How to Plan a Race Around the World by Land and Sea

More from the “In the Footsteps of Champagne Charlie” chronicles

The other day I was trying to explain to someone much younger than me our race around the world with Charles Heidsieck Champagne. Not only were we talking about the race itself but, more specifically, just what was entailed in planning such an undertaking. Remember, this took place in those blissful days of techno-peasantry. 1993 was pre- internet, pre- easy web searches (indeed, pre-web, period) and, of course, well before FaceBook. In fact, Mark Zuckerberg had barely turned nine …

That chat perked up a number of memories which I had almost forgotten.  So (before jumping into more details of the race itself) I thought it would be fun to summarize the events leading up to our September 1st. departure.

How it all came about

Sometime in late spring 1993 I was approached by Richard Carras, then co-owner of Vintage Consultants—now Authentic Wine & Spirits Merchants. A couple of years earlier Richard had been instrumental in nudging—nay, dragging—me into wine writing.

Ronald Searle: Wine Speak

At the time I was intimidated by the idea. I had recently started as the Vancouver’s Courier’s food critic and Richard was convinced that I should be writing about wine as part of the deal. “It’s not that complicated,” he assured me. “Why not come to a couple of tastings and you’ll see.” So I did. The first was Michael Mondavi pouring Robert Mondavi wines at the Four Seasons. And so it went from there…

Following in the footsteps…

Vintage represented Charles Heidsieck Champagne (which then, but no longer, was internationally under the purview of Rémy Martin), in Western Canada. Rémy, of course, had significant global reach. Charles Heidsieck president and CEO Trevor Bell had come up with a promotion, “In the Footsteps of Champagne Charlie,” inspired by the success of the 1989 BBC 1 series ‘Around the World in 80 Days with Michael Palin.’ In Jules Verne’s 1873 novel, Phileas Fogg takes up a challenge to circumnavigate the globe in that time—before the era of powered flight, of course. Bell’s plan was to adapt the idea into a round-the-world race to reinforce Charles Heidsieck as a brand.

Charles Heidsieck c. 1850

Charles Heidsieck himself had travelled widely to develop his export market—and was even imprisoned, on charges of spying, during the American Civil War.

The first ‘Footsteps’ had been successfully staged in 1992. The 1993 race would involve teams from seven countries, all of whom would depart from their home town on September 1, with a goal of completing the race within 100 days. The second race’s duration was longer than ’80 days’ because Sydney, Australia had been added to the itinerary of 20 destinations.

The qualifying round

Richard Carras had originally invited our good friend the late Jurgen Gothe, who declined because of his many commitments—mainly to CBC’s nationally broadcast daily ‘Disc Drive.’ Jurgen, however, suggested that Richard approach me, which he did.

The challenge was to race around the world by land and sea, in 100 days or less, making stops in:

Amsterdam, Barcelona, Brussels, Dublin,

Hamburg, Hong Kong, London, Mexico City,

Milan, Montreal, Moscow, New Orleans,

New York City, Paris, Singapore, Sydney,

Tokyo, Toronto, Vancouver, Zurich.

No flying or self-driving was allowed (everything had be ‘19th century’), although we were permitted to take a cab between train stations and hotels.

Looking for ‘the hook’

Each prospective team was required to submit an attention-getting ‘hook’ that would drive good PR in selected stop-over cities, where Heidsieck importers would be on hand to assist. Our entire budget for the race was $5000 US. (Amazingly, in the end, we came in under that amount.) Importantly, during those stop-overs, the Champagne house would be picking up the hotel and meals for two nights.

Heather and I put on our thinking caps as to just what that ‘hook’ should be. We decided to put her prodigious singing skills to good use and suggested that we would present an encapsulated history of ‘Champagne Charlie’s’ adventures in which we would sing a number of Champagne-themed operatic and music hall pieces including, naturally, Champagne Charlie is My Name. We also proposed to appear in period costume—which presented an added challenge by increasing our luggage! (Although, thanks to the ingenuity of Mara Gottler—noteworthy designer for Bard on the Beach and Robert Lepage—the costumes turned out to be as stunning as they were compact.) In great anticipation we sent off our proposal to Richard.

Apparently a Quebec entry had misgivings about the prospect of being stranded in some far-flung outpost or by not being able to get on a ship. We felt no such reservations. Sometime in late June we got the word: our proposal had been accepted—and we would be ‘Team Canada!’

The scramble was on to be ready to leave on September 1st.

In search of race friendly vessels

By far our biggest challenge was figuring out how to navigate the various oceans, including crossings of the Atlantic, Pacific and South China Sea. Also, there was the question of which route to take.Eventually I decided that we needed to connect with a shipping agent. We looked some up in the Yellow Pages and made a few phone calls before heading off to an office in Vancouver’s heritage Dominion Building.

I have misplaced the name of the kind agent who agreed to share with us his insights into the mysterious world of shipping and any possibilities it might afford. Intrigued, he listened to the story of our challenge but cautioned us that it was all but impossible to secure passage on a container ship. Even the handful of vessels that specialised in taking a few guests were booked years ahead. (They still are.)

Our only option would be to arrive in a port and make enquiries locally. The good news was that some captains were known to be obliging and ready to accept ‘hitch-hikers’ on occasion, even if those occasions were few and far between. Usually the reluctance to take along guests was due to company policy related to liability and insurance concerns.

Ultimately, though, we did leave his office with something of great value: the gift of a giant wall-map of the world showing all the shipping routes as well as, crucially, marine weather by season.

Which way? East, West, North or South?

That map was invaluable as it helped us to make our first significant decision: which way to undertake our circumnavigation. After studying it for a couple of weeks, we realized that the smartest idea would be to tackle the Atlantic crossing first. This way we could plan our North American leg, with check-ins at Mexico City, New Orleans, Toronto, Montreal and New York City.

We would travel almost entirely by scheduled rail services up to the day that we needed to arrive in New York. There we would board our first ocean-going vessel. We opted to buy ‘cheap’ berths (through a media rate) on Cunard’s QE 2, which offered the only scheduled Atlantic crossing.

The original QE 2, critical to the race.

If all went to plan we would be waving goodbye to the Statue of Liberty on Day 16 of the race. With other connections (including from Holyhead to Dublin and Rosslare to Cherbourg), we were able to plan our first 51 days. During that time we would traverse North America, the U.K., Ireland, Europe, and the then USSR from Moscow to Beijing with a subsequent ferry connection from Shanghai to Yokohama. Following a short train ride, Day 52 would find us in Tokyo … looking for a ship.