Yachting: Shy guy at helm of $8 million spaceship

By Suzanne McFadden

For all his bold adventures, Steve Fossett is a shy guy.

The American who made his millions trading soybeans and has a passion for conquering the world, speaks in a quiet, gentle voice.

At 54, he still has the wide-eyed exuberance of the 11-year-old scout who climbed his first mountain.

When he took his first sail on his gargantuan, $8 million catamaran Playstation on Auckland's Hauraki Gulf yesterday, he did not want video cameras on board.

He was afraid the beast might have got the better of him - he did not want to look like a new chum.

Kiwi sailor Peter Hogg, who has been Fossett's crewmate for the last four years, describes his boss as a low-key guy.

"He doesn't have any airs. He's not what you would expect from a self-made man."

Hogg tells a story which apparently is trademark Fossett. Hogg walked into a San Fransisco book store last year where fellow adventurer Richard Branson was signing his latest life story.

"I asked Branson to sign a message to Steve. I sent the book on to Steve, who said `I would have been too shy to ask him for his autograph.'"

A couple of months later the pair were risking their lives together in a hot-air balloon. They crashed into the sea together off Hawaii on Boxing Day.

"Branson wrote in the book, `Hope you don't crash on your next flight.' Then he realised he was going to be flying with him, so he crossed it out," Hogg laughs.

Fossett may be unassuming, but he is rich, which kind of helps when you keep going off on huge and costly adventures.

Married, with no children, Fossett owns three homes in the United States. One of them, at Carmel on the Californian coast, was the house where Glenn Close boiled the bunny in Fatal Attraction.

He still wheels and deals in stocks and commodities in Chicago. While he has been in Auckland this week, he has started work at 4am, tuning into the US stock exchange for three or four hours.

One day, eight years ago, Fossett decided "I didn't want to spend my entire life earning money."

"I decided to give priority to these adventure projects over my business," he said.

Fossett talks a lot of the importance of what he is doing.

"It's the opportunity to do something faster and better than it's ever been done before. It's not only an advance in technology, but it's an achievement on a personal level.

"And there's a great romance about doing something `around the world.'

Four years ago, Fossett decided he wanted to sail around the world non-stop, but only if he could be the fastest.

He is no newcomer to yachting.

"People pay more attention to my ballooning efforts, when in fact, over the years I've spent more time on sailing projects than ballooning."

He has set eight world records in his 60ft trimaran Lakota, a boat that he and Hogg will sail in the Miami-Montego Bay race next week.

Fossett chose New Zealand to build his 32m boat, in particular Cookson's boatyards, because of the reputation for "outstanding workmanship" on carbon-fibre boats.

This is his first trip to New Zealand, though he came close last August when he plummeted into the Pacific Ocean on his second solo round-the-globe balloon attempt, and he was taken on board HMNZS Endeavour.

For the first time he has used a major sponsorship to pay for his project instead of delving deep into his own wallet.

Construction of the boat cost $8 million. The programme's budget is somewhere around $2.5 million - each year.

Next month, the Playstation crew want to break the 24-hour distance record, now 540 miles, somewhere off the top of the North Island. In June, they will return to the United States to make an assault on the transatlantic record.

"One year from now I want to try to break the round-the-world record and one year from that we will enter The Race," Fossett said.

He has not given up on his other dream, of becoming the first man to fly around the world in a balloon. He says someone will crack it in the next two years, and it will be in the Southern Hemisphere - it has become too political trying to fly over borders in the North.

Despite his crashes and smashes in balloons, boats and automobiles, Fossett cannot see a stop sign up ahead. Yet he admits some of the things he does make him afraid.

"I actually don't like being scared. But I get into a number of scary situations," he said.

"But none of the things I do are thrill-seeking sports. There's no bungy jumping or ski diving. I spend a lot of time and thought trying to reduce the risk of the sports I'm involved in."

Pictured: Steve Fossett. HERALD PICTURES / PAUL ESTCOURT