Latest / Adventure Sports Podcast / Ep. 1112 Solo Sailing Around the World - Pip Hare Revisited

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Ep. 1112 Solo Sailing Around the World - Pip Hare Revisited · Adventure Sports Podcast

0:06
[SPEAKER_01]: my first ever, ever, ever single-handed trip with 5,800 miles from Monteverdeo in Europe, Y2, the UK, and it took me 58 days.
0:13
[SPEAKER_01]: And I just did it, see if I could.
0:14
[SPEAKER_01]: Episode 1, 112.
0:15
[SPEAKER_01]: This is Pipper, solo sailing around the world, revisited.
0:30
[SPEAKER_00]: You're listening to the Adventure Sports podcast.
0:32
[SPEAKER_00]: We talk with adventurers from around the globe to bring you the inspiration and motivation you need to get started in the outdoors or to keep you moving if you're already there.
0:40
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, here's your host, Kurt Lindville.
0:43
[SPEAKER_02]: Hi friends, and welcome to the Adventure Sports podcast.
0:45
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, the seas just call to me.
0:48
[SPEAKER_02]: I love episodes about sailing or rolling around the world.
0:54
[SPEAKER_02]: It's just amazing to me that people do this sort of thing.
0:57
[SPEAKER_02]: And at today's episode, we'll not disappoint.
1:00
[SPEAKER_02]: This is PIP hair.
1:01
[SPEAKER_02]: It's a revisited episode.
1:02
[SPEAKER_02]: Mason is doing the hosting.
1:05
[SPEAKER_02]: So it's going to be fantastic.
1:07
[SPEAKER_02]: And please remember, if you enjoy this episode or any episode, the number one thing that you can do to help support the adventure sports podcast is to share the episode with a friend.
1:21
[SPEAKER_02]: Help us get the word out.
1:22
[SPEAKER_02]: Thanks so much and enjoy.
1:26
[SPEAKER_03]: Hey folks, welcome to the Adventures Sports podcast brand new episode today with Pipp Hair.
1:31
[SPEAKER_03]: She is a solo sailor, and she's the eighth woman in history to ever complete the Vindeglobe.
1:37
[SPEAKER_03]: A solo sailing race around the world, note as, known as the quote Everest of the Seas.
1:42
[SPEAKER_03]: She's been all over the world doing huge races, and today we're talking about the craziness involved in the dedication it takes to do something like the Vindeglobe, a race.
1:53
[SPEAKER_03]: literally around the world.
1:55
[SPEAKER_03]: There is no bigger stage to have a race than the globe.
2:00
[SPEAKER_03]: Unless you go into space, you know, that's about the only other format that could be bigger.
2:06
[SPEAKER_03]: So this is a really cool interview, PIP is it was incredibly interesting to talk to you.
2:11
[SPEAKER_03]: I really enjoyed just her perspective on the whole thing.
2:14
[SPEAKER_03]: Very cheerful and happy and just
2:16
[SPEAKER_03]: Made it sound like, you know, a walk in the park when really this is one of the most incredible feats of adventure we've ever had on the show, frankly, in the fact that she's the eighth woman in history ever to do this is is just absolutely mind blowing.
2:29
[SPEAKER_03]: So lots of links to follow PIP on Instagram, YouTube, Twitter, LinkedIn, TikTok.
2:35
[SPEAKER_03]: She's got a website as well, Facebook.
2:37
[SPEAKER_03]: Hope you enjoy and hope you get out there and do something like the Vendée, a round the world.
2:44
[SPEAKER_03]: Solo, sailing, race, unbelievable.
2:52
[SPEAKER_03]: All right, folks, welcome to the Adventure Sports podcast.
2:55
[SPEAKER_03]: Today we are having, it's kind of a unique episode for us.
2:58
[SPEAKER_03]: We don't often get to talk to solo sailors.
3:03
[SPEAKER_03]: We have hats up.
3:05
[SPEAKER_03]: We've had some great ones on the show, but it is not as frequent as maybe your hikers and bikers where it's, you know, a lot easier to do.
3:12
[SPEAKER_03]: This is a very specialized skill.
3:15
[SPEAKER_03]: I am very excited to welcome PipHair to the podcast.
