Losing My Virginity: How I Survived, Had Fun, and Made a Fortune Doing Business My Way

by Richard Branson

  In the small print of the conditions of the award, Hales offered it to the fastest boat that crossed the Atlantic, and he defined the Atlantic as the stretch of sea between Ambrose Lightship on the American coast and the Bishop Rock Lighthouse, off the Scilly Isles. Hales made no mention of the size of boat as long as it carried passengers; indeed nobody in those days ever considered that a small boat would have any chance of competing safely with the big ships.

  The next ship to win the Hales Trophy was SS Normandie, a French liner which crossed the Atlantic on her maiden voyage at an average speed of 30 knots. In 1952, before the age of the big passenger ships came to an end, the SS United States won the Hales Trophy with a crossing that took 3 days, 10 hours and 40 minutes. The Hales Trophy was then put away in the American Merchant Marine Museum. Unfortunately, Harold Hales did not live to witness the SS United States: with horrible irony he had drowned in a boating accident on the River Thames. The glorious days of passenger liners faded as people began to use the new form of transport, aeroplanes, and everyone forgot about the Hales Trophy.

  In 1980 a powerboat builder called Ted Toleman decided to resurrect the Blue Riband competition and attempt to win the Hales Trophy back for Britain. In order to do so, he would have to build a boat that could cross the Atlantic in less than 3 days, 10 hours and 40 minutes. The SS United States was a truly impressive ship: she weighed 52,000 tons and needed 240,000 horsepower to shift her. The speed record she set was impressive: an average of 35.6 knots (equivalent to 40 miles an hour). In contrast to this huge 52,000-ton liner with its swimming pool and grand piano, Ted planned a lightweight catamaran.

  Sailing a small, fast boat across an ocean is extremely dangerous. For one, you are very vulnerable to waves. In this respect, a larger steamer finds heavy seas much easier: it just slices through them. The passengers may use the excuse of a slight roll to lurch into one another’s arms on the dance floor, but the boat’s speed is unimpaired. With a small boat, an ill-judged steering move at 30 knots can plunge the prow into the side of the wave and cause the whole boat to go under or break apart.

  Ted Toleman designed a 65-foot catamaran, and launched it in 1984. Rather than the SS United States’ 240,000-horsepower engines, which were the size of small cathedrals, Ted used two 2,000-horsepower engines, which could propel his catamaran at almost 50 knots on calm water. Of course, it is one thing to be able to race across a calm lake at 50 knots; quite another to reach those speeds on the choppy surface of the Atlantic Ocean, where the waves swell to 20 feet or higher. Ted knew that he would be lucky to reach speeds of 35 knots. It would still be a three- to four-day crossing. The challenge was whether it would be three days and nine hours or three days and eleven hours.

  During 1984, Ted’s budget for the boat overran and he approached me to sponsor the cost of the trip, in return for my being able to name the boat and join him in the challenge. He had already asked Chay Blyth, the round-the-world yachtsman, to help him. Virgin Atlantic had just started flying, and although I was immediately attracted by the idea of winning a trophy back for Britain – Britain doesn’t have that many trophies – I also relished the chance to promote our new airline. A successful Atlantic crossing would attract publicity in both New York and London, our sole destinations.

  ‘How fit are you?’ Chay asked me.

  ‘Not bad,’ I ventured.

  ‘That’s not good enough,’ Chay said. ‘There’s no room for passengers. You need to get into shape.’

  And so I started the most gruelling fitness programme of my life.

  ‘You’re going to be pounded for three solid days,’ Ted said as we killed ourselves in the gym. ‘You’ve got to be able to take it.’

  We asked Esso to sponsor the trip by providing the fuel, and when they kindly agreed to do so we all went along to a celebratory lunch with their whole board of directors.

  ‘I want to thank you all very much,’ I said sincerely. ‘It’s going to be a great trip, and we’re really going to advertise BP as much as we can.’ I thought that I heard a collective intake of breath, but I ploughed on regardless. ‘We’re going to plaster BP all over the refuelling ships, have your logo on the boat, really put BP on the map. Nobody will ever confuse you with that old rival of yours …’

  At this point I looked up at the wall opposite me and noticed the huge Esso logo. I realised my mistake. The Esso executives looked at me with horror, as if I were a ghost. I fell down on the floor and crawled under the table.

