by Ed Bryant
Includes two photos,
one of John Dennis and one of his boat, the
Ascensia.
From the Editor: Very few people have sailed a small boat around the world. Fewer have done it alone. No one with diabetes has ever even tried before.
Long voyages alone offer many challenges -- serious demands on equipment, on stamina, on skill. The solo sailor has to be all things, all the time. About 50 people have done it -- a select, illustrious company.
John Dennis is 57-years-old, from Markham, Ontario, Canada. While not a professional sailor, members of his family were, and he knows the sea well. Unwilling to see his diabetes as a disqualification, he worked hard to be the first diabetic to successfully complete the demanding round-the-world sailboat race called "Around Alone."
I reached him at a stop in Brazil. He'd made it most of the way, and had just experienced an equipment failure. I talked to him about the race, about his life, his future plans, and about his diabetes. Here's our conversation:
EB: I understand your boat broke down on the fourth leg of the race.
JD: No. On the third leg. I was on the way from Cape Town, South Africa, to New Zealand. Basically, ever since I was eight- or nine-years-old, I've had a dream of sailing single-handed around the world. In fact, my original dream was to sail, single-handed, non-stop around the world. And, as I grew up and sailed, I never lost sight of that dream. It has always been my intention that I would sail single-handed around the world. So, when the "Around Alone" race was developed 20 years ago, I thought, well, that would be a fun race to do and fulfill my dream.
I tried getting into the race on several occasions, but was never able to obtain enough financial sponsorship, or any sponsorship, in order to help with the cost of the voyage. Then, about nine years ago I developed diabetes. For a while, I really wondered if I would ever get to do the voyage, because my diabetes was so out-of-control. So I worked really hard on getting my diabetes under control, and I worked really hard at trying to locate a sponsor. This time around, after going to 854 corporations, the 855th corporation was Bayer.
EB: You really sound like you did some work.
JD: You have no idea how hard it is for someone from North America. The French, the Italians, the British, they have no trouble in getting sponsorship. But North Americans just cannot seem to generate sponsorship for such an event. In fact, this is the first time any North Americans (there were two of us, this race) have received sponsorship. Bayer very generously came on board, and provided funding to purchase a used boat, and to help me get it ready for the race.
It was a real race just getting ready -- because, normally one should have their boat at least 18 months before the race. I didn't get my boat until the middle of June, and the race started in September. Not only did I have to get it ready in time for the race, I had to get it ready in time to sail the trans-Atlantic qualifiers.
August 1st, I had to sail across the Atlantic in order to qualify the boat for the race. So I did that, and started the race, and raced to England. I raced from Newport to New York to England; then from England to Cape Town, South Africa. Then I left Cape Town, but, unfortunately, when I was in Cape Town, I only had five days to prepare for the next leg.
A number of repairs that were done in Cape Town were done poorly. The first thing I found out after leaving Cape Town was that my electronic communications, both my Iridium Pisces satellite telephone, and my Immersat System were not working properly because, when they were doing some work on it in Cape Town they cut the shielded coaxial cable antenna. Whenever you do that, you have to put a new coax connector on it. What they did was solder it and tape it up, instead of replacing it. Of course it failed within 20 minutes of my leaving port.
I didn't want to turn back to Cape Town, so I went down the coast about 150 miles, to a place called Struisbaai. I anchored there and waited for parts. Unfortunately, the wrong parts came down, and while I was waiting a gale came up. I lost my two anchors plus two more that were provided to me. At that time, I had to have a boat tow me to prevent me from going aground. When that was being done, I had further damage to the boat in that I lost my bow pulpit, my life lines, and my bobstay. I went 190 miles further down the coast, fixed that, and then left again. I ended up about 700 miles out.
Then I lost the engine and the ballast pump system for the boat. At that point, I decided that I have a wife and children, and if I carried without the engine and the ballast system, I would have had no electrical power very quickly. That's too dangerous.
If I had gotten into serious trouble without a ballast system in the Southern Ocean, the boat would have been extremely unsafe. So, I made the decision to go on back and make the repairs. That did not give me enough time to reach the next stop in time to be there within the limits that the race had set. You have to be at the next stop five days before the next start. They waived that rule on the last leg for somebody else, but at that time I wasn't aware they would waive it. I went back to Cape Town.
At the same time, since August 1st, I have crossed the Atlantic now six times. August 1st, I went out and back, then in September, I went across to England -- that's three. Then, when you sail to South Africa, you actually sail back across the Atlantic to the Brazilian coast. And then over to South Africa, because that is the way the wind pattern is. So, that was five times. Then I sailed from Cape Town to Brazil in March, which is my sixth Atlantic crossing since August. And now I'm leaving on the 16th of April, to sail back to Newport, Rhode Island.
I'm out of the race, but I'm still sailing the course, and doing it alone. I'm doing this as an ambassador of diabetes. My whole goal has been to prove that diabetics can compete, if we look after ourselves and take responsibility for our health and our management of our diabetes.
Ed and John discuss diabetes:
JD: When I was diagnosed, my blood sugars were 28 to 29 MMOL (540 to 522 mg/dl, in the U.S. system). Now, in my daily glucose tests -- I monitor myself three times a day -- I don't know if it's the heat in Brazil, or if I'm working so much harder, but the blood glucose levels have been absolutely normal -- in the normal range. My morning, mid-morning, noon, mid-afternoon and evening glucose levels all read target range between 4.7 and 6.7 MMOL (85 to 121 mg/dl U.S.)
EB: How have your blood sugars been running during the race?
