Judi Burrell and Warwick Sherman on Occasional Coarse Language Too. Picture: Andrea Francolini Source: The Australian
WARWICK "Woz" Sherman has been sailing offshore seriously for more than 18 years, but he never had a burning desire to enter the Rolex Sydney Hobart Race until it was almost too late.
When he was diagnosed with non-Hodgkins mantle cell lymphoma in June 2010, the 58-year-old suddenly realised he might have put off a Hobart start so often that he was never going to take part in the classic 628 nautical mile race.
"It is just something you should do as an ocean racer," Sherman said yesterday. "It is something you should do at least once in your life - but the real motivation was when I got ill."
Putting aside doubts over his future, he immediately ordered a new yacht and Occasional Coarse Language Too arrived in July last year, in plenty of time to be prepared for last year's Sydney-Hobart race. But Sherman's plans for that race were dashed when his doctors told him he was too sick to set sail.
"When I was diagnosed, the doctors told me not to worry, but once they took a closer look, they found it was a rare form of lymphoma," he said. He was put on a new form of treatment.
MEGAGRAPHIC: Sydney-Hobart 2012
"Before me, mortality was not an option for sufferers and even now there is not enough history to know what the survival rate will be. The doctors said they could treat me straight away or wait and let the disease hit aggressively.
"I took the second option."
A couple of months after taking delivery of his new yacht, Sherman was into a six-month course of chemotherapy and his doctors ruled out any sailing.
"They said it was too dangerous as I could have ruptured my spleen and bled internally."
But earlier this year, he underwent a ground-breaking stem cell transplant and soon found himself in remission - and back on his beloved yacht.
Beside him was his partner and regular crew, Judi Burrell, who has sailed to Hobart three times on other people's yachts. This year, she will be watching from the shore as Sherman lives out his dream. "I'm not sorry not to be going," Burrell said, "I feel fortunate to have done the three I have.
"I'll be at the CYCA (Cruising Yacht Club of Australia) to see him off and I'm looking forward to meeting him at Constitution Dock in Hobart with scallop pies and beer when he finishes."
Sherman has dedicated his race to the Lymphoma Association and hopes all his friends and working colleagues will make donations to the charity as he sails south. He said lymphoma has the fourth-highest mortality rate of cancers in Australia and that the association receives no government funding. "Few people realise it causes more deaths than lung cancer," he said.
With only a few days to go before the starting gun fires on Boxing Day, Sherman is confident Occasional Coarse Language Too will perform as well as it did recently when it won the Gascoigne Cup and the Lion Island-Botany Bay race.
"I'm not feeling nervous at this stage and I feel comfortable with the crew, which is made up of blokes from Sydney and seven sailors from Lake Macquarie and Newcastle. It may sound a funny thing to say, but I have no emotions in particular about the race.
"I've done 12 Gosford to Lord Howe Island races and many other races, so one side of me is saying 'you could have died, so push yourself' and the other is saying: 'Why not take it easy and not do something stupid after coming through the cancer.'
"But I'm determined to do well. I'm a bit out of the loop because I haven't done longer races of late - but we will see."
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