  ‘I am sorry,’ I said, and started to spit and polish their shoes.

  Remarkably, Esso were as good as their word and went ahead with sponsoring the trip.

  The boat and the crew were put through their paces for two months until we were finally ready.

  Joan was nearly eight months pregnant with our second child, and I was desperately hoping to do the crossing in time to be back for the birth. But we were stuck in New York for three weeks waiting for the stormy weather to clear. In those three weeks I kept flying back to London to be with Joan, and then flying back to New York when they told me we were about to set sail. By the time I had crossed the Atlantic eight times, I felt as though I knew it as well as I wanted to at 30,000 feet.

  The storms cleared and we got the green light. Joan told me that she was feeling fine and that I should go. She still had two weeks before the baby was due. We roared out of Manhattan and headed north.

  The other crucial difference between Virgin Atlantic Challenger and the great liners was comfort: while the passengers in the 1930s danced to jazz bands and played deck quoits, we were strapped in airline seats and pounded relentlessly up and down. With the deafening noise of the engines and the constant reverberation, it was like being strapped to the blade of a vast pneumatic drill. We could hardly talk, let alone move; we just had to stomach an unending sequence of banging, shaking and clattering.

  Towards the end of the first day I got a radio message.

  ‘Richard.’ It was Penni, who was at the control centre. ‘Joan’s in hospital and she’s just had a baby boy. Rose was with her and it all went fine.’

  I’d broken my pledge, but most importantly we’d had a healthy child. We all whooped with joy and Steve Ridgway, another member of the crew, rustled up a bottle of champagne to toast Joan and my new son. Without any extra shaking from me, the bottle exploded and fizzed everywhere. It was impossible to drink. The champagne foamed between our teeth and foamed up and down our throats. Holding on to a lifeline, I staggered to the side and threw the bottle overboard, where it bobbed in the wake. Now I had to power on to see Joan, Holly and our baby boy.

  The crossing would have won the record comfortably. We endured three hellish days of mental pile-driving over 3,000 miles. We had three refuelling stops lined up at 800-mile intervals. These fuel boats were enormous ships which loomed over us like skyscrapers. Even with a small swell, the approach to them was terrifying: we drew up about 30 yards away, and they fired a harpoon towards us with a buoy on the end of the line. We hauled this on board and then pulled out from the ship the great hose with the fuel. When this was clamped on, we gave the go-ahead and the fuel was pumped on board. The smell of petrol and the rolling swell made us all sick. And as we staggered to the edge and retched we seemed in danger of smashing into the vast black and rusted cliff face of the fuel boat’s side.

  As we approached Ireland with only a few hundred miles to go, we hit a ferocious storm. We had been battered solidly for three days, but this was the worst yet. The boat smashed up and down. We held on to our seats and could see nothing. As we approached the Scilly Isles, with only 60 miles left and the Hales Trophy nearly in our hands, we hit a massive wave. A second later there was a shout from Pete Downie, our engineer.

  ‘We’re going down. The hull’s split right open. Get out fast.’

  ‘Mayday! Mayday! Mayday!’ Chay was on the radio in a flash. ‘Virgin Challenger is sinking. We are abandoning ship. Repeat: we are abandoning ship. Hey, Ted!’ Chay swung round. ‘Y
ou’re the skipper: you’re meant to be the last off!’

  Within seconds the boat started to go down. The first life raft we inflated snagged on something and ripped open. We had a backup raft which we threw overboard and pulled the ripcord to inflate.

  ‘Nobody panic!’ Chay shouted. ‘There’s no hurry! Everyone take their time!’

  As we edged along the rail to get into the life raft, Chay shouted out, ‘Panic! Panic! We’re going down. Move it!’