3:19
[SPEAKER_03]: Welcome.
3:20
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you, it's really great to be here.
3:22
[SPEAKER_03]: Absolutely, so where's home for you and where are you coming from?
3:27
[SPEAKER_01]: So I am speaking to you from my home in the UK.
3:32
[SPEAKER_01]: So I live on the South Coast in a place called Paul and small fact.
3:38
[SPEAKER_01]: Or you, it's the second largest natural harbour in the world.
3:41
[SPEAKER_03]: Wow, so do you know the first largest?
3:45
[SPEAKER_01]: somewhere in Canada.
3:48
[SPEAKER_03]: Somewhere there's a lot in Canada.
3:49
[SPEAKER_03]: That makes sense.
3:51
[SPEAKER_03]: No way, that's so neat.
3:52
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm looking at this now.
3:53
[SPEAKER_03]: So how close is that to where you grew up, or to where you were, you kind of spent your childhood.
4:02
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, so I grew up actually quite about probably 300 miles away from here, which in the UK is actually quite far.
4:10
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, yeah.
4:11
[SPEAKER_03]: Here in the States, that's like a morning commute.
4:16
[SPEAKER_01]: So I grew up in a town called Funtington, which is Landlocked, and it's in East Anglia, so kind of middle east of the UK.
4:26
[SPEAKER_03]: Oh, wow, I'm looking that up now too.
4:28
[SPEAKER_03]: So, landlocked, I know you didn't find sailing till you were about 16.
4:35
[SPEAKER_03]: What led to even being introduced to sailing?
4:38
[SPEAKER_03]: Because I imagine you didn't do it much before 16, just because it'd be in landlocked, but you tell me.
4:47
[SPEAKER_01]: So, I did, I sailed.
4:48
[SPEAKER_01]: I did sail from a very young age, because my grandfather was a sailor.
4:55
[SPEAKER_01]: he had, he'd always been a sailor on the East Coast.
5:00
[SPEAKER_01]: He grew up there and when I was a very small baby, my parents used to take me sailing with him and his little wooden boats on the rivers in the East Coast.
5:12
[SPEAKER_01]: So kind of, I knew about boats and I was quite familiar with boats but it was
5:22
[SPEAKER_01]: It was more about being on and around the water, so it was mostly jumping off boats, swimming ramp boats, zooming to the shore, building tree houses, that sort of thing.
5:33
[SPEAKER_01]: And then in my sort of mid-teens, I come from a reasonably large family, there was four kids in my family.
5:44
[SPEAKER_01]: my parents thought it would be good.
5:46
[SPEAKER_01]: We're all quite close in age.
5:48
[SPEAKER_01]: Some of our parents thought it would be good for all of us when we hit our kind of mid-teens to go off on our holiday on our own.
5:57
[SPEAKER_01]: And I went on a sailing holiday.
5:59
[SPEAKER_01]: And it was the first time really that I'd experienced a sailing holiday with lots of other young people, but also run by young
6:12
[SPEAKER_01]: really kind of tick hold of me and and it probably from that moment onwards sailing was all I thought about all I want to do, I'd just thought it was incredible.
6:25
[SPEAKER_03]: So that experience with those young people it was I mean was this wasn't a long solo adventure across a sea this was kind of shorter experiences learning how to sail almost like a summer camp or something like that.
6:40
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, it was a week long sailing trip where we took three non-Engine little boats, but they were 23 for each, and you could sleep on them and cook on them.
6:55
[SPEAKER_01]: And basically, there were kind of three young people on each boat and then a four who was
7:03
[SPEAKER_01]: an old young person.
7:04
[SPEAKER_01]: So kind of I think the people who were supervising us for like either late teens or early 20s.
7:12
[SPEAKER_01]: And we just went off sailing.
7:13
[SPEAKER_01]: We just went off sailing around the coast of south West England for a week.
7:19
[SPEAKER_01]: we had to do all of our shopping cooking, we had to do our navigation, we sell the boats on our own, we made our own decisions and it's I think it's really easy to understand why I fell in love with the sport then because when you're 16 years old in the UK,
7:40
[SPEAKER_01]: There's not a lot you're allowed to do, you can't drive, you're not allowed to take responsibility for anything, you know, the rules and restrictions are very much kind of against you.
