Yachting: Hunter epitome of `little guy'

By Suzanne McFadden

This story could have been about the magnificent efforts of Isabelle Autissier, the woman leading a fleet of 10 men sailing around the world solo.

But instead it is about the man who is coming last, Australian Neil Hunter.

Hunter will be 50 this year. He sold virtually everything he owned - his house, car, the outboard motor on his dinghy with one oar - so he could sail in the Around Alone race.

Hunter has had one week in Auckland to get ready for today's departure for Punta del Este. That was after 54 days at sea. He crossed the finish line 17 hours before he would have been disqualified from the rest of the race.

There is more difference between Autissier and Hunter than 10 weeks at sea and their gender. It also comes down to money.

Autissier is a legend in France. She is considered to be one of the best sailors in the world. In past races, she has survived a 360-degree roll and has been rescued from her upside-down yacht in the Southern Ocean.

She has earned every franc of her sponsorships from giant paint conglomerate PRB and the French region of Poitou-Charentes, where there is "Isabelle-mania."

Melbourne probably does not know who their man Hunter is. He has no sponsor, no support crew to greet him and fix his boat when he sails into port.

He sells t-shirts and hats off the stern of his yacht when in port to make enough money to stock the boat with food for the next leg. There is a huge sign running across his boom - "Sponsors Welcome."

Hunter does not begrudge any of the skippers at the top of the leader-board who have sponsorship and support teams.

"Just before the start of the race I broke my mast. I had to drive 2000 miles to get another one," he said. "When I got back, [Italian skipper] Giovanni Soldini came over with his crew and they put it in my boat for me - for nothing.

"The people in this race are absolutely amazing. No one is uppity. This is a human race."

The race organisers love Hunter. He personifies what the Around Alone was originally all about. Where Autissier is back to win, Hunter just wants to get around.

Said organiser Dan McConnell: "He's as close to the average guy as you're going to find in this race, and we desperately don't want to lose that. There's no other race in the world where people like Neil can still take part - everywhere else they're cut out because they don't have the big dollars."

Hunter quit his job with a computer company to sail around the world. Six years ago he bought a second-hand Farr40, Paladin II, which had won a Sydney-Hobart race.

"It was the only boat I could afford, and I really wanted to do this race. It's not insured - if it sinks, it will be a fresh start for me," he said with a grin. "I've only got one set of sails and they have to last the whole way round."

Trouble is, they don't fit the new mast he was forced to put in.

Hunter admits he has not enjoyed the first half of the Around Alone after just scraping inside the time limit for continuing in the race.

"There's been a lot of pressure with the limits. They've detracted from the enjoyment of my first time in this race. But there are no more limits so I plan to enjoy myself now."

There are things that Autissier and Hunter share in common, and this leg around Cape Horn encapsulates that. Said McConnell: "Everyone from Isabelle to Neil looks at Cape Horn the same way - it's mystical, and spiritual and a part of life that no one else can experience unless you do this."

Cape Horn is the emotional reason Japanese 65-year-old Minoru Saito is sailing around the world for a third time. In the last race, Saito lost his close friend Harry Mitchell, whose goal in life was to sail around the Horn.

Saito promised Mitchell's family that he would sail by his friend's soul where he disappeared off the Horn to tell him "everything is all right."

Pictured: Neil Hunter. HERALD PICTURE / RUSSELL SMITH