Of course you know that we've followed Bruce Schwab's Around Alone effort from start to finish, as well as some other features (Brad Van Liew, Bernard Stamm) regarding the race as well. Now that it is over, we'll be doing a couple more wrap-up features. Laurie Fullerton does her usual outstanding job with this one on Tim Kent. Enjoy

By Laurie Fullerton

Newport, R.I. - Around Alone Class 2 second-place finisher Tim Kent of Milwaukee, Wisconsin earned a huge round of applause at the docks of the Newport Shipyard Monday morning, having finished the Around Alone race in its entirety in 170 days, six minutes and 28 seconds.

While American Brad Van Liew had a flawless five legs in the Around Alone Class 2 and has emerged as the best single-handed American sailor we have today, the white-haired, wiry Midwesterner came in just behind Van Liew completing the final leg from Salvador del Bahia, Brazil to Newport, R.I. in 21 days, 23 hours, 50 minutes and 47 seconds.

During a light-hearted press conference at the Newport Shipyard Monday, the boisterous Kent was teased and praised by his supporters and friends for his amazing performance. Event organizer Brian Hancock teased him for his grassroots campaign which left him as one of the few men ever to "get money back from an ex-wife," after Kent's former bride became one of his biggest supporters and financial backers.

"My ex-wife looked at this program last April and realized without more money it would flounder. She stepped up when someone had to and I wouldn't have been able to do it without her help," said an emotional Kent after a grueling final leg.

"I climbed Mt. Everest horizontally," Kent said to event founder Robin Knox-Johnson who telephoned Kent from England during the press conference

"You lived the dream and turned it into a reality," Johnson said.

For Kent, the immensity of his accomplishment has yet to take root.

"It will take a long time for this to sink in. I don't know when or if it will," he said. "The sailing has been stupendous. I have to say that sailing in the Southern Ocean has been the most incredible experience of my life. Also, the people I've met since I started this have been wonderful. Hundreds of people spent hundreds of hours on this and it is overpowering and I want to do it again. I want to do this again because of the unbelievable quality of the sailing and the unbelievable people. This is an event you just don't find anywhere else."

Kent is a 50-ish, sweet-water sailor whose sailing pedigree was mainly within the Great Lakes region prior to this event. He formerly worked for Prentice-Hall publishing company. One of his former work colleagues, who was at the press conference, said wryly, "there is a job for you covering textbook sales in South Dakota if you want it," but Kent appears firmly set on his course to continue as a professional sailor and compete in the Vendee Globe in 2004.

"I don't want my old job back," he insisted, "I think I have earned my master's degree in sailing in becoming a solo-circumnavigator. Now, I want to earn my PhD by racing in the Vendee Globe," he said.

For a grass-roots campaign like Kents and Everest Horizontal, or fellow competitor Bruce Schwab on Ocean Planet, finding sponsorship to fund their campaigns may be easier now that they have finished the Around Alone. Both men plan to compete in the Vendee Globe in 2004, Schwab already owns an Open-60 while Kent will have to find one to purchase. They are both looking for sponsorship on the long campaign ahead.

Kent was particularly grateful to his ex-wife; to a Milwaukee friend he met on the Internet who took the lead in funding Kent when his campaign hit its lowest point on Leg 3. The friend continued to fund Kent through to the finish.

The worst point came for Kent during Leg 3 from Cape Town, South Africa to Tauranga, New Zealand when Kent's engine nearly burned out his whole boat, ravaged his electronics and left him and his boat completely covered in black soot as he limped into Tauranga in a cloud of black smoke.

When asked by famous yachtswoman Elizabeth Meyer, who was at the Newport shipyard Monday, what piece of equipment Kent felt was the most important to him he said that is was the missing copper gasket that cost $1 and 40 cents that he needed the most. That broken gasket meant that fuel and black smoke flooded his boat for nearly two weeks while he was underway.

"My boat was black when I reached New Zealand and so was I. When I went to my hosts home where I was staying, I didn't recognize myself in the mirror."

His performance and skills improved with each leg, as did the steady flow of funding and he sailed well in Legs 4 and 5.

Yet, the final leg of the race gave much of the fleet an unpredicted, early May North Atlantic storm … one that, Kent said, "wasn't in the brochure."

"No, that last storm wasn't in the brochure," he said as Hancock noted, "Bernard Stamm didn't get that storm," and Kent remarked, "No, Bernard wrote the whole brochure!"

The fact that Kent belongs to an elite fraternity of solo circumnavigators appears to be just sinking in as he spoke of the amazing people he raced against and with for nearly nine months.

"At the beginning of this campaign, the other people in this race were my heroes and I had read about them in magazines. This whole experience had a through-the-looking glass quality to it. Now, I am a solo circumnavigator. I learned so much from other campaigns like Brad Van Liew's and others."

When asked what the hardest part of the race was for Kent, he said, "I think that because of modern technology, it became the "anticipation of what was coming. You watch a weather system coming on the radar and think…it is going to be bad! But, once it comes it isn't always as bad as you think. You become very calm about disaster."

And for inspiration, Kent said he relied on his two young daughters.

"I decided to do this race to become an inspiration to my daughters, but they ended up inspiring me," Kent said.

05/06/2003