ONEOUTISDE: How did you start sailing?
Song: In the summer of 2006, I had the chance to make contact with sailing during summer vacation.It’s more like do a line and love a line for me now. Sailing entirely is dependent on wind power to the destination and its harmony with nature makes me admire this magnificent invention of human history. After years sailing on little sailboats, I wanted to find out more of the ocean and hopped for longer sailing time which led me farther and farther.
ONEOUTSIDE: What do you think is the most difficult part in sailing?
Song: You have to overcome extreme hot and cold weather conditions, along with damp and jolt during sailing. It’s lonely to be away from land and friends and family. Even the lack of food choice, small space, unchangeable resting schedule and lack of sleep can be a challenge for every sailor, especially for those who sail around the world.You could only rest at the port for a few days before you left and you would be too tired to cry.
ONEOUTSIDE：在您觉得最难熬的时候，有没有想过放弃？
宋：有觉得很辛苦的时候，但没有想过放弃。我觉得人如果很容易放弃，就什么事情都做不了。
ONEOUTSIDE: Have you ever thought of gave up during the hardest time?
Song: I never thought of gave up even things were difficult. I think if people give up easily, nothing will be accomplished.
ONEOUTSIDE: What was the best view you saw at sea?
Song: Wales, dolphins, glowing jellyfishes, rainbows, even storms were filled with beauty of lofty sentiments. At night, the starry sky was astonishing, and the moon accompanied us every night. I think the most stunning view was the starry sky, every night when the sky was cloudless, you can see the sky full of stars and they shine like diamonds. You could see the milky way, Altair, Vega. So I installed a cellphone app of constellation, then I find out which is Leo, Pisces, or Orion. You would be fascinated by constellation deeply.
ONEOUTSIDE: How did the sea look like then？
Song：The sea was not completely black like we would imagine. Even when the light is extremely dim, you still could see plankton glowing under the ocean. I remembered clearly, once when we were sailing through the equator, we came across a swap of fluorescent jellyfish, even the small ones were as big as basketball and the big ones were as big as a big lantern (around three feet diameters). We sailed more than six hours before we left that big swap of jellyfish. The wave rolled up by the stern like a sailing track and end at the sky line. All of it felt very magical, just like the movie “Pi”.
There were a lot of dolphins, whales and flying fishes. I saw a very big whale once while it was jumping out of water completely. It had a pitch-black back and a snow-white belly, everything was so magical. I thought why that fish would jump out of water when everyone is so happy? It must because it was too happy to stay in the water. That is the reason why you treasure the environment. Our sailor would never throw any garbage into the ocean. Because there are so many beautiful creatures living under the ocean, we couldn’t bear to harm them.
ONEOUTSIDE: Did you swim or fish when you were at calm belt?
Song: Yes, we did. Where there were barely any wind and the ship’s speed was nearly zero,with the captain's permission, we would jump off the ship and swim for a while before we board again. Only one fish was caught on board Qingdao during the one year global voyage.
ONEOUTSIDE: Will female ship members face more difficulties than male.
Song: No one will pity you or treat you better because you are female. So you’d better not pity yourself. The only thing you can do is enduring the hardness, insisting and becoming stronger.
You go to the bathroom and deal with menstruation the same way you do on land, just with more difficulties. Female ship members have less physical strength, not to speak of the menstruation you have every month. But you have to work during that time as well. The only thing you could do was working, working and working. Ha-ha, so you have to be stronger. All the female sailors who insisted on finishing global voyage are strong. We sailed 24/7 non stop, you had to climb to the deck at 2 o’clock at night in the dark, violent storm and roaring waves. When you hit by a wave, the boat would feel like that it is out of control. It was extremely dangerous but then I felt my heart fill with passion, and I was like a horseman riding a mustang and running among the endless prairie. You wouldn’t feel scary then, rather more like sword woman. Ha-ha.
ONEOUTSIDE: Did you get hurt during sailing?
Song: When we were at North Pacific, I broke my coccyx during a fall. I couldn’t sit for a whole week. I even couldn’t lay on my back when I sleep. The only measure I could take was taking pain killers which were extremely miserable. I almost took all the pain killer on the boat, but I refused to rest, because if I rest, my fellow ship members have to do my work.
ONEOUTSIDE: How did you feel when you finished your global voyage and ready to land?
Song: I felt very complicated. On one hand, you really want to go back to the normal life you have on the land. On the other hand, you feel unwilling to leave, because you already got used to the life on the board after a year sail around the world, and you had gotten very close to the fellow ship members. It was very hard to say goodbye to this part of life.
ONEOUTSIDE: After sailing, people would get darker and may feel uncomfortable physically. How did you get your skin and body back to your original condition? How did you feel when you saw the difference between before sailing and after?
Song: After sailing for 11 months, you would feel extremely tiresome. But I good at adaption, and I do not have seasick, so I didn’t lose any weight. Because of eating high-caloric foods constantly. I grow more than ten pound instead. I was dark and strong. I regain fitness pretty fast, probably because of my physical function is good. After four hours non-stop rotation on the boat, and got to sleep eight hours straight every night, with insisted on exercise and occasionally some s.p.a.. I used two months to regain the weight and outlook I had before I board the ship.
I did not feel many differences before the voyage or after. I knew what will happen during that time and I knew that I could go back to where I was. When you are on the sea, keep yourself alive is far more important than your outlook. But the experience I had and the knowledge I learned over the last year are the most important things. They are worth to sacrifice my physical outlook.
ONEOUTSIDE: What do you think you obtained most from the global voyage?
Song: What I obtained most was not hardship and sweet, but the care and support given by my friends and people from my home town. I also learned a lot from cogitating during the sail. I knew to pursuit your dream persistently, face difficulties and challenges, have a strong will and never give up, and have the spirit of chasing after your dream.
ONEOUTSIDE: Sail is not very popular in China. What is the current situation of sailing?
Song: Training for sailing has just started in China. Trainers’ qualities are very uneven, and there is a potential safety hazard. There are more that 60 youth training institutions in China. If one of them has a safety problem, it will have a huge effect on the entire nautical industry. If we can introduce formal training system in to our country in the early stage of development. It will make a steady foundation for the healthy development of Chinese sailing industry. It also will benefit all the nautical industries.
ONEOUTSIDE: What kind of vocational training you have to go through before you become a sailor? And how long do you need before you are able to sail?
Song: This mainly depends on what kind of level of sailing you want to do. If want to sail near the shore, it is pretty easy. First you have to be able to swim to save yourself. You do not need to be scared, you can sail with experienced ones and learn the basic skill while sailing. You need a week to be a competent sailor. But if you want to navigate yourself, you will need a more systematic training. Even a boat around 7 inches, you need at least two weeks of vocational learning before you can navigate yourself.
ONEOUTSIDE: I heard you are learning at Cheung Kong Graduate School of Business, why did you choose this?
Song: About that, when I came back from global voyage, I got an offer from Cheung Kong Graduate School of Business as a trans-boundary student. This is a great honor and a great opportunity for me to study. Learning business knowledge with those great classmates, I believe I will be able to help with Chinese nautical education in the future.
ONEOUTSIDE: Is there any dream you want to achieve？
Song: Because I like sailing, so I will continue to devote all my strength to encourage more people join in sailing, and I will do more public interest activity of the ocean in the future. Let us protect the source of all life—ocean.