7:55
[SPEAKER_01]: And yet, 16 really is, you know, right in the middle of that age where you want to start exploring boundaries, you want to start being more
8:06
[SPEAKER_01]: Responsible and adventuring and exploring and all of those sorts of things and actually sailing is an incredible sport.
8:14
[SPEAKER_01]: You can be in command of your own vessel.
8:18
[SPEAKER_01]: You can steer it.
8:18
[SPEAKER_01]: You can push it.
8:20
[SPEAKER_01]: You can make the decisions and I think that's a love sport, a love feeling of being outside in the environment and the way that
8:31
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, you make your own power to travel.
8:33
[SPEAKER_01]: I loved all of that.
8:34
[SPEAKER_01]: I loved the people that I spent my time with.
8:37
[SPEAKER_01]: And I loved the way that I was in charge in, in a way I couldn't be in charge in any of the rest of my life.
8:44
[SPEAKER_01]: And so it just really appeals to me.
8:48
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think that's probably why I fell in love with it as a sport.
8:52
[SPEAKER_03]: How much?
8:53
[SPEAKER_03]: Because I'm not, I'm not a sailor.
8:56
[SPEAKER_03]: But we've had plenty on the show, but I've never asked this, how much are you in charge?
9:01
[SPEAKER_03]: I know that, you know, kind of, the pieces putting everything where they need to be, you are in charge of, but how, how, how.
9:11
[SPEAKER_03]: compared to maybe like a vehicle, a car, where you can just immediately turn and go, how much do you have to be looking around you and paying attention and making sure you have plenty of time and room to make the changes you need.
9:26
[SPEAKER_03]: Does that make sense?
9:28
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, yes, yeah, that's a really good question, actually, and kind of multi-layered really, um, that's my job.
9:36
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I'm trying, I'm trying.
9:40
[SPEAKER_01]: So on the face of it, you know, with a wonderful thing about the ocean is other than the depth, it has no boundaries.
9:51
[SPEAKER_01]: You can go anywhere and do anything, your choice,
9:58
[SPEAKER_01]: to go out in certain weather conditions.
10:02
[SPEAKER_01]: They could be good choices or bad choices.
10:04
[SPEAKER_01]: Or, once you're out on the water, you have to put up with, unless you're in a boat like the one I say on that, or when we can sell faster, we can sell faster than some weather systems.
10:18
[SPEAKER_01]: But in normal boats, once you're out on the water,
10:22
[SPEAKER_01]: you get the weather that you get given, you know, there's an art then in interpreting the weather and understanding where you should be and when.
10:33
[SPEAKER_01]: But actually, you have quite a lot of ability to make those choices and to be in control.
10:43
[SPEAKER_01]: But the skill, when to become a skilled sailor,
10:48
[SPEAKER_01]: I think you have to build up a body of experience and knowledge that allows you to foresee what could happen and understand the consequences of a bad or a badly timed action.
11:07
[SPEAKER_01]: So,
11:11
[SPEAKER_01]: So you are dictated to buy the weather, buy the size of your boat, buy how quickly you can respond as a human being.
11:24
[SPEAKER_01]: But with enough foresight, you can really do some
11:29
[SPEAKER_01]: some cheeky things.
11:30
[SPEAKER_01]: You can get into tiny spaces.
11:33
[SPEAKER_01]: You can kind of take the tide up a river and then take it back out again.
11:38
[SPEAKER_01]: But it just comes with a lot of planning and foresight and experience really.
11:45
[SPEAKER_03]: Hmm, so that's because I live next to a harbor that has hundreds of sailboats and it seems such as such an intimidating thing to get into.
12:00
[SPEAKER_03]: coming from like being a writing bicycles and hiking, you know, or being on a paddleboard, where you or a kayak, where you just paddle, where you want to go.
12:09
[SPEAKER_03]: So obviously not very fast, but you are in total control, and there's small movements make a, you know, it's very navigable and manageable, so it just seems like such a beast to understand, like horses almost, you know what I mean?
12:25
[SPEAKER_03]: Where they have a mind of their own.
12:28
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and I actually, I do understand what you said.
