This sails man takes on world

Read, crew prepare for ocean race

NEWPORT, R.I. - The skipper is going to sail around the world with half a toothbrush.

Ken Read, the skipper of the sole US entry in the Volvo Ocean Race, knows that weight reduces speed. Il Mastro, which means "the Monster" in Italian, is a sleek racing machine that goes faster than the wind. Creature comforts be damned, he says.

"What luxuries are we going with?" says the Rhode Island native, a boyish 46 with a Kennedyesque head of hair. "Nothing."

Nothing?

"There was a bunch of things we could do to make life a little more bearable. We could make the bunks easily more comfortable and add very little weight, but we went as light as humanly possible. We have chosen to live slightly more miserably on every single aspect, tough it out. There's no compromise."

Half a toothbrush? Is he kidding?

"I have to be honest with you," he says. "I have a cut-in-half toothbrush. But it wasn't for weight. It's just to fit in this little bag that fits in this little pouch."

Is this guy crazy?

"Yes," says the skipper who has won 40 world, North American, and national championship races.

The nine-month, 37,000-nautical-mile race starts in Alicante, Spain, Oct. 8. It goes to South Africa, India, Singapore, China, and Brazil, before arriving in Boston - the only North American stop - in May 2009. The Boston Harbor celebration will include a fortnight of events to commemorate Boston's maritime history. The race then continues to Galway, Ireland, and Sweden before ending in St. Petersburg, Russia, in late June.

Read has assembled an all-star crew that has won five America's Cups, several Volvos, and two Olympic medals. Talented people you'd want to have a beer with, he says.

A pricy beer, for sure. Puma Ocean Racing has invested an estimated $20 million-$30 million on this project. The crew is decidedly eccentric.

"Oh, without a doubt," says Read. "We chose 10 guys that are crazy enough to want to do this. It's a fraternity right on the edge of complete insanity and pure passion. From six different countries, all of them with the right pedigree, résumé, and mentality."

They are going to be close. Very close.

"We have shared sleeping bags," says Read. "A lot of times you're freezing, so you're looking forward to getting a warm sleeping bag."

The Monster will be loaded with technology. The crew will know the location to the foot of the seven other boats in the race. They will have detailed weather data. They can send edited HD video from a camera on board. They have plenty of state-of-the-art rain gear, but regular clothing is minimal.

"We have two shirts for 20 days or something," says Read. "It's not a big deal."

There will be no fishing on this trip.

"There's fishing lines in the life rafts," says Read. "So if you go fishing, then things have gone really badly."

No whale watching, either.

"Whales are cool to see," says Read, "but I'm more concerned with running into them, breaking the boat or breaking the whale."

Getting his feet wet

Read took a sabbatical from being vice president of North Sails for this project.

"This is a whole different game," he says. "It's management. It's running a small business."

Last night, Il Mastro was christened in Boston Harbor after sailing in from Newport Shipyard over the weekend. On a sneak test Sunday afternoon, Il Mastro dazzled ordinary sailboats left in her wake.

Read was pleased, especially with the canting keel, which gives the yacht stability.

"It feels like a 70-foot flat-out dinghy," he says. "We don't know if we got it right yet, to be honest with you. We spent a year of design and build. We've drawn every idea into this that we know of. We just hope we're a little bit smarter and a little bit more creative than the other guys, that's all."

Il Mastro is capable of speeds up to 45 knots. Its carbon-fiber hull is hand-painted to resemble a running shoe. It is topped with massive red sails adorned with the Puma leaping cat logo.

Not bad for a guy who used to be a scaredy-cat on the water.

"You've got that right," he says, giggling. "I grew up in Seekonk, Mass. My father was a sailor and a hockey player, he played for Brown. My mother is in the Connecticut College Athletic Hall of Fame. So we played hockey in the winter and sailing in the summer, like it or not.

"For some reason, when I became 8 or 9 years old, when I started taking sailing lessons. I just grew terrified of it. It was just intimidating. I didn't like it. I tried to quit."