  The life raft was like a tiny inflatable coracle with a hooded tent. We huddled together, rocking up and down in the sea like we were on a crazy funfair ride. I was sitting next to the radio, and I picked up the mike. An RAF Nimrod picked up our Mayday. I gave the pilot our position, and he rapidly radioed any ships in the area.

  ‘OK, there are three vessels in the area that are heading towards you,’ the pilot came back to me. ‘In no particular order, there is the QE2, which is heading for New York; an RAF helicopter from the Scilly Isles has been mobilised, and a Geest boat heading to Jamaica is also on its way. Please take the first one that arrives.’

  ‘Tell him I’m not going in a fucking banana boat to Jamaica,’ Chay said. ‘Neither am I going back to New York. I want the bloody helicopter.’

  ‘That’ll be fine,’ I said over the radio, deciding not to pass on Chay’s comment, since for once I thought we were in no position to negotiate.

  Ted was gutted. He sat there in silence, his dream shattered.

  From the tiny hatch door we could see the stern of Virgin Challenger sticking out above the water. The rest of the boat was underwater. All you could see was the word ‘Virgin’.

  ‘Well, Richard,’ Chay said, pointing at the logo, ‘as usual you got the last word in.’

  As we waited, I started a chorus of ‘We’re all going on a summer holiday …’ Everyone sang along, even Ted.

  Eventually we were picked up by the Geest banana boat on its way to the Caribbean. We were winched up in turn and left the life raft spinning by itself.

  ‘Handy in case anyone else capsizes,’ said Chay.

  It was dinnertime and the guests were gathering in the captain’s quarters. Rather like in the great days of ocean steamers, they were all wearing dinner jackets and evening gowns. We were a bedraggled lot in our damp nylon survival suits.

  ‘My poor boy,’ one elderly lady said to me. ‘And you haven’t even seen your newborn son yet, have you?’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘I’m afraid we’re heading off to Jamaica so I won’t see him for a while.’

  ‘Well, I’ve got this photograph of him for you.’

  To my astonishment, she pulled out that day’s edition of the London Evening Standard. And there on the front page was a picture of our tiny son wrapped up in a shawl. I have to admit to a tear in my eye as I looked at it.

  A salvage team radioed us to ask permission to salvage the boat.

  ‘Of course,’ I said, looking out of the porthole to where we could still see the stern sticking up like a tombstone.

  ‘You bloody idiot!’ Chay snapped at me. ‘You never want to see that boat again. Just a lot of waterlogged electronics which will never work again. You’ll never get a penny from the insurers.’

  ‘On second thoughts,’ I said, ‘perhaps I can call you back?’

  ‘Right you are,’ they said.

  I put down the phone and Chay and I looked across the sea at Virgin Challenger. As we did so, it silently plunged below the surface.

  It took a month for the ringing in my ears to stop. I was beginning to think I had permanent brain damage. However, winning the Blue Riband and the Hales Trophy became unfinished business. We were determined to succeed. Chay and I felt that, after what had happened to Challenger, we should build a single-hulled boat rather than a catamaran, because it would be stronger. Since Ted Toleman specialised in catamarans, he refused to change the design and dropped out. We formed a new team with three key members of Ted Toleman’s original crew, Chris Witty, Steve Ridgway, and Chris Moss, who asked me whether they could come to work for Virgin. Chay Blyth stayed with the project as the presiding sailing expert, and together we designed a new boat.

  On 15 May 1986, Virgin Atlantic Challenger II was launched by Princess Michael of Kent. The boat was 75-feet long, with a single hull. We were confident that she could cope with the heavy seas much better than her predecessor. But as we sailed her around the south coast on her maiden voyage towards Salcombe, we cannoned off a vast wave which almost spun the boat over. Everyone was hurled across the deck and one of our crew, Pete Downie, broke his leg. The agony on his face was more to do with the realisation that he wouldn’t be with us than the pain from his leg. Chay fractured a toe and Steve was almost swept overboard. We arrived at Salcombe like a hospital boat.

  We shipped the boat over to New York, and once again waited for good weather. When we left New York Harbour on a bright June morning in 1986 and headed up towards Nova Scotia, we braced ourselves once more for the pounding. It was not as bad as the first time, and the trip up the east seaboard of America was much faster than we hoped. We sped along and after eighteen hours met the first refuelling ship off the coast of Newfoundland.