12:33
[SPEAKER_01]: I think a lot of people do kind of get a little bit just overwhelmed by, you know, for example, you cannot sail straight into the wind.
12:46
[SPEAKER_01]: If your ultimate destination is directly upwind, you have to zigzag to it.
12:51
[SPEAKER_01]: But I think one of the things I'm quite passionate about as a sailor is just trying to demystify it a bit because I think that historically there's a lot of vocabulary that's used around sailing and and I don't think.
13:12
[SPEAKER_01]: It's ever really been that well-explained kind of in homin language, but people to engage and understand it, but it actually isn't that complicated.
13:24
[SPEAKER_01]: It takes a little while to grasp the basics, but I think that's the same for any water sports.
13:29
[SPEAKER_01]: It takes a little while to grasp basics, because even on your paddleboard,
13:33
[SPEAKER_01]: you still need to be aware of which direction the wind's blowing because, you know, ultimately, the minute you pause, you're going in that direction and you need to be aware of if there's any current as well.
13:48
[SPEAKER_01]: So those sorts of things are actually things that you probably automatically do think about.
13:56
[SPEAKER_01]: It's just that somehow in sailing they seem to become more complicated.
14:02
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, that does, so for someone, because, you know, this is the adventure sports podcast.
14:08
[SPEAKER_03]: A lot of people listen for the stories, but there are people who are definitely
14:12
[SPEAKER_03]: hear a story like this and we can't want to try the sport out.
14:17
[SPEAKER_03]: What are some of the things when people go to, you know, people who are early in their sailing adventures, some of the things they're afraid of that you're like, that's really not an issue.
14:29
[SPEAKER_03]: And what are some things that are the opposite, which are, you need to be aware of that a lot of people don't think about.
14:41
[SPEAKER_01]: Initially, people are actually very intimidated by other sailors quite often and I know I was quite early in my career.
14:48
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, as you say, there's kind of york clubs with hundreds of boats in them and people going in and out and they're all very confidently marching up and down.
14:57
[SPEAKER_01]: And actually, you know, if you're not a boat owner, if you're just trying to integrate yourself into that community, I think it can be a bit daunting and a bit intimidating, but actually,
15:08
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, I would say to that, that sailing is a sport that everyone can enjoy and everyone has a skill that is relevant to sailing and that's kind of part of the reason why it appeals to me so much particularly your sailing.
15:25
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, when you think about your average crew on a yacht, you need, especially if you start going offshore and that's where the, as far as I'm concerned, that's where the real adventure is, you know, the ability to explore and to cross oceans and, and all of that sort of stuff, but, you know, you need the ability to, okay, you've got to be able to steer the boat and trim the sails, but you've got also got to be able to, um,
15:51
[SPEAKER_01]: uh, understand the weather forecast.
15:53
[SPEAKER_01]: You've got to be able to navigate.
15:55
[SPEAKER_01]: You need people on boards who are really good communicators that can kind of knit a crew together and direct multiple people to do things at the same time.
16:05
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, you need people who are physically strong to do one area on the boat.
16:11
[SPEAKER_01]: You need people who have got good eye for detail to do
16:21
[SPEAKER_01]: whatever your physical abilities, all limitations, there is a kind of sailing that will suit you.
16:29
[SPEAKER_01]: It's an incredibly adaptable sport.
16:34
[SPEAKER_01]: I think probably a lot of people initially are overly intimidated by
16:48
[SPEAKER_01]: getting things right all the time, and actually for the most part, when something goes wrong on a sailing boat, there's a bit of fracking and ropes banging around, and it sounds like it's bad, but sailing boats are built to keep you safe, they're built to keep you safe, and actually,
17:13
[SPEAKER_01]: kind of don't be afraid of it when things go wrong quite often when I see beginners out and things go wrong.
17:22
[SPEAKER_01]: People raise their voices, they start to get a little bit panicked, they raise their voices a bit more.
17:28
[SPEAKER_01]: And actually one of the best things you can do when it feels like things are starting to go wrong.
