Before we began our interview with Mike Harker, we knew enough about his recent sailing history to know that he would be a good subject for an interview. Specifically, that at age 52, and with very little sailing experience, he bought a boat and did the 2000 Ha-Ha. 18 months later, he singlehanded across the Atlantic, and during the next 20 months cruised 24,000 miles between Miami and Malta, Malta and the Marquesas, and the Marquesas and his home in Manhattan Beach - much of it singlehanded. We also know that he's planning on getting another HUNTER next year in order to complete his circumnavigation. Despite having met Harker several times, what we didn't know about him until we met him at Orange Coast College in Newport Beach for the start of this interview is that in April 1977, he was nearly killed in a horrible sporting accident. Therefore all his subsequent sailing and career achievements have to be viewed against a backdrop of his not even being able to sit up in a wheelchair for several years, and repeatedly being told to accept the fact that he'd never be able to walk again. Although Harker is unable to stand without at least touching something, and is paralyzed from the knees down, he is able to walk. Furthermore, in addition to his sailing adventures, after the accident he's become a very successful photographer and film producer. As such, while this interview - which will appear in two parts - is about sailing, it's also very much about resilience and perseverance. We hope you enjoy it and are inspired by it.
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Richard Spindler
Publisher / Executive Editor, Latitude 38
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Latitude 38: Sailing wasn't your first sport, was it?
Harker: No, but I was always interested in watersports. For example, I was born and raised in Torrance, CA, so Avenue F was my surfing beach. But I was particularly interested in and good at waterskiing. Most summer days when I was 11 & 12, I would ride my bike - with my water-ski on a trailer behind it - 20 miles to the Long Beach Marine Stadium, where I'd hitch rides behind ski boats. I was young and good, so I never needed to use the dollar bill I always brought along in case I needed to pay for a ride. At the end of the day, I'd ride my bike 20 miles back home to Torrance. Southern California was a different place back then. (Laughter.) My waterskiing goal was to win the Grand National Catalina Ski Race, which was from the mainland to Catalina and back. When I was just 10 years old, I took 19th place overall, which was a big deal. As I got older, I continued to do better.
Watersports have been good to me my entire life. I got good grades in school, so when I was 15, my dad gave me $200 and a Greyhound bus ticket to spend the summer at Clear Lake. I stayed with a friend of an uncle, and made more money than I spent by cleaning the slime off boat bottoms. Then my dad called to say, "If you can make them think that you're 18, you can have a job at Gold Arrow Camp on Shaver Lake in the Sierras teaching the 12 to 16-year-old daughters of movie stars and producers how to waterski.” Needless to say, I took the job and had a wonderful time. (Laughter.)
When I was 17, I spent the summer rowing in Newport Beach, as rowing was the best exercise for competitive waterskiing. Back then, the facilities for Orange Coast College's sailing and rowing programs consisted of a couple of Quonset huts on a sand beach at its current location. The year 1966 was a very big year for me. I joined the Orange Coast College rowing team as a freshman, and our humble squad beat mighty UCLA in the Newport Regatta. It was there that I met Christie Casner, whose brother was the captain of the UCLA team. One thing lead to another, and I ended up spending the summer at the Casner family's place on Lido Isle. They had a Lido 14 sailboat they kept on their beach, so we fooled around with that a bit. It was my first sailing experience.
Later that year, my Orange Coast team won the West Coast Intercollegiates in Vallejo, which was another big deal. I also hung around Newport and raced Hobie 16s. I capped the summer off in August by achieving my longtime goal of winning the Grand National Catalina Ski Championship. The years before I’d been 5th, 3rd and 2nd place.
The following summer I show-skied at Cypress Gardens in Florida, and did some flat kite or Tibado flying behind the ski boats. It was also about this time that I read an article in National Geographic about the Rogallo Wing and the fledgling sport of hang gliding.
When back in Southern California in '68, I built my first hang glider out of bamboo tubes, painter's plastic sheeting and duct tape. (Laughter.) I actually got the thing off the ground for a short distance from the sand dunes near the end of the runway at LAX. There is a plaque there today that states it's the place where modern hanggliding began. I was very good friends with all of the sport's big names of the time, such as Bob Wills and Chris Price, two of the crazy test pilots for Australian hang gliding entrepreneur Bill Bennett. Tragically, most of those hang gliding pioneers are dead now.