got a gig racing a 93-foot yacht for George David, the highest paid CEO in the country, and has a series of international events lined up for the next several months on David's boat.

Living on boats, planes, in hotels and out of a suitcase, Andrew has worked his way into sailing's elite core. His upcoming goals include doing another Volvo Ocean Race and another America's Cup. Do his lengthy voyages make his family anxious? Andrew answered, "Of course. I think they were worried when I first started the around-the-world race, but they knew it was a good team and they know I'm cautious...and they sail, so they understand what I'm doing."