17:40
[SPEAKER_01]: the boat so he'll over and then come back again and then sort it out, step back, think about it, stay calm, but also just kind of believe that you have the power to sort it out because you do, you do have the power to mask with the boat, it just takes, it takes, I guess that's probably my greatest pearler wisdom for anybody is it's more about your head than it is
18:09
[SPEAKER_03]: interesting.
18:10
[SPEAKER_03]: This is really fascinating.
18:14
[SPEAKER_03]: I want to get into you talk about having people at different parts of the boat who have different skills, but the big adventure that we're talking and going to talk about today, the Vande Globe, that was a solo experience, so you had to do everything.
18:31
[SPEAKER_03]: That has to change things and the way you think about things and the way you have to prepare for sailing literally around the world by yourself.
18:44
[SPEAKER_03]: Leading up to this experience, I know you've had a ton of other adventure experiences and it had been many years of learning how to sail and whatnot, but did this feel different?
18:55
[SPEAKER_03]: Did this feel
18:56
[SPEAKER_03]: you know that that next level of can I do this or not?
19:00
[SPEAKER_03]: Like what was kind of your feeling going into this?
19:04
[SPEAKER_01]: Absolutely, yeah.
19:06
[SPEAKER_01]: And just kind of to put a little bit of background on it.
19:10
[SPEAKER_01]: I first read about the Fournd day Globe Race when I was 17 years old.
19:15
[SPEAKER_01]: So I just been on that sailing all day when I was 16.
19:19
[SPEAKER_01]: And I've really got the bug and I started devouring books on, because back then we didn't have the internet.
19:27
[SPEAKER_01]: So I started devouring books on sailing.
19:30
[SPEAKER_01]: I just read about every sailing race, round the world sailing races, just started reading everything.
19:36
[SPEAKER_01]: And I came across a magazine and it was the first time I'd ever even heard of the Vonday Globe Race.
19:45
[SPEAKER_01]: and it was single-handed non-stop around the world in 60-foot boats that other people were racing around the world in legs with a full crew.
19:58
[SPEAKER_01]: Same kind of boat, same kind of power but one person non-stop.
20:03
[SPEAKER_01]: And I just thought, that's got to be the hardest thing you could do at
20:12
[SPEAKER_01]: So, you know, I eventually hit that start line when I was 47 years old, so it took me 30 years of drawing, gaining experience and drawing to get to the start line and I had been so focused on getting to the start line because I mean that is it's so hard to do.
20:37
[SPEAKER_01]: And then I got to the start line.
20:40
[SPEAKER_01]: And I literally crossed the line and went, oh, okay, I've got a Sarah on the world, man.
20:46
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, and you just, the moment dawns on you and you think, okay, there's two things, one, I am going to be alone for three months.
20:58
[SPEAKER_01]: And at leading up to that, the longest time I'd ever been alone for was 58 days.
21:04
[SPEAKER_01]: So actually, I was,
21:07
[SPEAKER_01]: That was my first ever single-handed ocean crossing, which I just did to see if I could.
21:14
[SPEAKER_01]: But I had been touring on my, I lived on a boat then and I had been working my way around South America on it, kind of just exploring, working, exploring, working, kind of real,
21:31
[SPEAKER_01]: just getting to know various different places and and then I just decided I I needed to go racing and and the race the first race I chose was the off star which goes from flimuth in the southwest of the UK to new port road island and and I had to get.
21:52
[SPEAKER_01]: me and my boat back to do it.
21:54
[SPEAKER_01]: So I my first ever, ever, ever single-handed trip was 5,800 miles from Montevideo in Uruguay to the UK and it took me 58 days and I just did it, see if I could.
22:09
[SPEAKER_03]: Just to see if you could.
22:11
[SPEAKER_03]: Wow.
22:12
[SPEAKER_03]: So you had this idea for the Vande Glope for 30 years.
22:18
[SPEAKER_03]: Was there ever kind of a window of opportunity in that 30 years where you thought this is the time and it just didn't work out or did you have plans to do it before then?
22:29
[SPEAKER_03]: Or is it really just it marinated for 30 years straight and you were like, I'm doing it now at 47.
22:37
[SPEAKER_01]: So, it always was my ambition, but it's not, in terms of kind of where it sits in the structure of organised sport, in this discipline of organised sport, it's like the World Championships.