He made a deal with his father to give it one more try. He paired up with a hockey buddy and started having fun. They won every race at Barrington (R.I.) Yacht Club.

Still, Read had no idea how good he really was. He went to Boston University determined to play hockey, but when that didn't work out, he switched to sailing. He was teamed with Brad White, BU's sailing captain.

"We won the first two races we sailed," says Read, "and as we were getting out, he said, 'You know, if you really work hard, you can be an All-American by the time you're a senior.' It never even dawned on me. I was a kid from Barrington Yacht Club. All I knew is Narragansett Bay."

He wound up being a three-time All-American, a College Sailor of the Year, and was inducted into the BU Athletic Hall of Fame.

He twice has helmed the US entry in the America's Cup and been named Rolex Yachtsman of the Year. But this is his first round-the-world race.

"I just got sick of going around buoys," he says.

Reminders of danger

Read got a taste of long-distance racing when he signed up for the last four legs of the 2005-06 Volvo out of Baltimore aboard the Swedish entry Ericsson.

"I just fell in love with it," he says. "I felt I was getting away from sailing and more into that hand-to-hand combat thing. It's like NASCAR or something: Left-hand turn the next four years of your life. It was wearing me out. I just didn't have the passion. Then, all of a sudden, I did these four legs and I thought, 'This is real sailing.' "

On one leg, there was an accident on another boat and a Dutch sailor drowned, the first fatality in the race since 1989. Read says it was his worst day in sailboat racing.

"It devastated the race and it devastated the sailing world," he says.

That wasn't the only mishap. The Spanish entry sank in the Atlantic crossing and all hands had to be rescued. It puts things in perspective.

"I hate to lose, but at the same time, you realize how hard this is," says Read. "How physically and mentally hard. You form wonderful friendships. There were two or three guys on our boat that literally said a word for two or three days, they were so crushed."

Truth be told, sometimes your life is in the hands of fate.

"This is not a pretty place on these boats when it's windy," says Read. "They're so fast and so angry that sometimes you can't slow the boat down. They are full-blown runaways. You're just trying to get sails off before something bad happens.

"So it's quite stressful. Part of my job is the safety aspect - when to throw a brick on the pedal and let her rip and quickly start backing off. I do not take that lightly. That's sleepless nights, too. But that's why you hire the best 10 guys with the most experience you find."

On the home front

Read says the ocean marathon brings with it a different mind-set.

"I have to keep reeling myself in, because I've got the round-the-buoy mentality," he says. "I have to say, 'Wait a second, we've got 23 days to go.' "

It's hard on the families of the competitors.

"It's more taxing on the families than it is on the sailors," says Read. "We know what we're doing. We know minute to minute when it's going to get dicey, but our families have to read about it."

His wife Kathy and daughter Victoria, 11, will follow him via e-mail, satellite phone, and video-teleconferencing. They also will fly to the foreign ports.

"This is what he loves," says Kathy as her husband guided Il Mastro toward the setting Newport sun.

The scene looked romantic. It reminded her of their first date; he took her sailing, of course.

"We were over by Jamestown [R.I.], and they ran the boat aground," says Kathy. "The press boat had to tow us off. We all had to stand on the bow of the boat to try and rock it off the rock. And I'm thinking, 'OK, this guy has no clue what he's doing.' "

Read makes no guarantees about winning the marathon.

"I'm not brash enough to say, 'We're going to win this race,' " he says. "We're not the Red Sox, the defending champions here. We're a new program that started a year ago with literally nothing.

"But it's our job to win. Now, if I look at a leaderboard and I'm not on the top from the first race to the last race, I can't sleep. It just drives me insane. I just hate it. I hate it."

The prize money is not an incentive: The prize money is zero.

"Welcome to our sport," he says.

"We've got enough sneakers right now. I think we're good on sneakers."

Stan Grossfeld can be reached at grossfeld@globe.com