  We refuelled and headed off into the gathering darkness. The summer night was short, and we were travelling northeast, which made it shorter still, so we had just five hours of darkness to cope with. We relied on the radar and trying to squint ahead through the night-vision goggles, but still had no idea what was ahead. Motoring at that speed through the night was like driving blindfold, and we narrowly missed a surfacing whale.

  By the second day the adrenaline rush which had kept us going had worn off. It was now just horrible, relentless banging. Each wave smashed us up and down, up and down, until we could no longer grin and bear it: we had to just clench our teeth and bear it.

  As we approached RV2, the refuelling boat, off the coast of Canada, we also had to keep an intense lookout for icebergs. Large icebergs show up on the radar and can be avoided; it is the ‘small’ ones, tiny blips above the surface which actually weigh 100 tons and could smash the hull, that are dangerous. Indeed, even an iceberg the size of a beanbag could seriously damage the hull. The difficulty was that, as hour after hour passed and we were deafened by the roar of the engines, it was impossible to keep our concentration going. We still had over 2,000 miles to travel. Each minute of every hour was a battering. This was where the strength of the team came through: we all rallied round to help each other get through it.

  As we waved goodbye and revved up the engines to speed away from the second refuelling boat, our engines coughed, choked, and conked out. Eckie Rastig, our new engineer, went below decks to investigate. He came back up horrified: the fuel filters were full of water. This was a disaster. He took a dipstick sample and reckoned that for every 12 tonnes of fuel taken on board we had also taken on about 4 tonnes of water. It was a complete mystery as to how the water had got in with the fuel, but we had no time to worry about that. Maybe it was the Esso directors’ revenge for my blunder over BP! The diesel and the water had emulsified together, which meant it was impossible to split the water off from the diesel: we had to drain the entire four fuel tanks and start again. The Esso boat came back alongside and we filled up again, taking another precious three hours.

  We restarted the engines but they conked out again. It was now 11p.m. and we had spent seven hours bobbing up and down next to the refuelling boat in the middle of the freezing ocean. The race was slipping away. The swell grew progressively worse.

  ‘The storm’s catching up with us,’ Chay said. ‘This isn’t funny.’

  The storm, which was following the wonderful weather we had enjoyed on the first day, was not an abrupt, fierce storm, but just a big spell of filthy weather, our worst nightmare. Soon the boat was riding waves which had grown to 50 feet. We hardly dared stand on deck because one moment we were well beneath the vast Esso ship so that it looked as if it must topple over on top of us; the next moment we were thro
wn up way above it and we couldn’t believe that we wouldn’t skate down the edge of the wave and crash into it. By now the suffocating petrol fumes made us all sick. Everyone was retching and puking and doubled up in pain. Our survival suits were soaked with seawater and flecked with vomit; our faces were white and green; our hair was frozen.

  ‘It’s not worth going on,’ Chay shouted in my ear. ‘We’ve all spoken and we’re all gutted. It’s over. I’m sorry, Richard.’

  I knew that if we failed on this attempt there would be no third time. We had to go for it. I had to persuade them.

  ‘Let’s just try to get the engines going and see how far we can get,’ I said. ‘Come on. We’ve got to make a stab at this.’

  There was an engine specialist called Steve Lawes on board the Esso boat whom I knew. I asked him to come aboard and help us. They set up their winch and swung him out over the side. With the two boats swinging up and down on the giant waves, it was astonishingly brave of him to try. With perfect timing they dropped him on our deck and he snapped off the belt before he could be swept back into the air as another wave drove us down and the Esso boat up. Steve went down to join Eckie in the engine room. There was a tiny space beside the engines, and together they drained the fuel tanks and took on more fuel. I went down to see them, but there was no room for anyone else.

  I didn’t have to beg Steve to stay with us.

  ‘I’ll stay just for the pleasure of the ride,’ he said, oil stains already covering his face.

  I suddenly felt that we had a chance.