22:54
[SPEAKER_01]: And so you can't just go there, you know, you have to climb through the ranks first.
23:01
[SPEAKER_01]: But it's a really hard thing to do because in the UK there's a massively minority sports.
23:08
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not supported by any of the sporting governing bodies.
23:12
[SPEAKER_01]: Very few other people have done it.
23:14
[SPEAKER_01]: So there are kind of no pathways to follow, no role models, no funding.
23:20
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think I spent until I was 35, I kind of diligently worked within the sailing industry and upskilled myself.
23:30
[SPEAKER_01]: I sailed many, many, many miles.
23:32
[SPEAKER_01]: I went and kind of did things on my own.
23:35
[SPEAKER_01]: I did a bit of exploring in my boat.
23:39
[SPEAKER_01]: But I think rather naively until the age of 35,
23:46
[SPEAKER_01]: this first opportunity to get on my first foot on the ladder would present itself to me and and I got to my mid-30s and just realised it was never going to happen, you know, I wasn't just going to walk around the corner and there would be a sign going wanted.
24:03
[SPEAKER_01]: skippers, so those skippers, you know, and it didn't matter how good I got at sailing, you know, there was still massive pieces missing that the kind of formal training, the history of racing and also the funding, you know, finding sponsors, finding boats.
24:22
[SPEAKER_01]: It's, you know, when you get up to this level, it is the same kind of, you know, it's the same almost as formula one, you know, we have a high tech team, we've got to, we go all over the world to race, you know,
24:37
[SPEAKER_01]: you're making your way up to that level.
24:40
[SPEAKER_01]: And so at the age of 35, I just kind of thought, okay, well, I need to find the first, run myself and that's why I decided to do this race to Rhode Island because I lived on a boat there.
24:52
[SPEAKER_01]: And I had a boat, I mean, no one could call that a race bow.
24:57
[SPEAKER_01]: It was my home, but I had that, and I could race it, and so I found the only way.
25:04
[SPEAKER_01]: So the only single-handed, lantic race that would take me in that boat.
25:09
[SPEAKER_01]: And I went and did it because I realized that was my first step.
25:14
[SPEAKER_03]: Wow.
25:15
[SPEAKER_03]: So this was the end goal, or at least the biggest goal at the time for a long time, and you were taking steps to get there.
25:26
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, I, I almost feel like that experience across the Atlantic is its own conversation, its own episode, uh, and for someone's, it was crazy.
25:38
[SPEAKER_03]: It was crazy.
25:39
[SPEAKER_03]: Like you, I'm sure you, I'm sure the learning curve was steep.
25:43
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, absolutely.
25:45
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I, there was so many things.
25:46
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, for example, we do, so when you're solo racing, you don't just go to bed for the night, you can't.
25:54
[SPEAKER_01]: Because the boat's still sailing, the autopilot is driving the boat's still sailing, the conditions are round you are changing.
26:00
[SPEAKER_01]: So there's a safety aspect to it, but then also there's the competitive aspect to it, because you need to keep making sure that you're getting as fast as you can in the right direction.
26:10
[SPEAKER_01]: So we do what is called polyphase exleeping, which is basically sleeping in shorebursts.
26:17
[SPEAKER_01]: And the trick is that you need to work out kind of the times that it's, and they're appropriate to condition.
26:27
[SPEAKER_01]: So you need to work out how long it's okay not to be aware of what's going on in the boat for, but then the other thing is,
26:35
[SPEAKER_01]: that you, and the fuss of the boat is the shorter you peer is you to sleep.
26:41
[SPEAKER_01]: So at the moment, I sleep for between 20 and 30 minutes at that time, but you can never go into a deep sleep cycle.
26:48
[SPEAKER_01]: And if you do go into the deep sleep phase of sleeping, you have to make sure that you stay there until the other side.
26:57
[SPEAKER_01]: Because if you wake up mid-deep sleep, it's detriment to your
27:05
[SPEAKER_01]: So I always have to learn.
27:08
[SPEAKER_01]: to sleep in 40 minute bursts.
27:11
[SPEAKER_01]: For me, my deep sleep comes between 40, almost every night, and I measure it every night, but almost every night, my deep sleep cycles start at about 40 minutes in and finishes about two hours in.