JD: On the leg from England to Cape Town, which is 55 days, 92 percent of my readings were in normal range. It's just a matter of working on it. I call my Dex meter "Wilson," as in the Tom Hanks movie, "Castaway." My Dex meter has worked absolutely perfectly the whole time. It's amazing, because in saltwater environments, lots of electronics fail. I've had failures on the boat, because of saltwater. But that little Dex meter has worked absolutely perfectly, from start to finish so far. I live by it.
EB: You said you take four medications.
JD: I take Gliburide, Metformin, Avandia, and Altace. Basically, I don't have a blood pressure problem, but my doctor feels that, by taking that ACE inhibitor now, it will forestall any kidney damage from my diabetes.
I constantly am monitoring myself. On the first leg of the race I was having problems, because my glucose levels were getting way too low, dangerously low. So I upped the number of times I monitored and I consulted with my physician in Canada and a physician in England, and we decided to cut back one of my four medications. Then, on the leg from England to Cape Town, I was monitoring on average five times a day, and I found my glucose levels starting to creep back up. So, I went back to my normal medication level. Since I've been here in Brazil, I have found my glucose levels to be in the normal range. It's just a matter of constantly monitoring and adjusting my diet and exercise as much as I can get on the boat. At times, I get a tremendous amount.
EB: I believe your boat is 50 feet long.
JD: Yes, my boat is called an "open 50." Open class; it's not an "open boat." That puts me in class 2, boats 40 to 50 feet in length. Class 1 is "open 60," boats up to 60 foot length.
EB: Did you have any special things done to the boat because of your diabetes?
JD: No, I didn't.
EB: I didn't think you did. When you're sailing, do you have any other boats that are in eyesight to observe how you're doing?
JD: No, not at all. We're spread out, literally, over hundreds of thousands of square miles when we're racing.
Bayer has been absolutely great. I could never have gotten underway without their help and assistance. I guess my next project will be called "unfinished business." Since I didn't make it all the way around, I feel I should go back and finish it.
There's another race in four years, but I don't necessarily have to wait for a race. What I would like to consider doing is going back and leaving Newport and going non-stop from Newport all the way around back to Newport. I figure if I went non-stop, it would take me about 120 days.
I don't know if Bayer will sponsor this second attempt or not, but I certainly intend to try and pursue my dream. I'm not going to give up a life dream because I wasn't successful the first time.
I consider this past trip a real learning experience. Unfortunately, as I say, it took me a long time to work the bugs out of this boat, and in hindsight, had I had the boat several months earlier, I might have been more successful. I don't consider what happened a failure, by any stretch of the imagination. In fact, I consider it a huge success to date. Man is not measured by his victories but he is measured by how he handles his defeats. To me, this is not a defeat, but it is a temporary setback.
If nothing else, I hope I inspire people to take responsibility for their health care; because, if they can live long, productive lives and do what they want to do, they can live their dreams. When they don't, it's so self-destructive.
EB: Do you have any advice you want to leave me with?
JD: I want to thank Bayer for everything they've done to help me. I want to thank all the different diabetics around the world, who have been emailing me telling me how inspired they've been. I just hope people will not look at this as a defeat but a temporary setback, and that they'll wish me luck in the next attempt to get around solo and non-stop.
EB: Would you like us to publish your email?
JD: I get my email at home. It is jdflys@sympatico.ca
I've been talking to a lot of people. I've got a young class in New Jersey that I went to visit in January, back in the United States. They're coming up to Newport to see all the boats and to see my arrival. I've got a young, 7-year-old lad from Boston who read about me just before the start of the race, and arranged to come down to see me. He's going to meet me in Newport. There have been some diabetics in England, and I was speaking in Cape Town. And, unfortunately, in South Africa diabetes is the third leading cause of death, right behind HIV and tuberculosis.
I was speaking at a hospital, and I met a gentleman there who was a few years younger than me, and he was having tremendous difficulty getting his diabetes under control. The nurse asked me to speak with him, and we chatted for awhile. Then his two children came by, and they were, I would guess maybe five and seven, and I looked at the children and I looked him in the eye and I said, "Do you want to be at your daughter's wedding?" The tears started to flow in his eyes, and then they started to flow out of my eyes. I hit a soft point with him. It seemed to break through. I said, "Look, your wife has got to attend your sessions with you, with the dietitians and the diabetes specialists. Your wife has to learn how to cook for you, and prepare proper diet for you."
I told him to go out and buy a dog -- and take that dog for a walk every morning and every night, so he gets good exercise. Go for a good, long, three or four mile walk every night with that dog and every morning with that dog. I said, "You're going to have to work hard at it."
I said, "When I was first diagnosed, it took me almost four years before I got my diabetes even close to being under control. And it took me seven years before I had it under control properly."
I said, "It's not going to happen over night. Don't get discouraged, keep at it, work hard at it." Those kinds of things are the things that make me feel really good when I know I've touched somebody, and I've motivated somebody.
My boat's temporary setback
is not life-threatening. It's not the end of the world. But, it's not the
end of the dream, either.
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If you or a friend would like to remember the Diabetes Action Network of the
National Federation of the Blind in your will, you can do so by employing the
following language:
"I give, devise, and bequeath unto the Diabetes Action Network of the National
Federation of the Blind, 1800 Johnson Street, Baltimore, Maryland 21230, a District
of Columbia nonprofit corporation, the sum of $_____" (or "_______percent of
my net estate" or "the following stocks and bonds:________") to be used for
its worthy purposes on behalf of blind persons.
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