Bay Area Couple Join ‘Translated 9’ for Ocean Globe Race

Bay Area husband and wife Paul and Teresa Marshall are each joining a leg of the upcoming Ocean Globe Race as crew aboard the Italian-based Swan 65 Translated 9, sister ship to the local Translated 9 US, often seen out on the Bay. The pair are sailing separate legs of the 27,000-mile sprint around the globe, with each leg expected to take around one month to complete.

The idea to join the race was born from both their involvement with the project and the months-long pandemic shutdowns. “We were out of sailing for quite a while,” Paul told us from the couple’s Sunnyvale home.

“We had just started getting back into it [sailing],” Teresa said, “via one of the sailing clubs in early 2020, when Marco Trombetti, whom I had known for years since we worked in the same field, shared his idea of joining the Ocean Globe Race, and we got involved with the project.”

While growing up in southern Germany, Teresa would sail with her parents on Lake Starnberg. Along with pleasure sailing, Teresa and her family competed in class races, and later cruised through Greece and Turkey aboard a 40-ft Hylas. Eventually she got her own German sailing license for her country’s domestic waters.

In the meantime, Paul was gaining his chubby, toddler sea legs on San Diego Bay aboard his parents’ “tiny, tinny aluminum sailboat.” When the family moved to Texas they daysailed Galveston Bay in a J/24. Later, as a young adult with a goal of backpacking around the world, Paul was working three jobs in Hawaii when he was introduced to a retired airline pilot with a 60-ft Lidgard cruiser/race boat, Final Approach, who was looking for some younger crew to help sail the South Pacific. Paul spent the next four years circumnavigating and crewing in races including the Rolex Sydney Hobart Yacht Race, Spice Islands Darwin Ambon Yacht Race, Raja Muda Selangor International Regatta, Phuket King’s Cup Regatta, the ARC Rally, and the Transpac Race.

It was during his circumnavigation that he and Teresa met. “… [The] boat was in Gibraltar waiting for the start of the ARC from the Canaries. Teresa was touring Spain with a friend after spending the summer in Madrid learning Spanish. She was wandering along the quay taking pictures of the boats and saw the boat from Hawaii … and 29 years later, here we are!”

The couple eventually moved to the Bay Area, though as they were focused on their young family and their work, sailing was sporadic. Later, when Teresa became involved with the Translated 9 project on the Bay, Paul came aboard to help and crew. As the team’s Ocean Globe Race ambitions gained traction, it all became “more real” and both Teresa and Paul knew they wanted to join the boat. They did the required Safety at Sea training, and joined a trial passage designed to weed out anyone who could not cope with the long ocean legs that make up the eight-month-long race. They both passed with flying colors.

Come September, Teresa will join Translated 9 Italy in Southhampton, UK, for the first leg to Cape Town, SA. Paul will then join the crew for the challenging second leg, which will cross the Southern Ocean before arriving in Auckland, NZ.

“I would love to do Leg 4,” Teresa said, admitting she didn’t like the idea of sailing the Southern Ocean leg. Along with the adventure and incredible learning opportunity, she looks forward to the camaraderie of everyone “pulling together.” And while it is just a “little bit scary,” her greatest fear is running out of food. “Will there be enough?” she laughs.

Paul had different concerns. Safety, of course, is always paramount, but he says hearing Paul Cayard’s tales of the cold Southern Ocean was enough to make him shiver (Cayard helped train the crew aboard Translated 9 in S.F. Bay). But his anticipation of the time spent offshore, “the rhythm of the boat life,” and “being removed and off the grid” will be enough to add a few degrees to his core.