27:26
[SPEAKER_01]: So if I wake up between 40 minutes and two hours, it's like I've been drugged.
27:30
[SPEAKER_01]: I can't operate, I can't judge distances, I stack around, it's awful.
27:37
[SPEAKER_01]: And so what I had to teach myself in that first transatlantic, how to do that's leaping, and it is like you're being tortured for two weeks, because you're constantly trying to wake yourself up at different phases and you either get it right or you don't.
27:57
[SPEAKER_01]: And you know, there are times, I mean, I lost my memory during fur,
28:02
[SPEAKER_01]: Maybe, I don't know, I woke up at the top table having written an entry in my sleep diary and I don't remember writing the entry.
28:14
[SPEAKER_01]: So I lost my memory at some point during that trip.
28:17
[SPEAKER_01]: But after two weeks of just banging my head against the wall, I was probably really down.
28:24
[SPEAKER_01]: Just kind of dragging myself around.
28:27
[SPEAKER_01]: After two weeks, my body just went, oh my god, that's what you want me to do.
28:31
[SPEAKER_01]: And ever since then, whenever I go offshore,
28:37
[SPEAKER_01]: I can just sleep for 30 minutes and then wake up, but I had to learn to do that, and also that trip was the first time I ever climbed a mast on my own in the big livenation, which is terrifying, also.
28:55
[SPEAKER_03]: You're not making a great case for the sport of sailing.
28:59
[SPEAKER_03]: But it sounds like prison.
29:05
[SPEAKER_03]: No, it sounds, I mean, you just, the fire in you to do this has to be just truly, truly burning hot.
29:15
[SPEAKER_03]: Two, two, three.
29:16
[SPEAKER_03]: want to continue doing this.
29:18
[SPEAKER_03]: So I'm sure just I mean it sounds like you really laid a lot of that groundwork on that first trip just you know learning those skills for the first time especially and now you can kind of almost tap into that when you're out there but yeah I don't know how long does it take to kind of get back to sleeping through the night or do you sleep through the night?
29:37
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh yeah no I what's weird I think this is
29:47
[SPEAKER_01]: anywhere other than in a race situation.
29:49
[SPEAKER_01]: So even if I'm on a delivery and there's people on board and I can't do that style of sleep is something in my brain that you can't fall and it knows I'm in a race situation on my own on a boat and it allows me to sleep like that at the rest of the time.
30:06
[SPEAKER_01]: I sleep like I'm really grumpy if I don't get eight hours.
30:11
[SPEAKER_01]: and it comes immediately afterwards.
30:14
[SPEAKER_01]: But the other really interesting thing is after I've been, so the Wanda Globe Race was 95 days.
30:21
[SPEAKER_01]: And after I've been on the water for around 10 days doing a normal sleep cycle you do light sleep deep sleep then you normally cycle between light sleep and REM and it's the REM that actually is the most restorative for your brain.
30:40
[SPEAKER_01]: Now if you're constantly waking yourself up before you go into a deep sleep cycle then logically you should never reach your REM phase.
30:50
[SPEAKER_01]: But actually, after I've been on a boat for 10 days, I go straight into REM when I close my eyes.
30:57
[SPEAKER_01]: I will be asleep within a minute and straight into REM at times, which I guess it's just when I really need it.
31:08
[SPEAKER_01]: But you have crazy dreams.
31:12
[SPEAKER_01]: Absolutely crazy, because I just the exhaustion
31:20
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, is there a theme to these dreams?
31:22
[SPEAKER_03]: Is that like, do you experience that back home?
31:24
[SPEAKER_03]: Or is it really just in those situations?
31:26
[SPEAKER_01]: No, I think it's in those situations.
31:29
[SPEAKER_01]: And actually, it's probably as a result of, so I mean, the boat, the boat I race right now, is it's all made of carbon.
31:40
[SPEAKER_01]: It's 60 foot long in it weighs less than 10 tons.
31:44
[SPEAKER_01]: It's capable of speeds over 40 miles an hour.
31:49
[SPEAKER_01]: the hull in places is three millimeter thick carbon with a foam sandwich and then another layer of three millimeter thick carbon.
32:02
[SPEAKER_01]: So the thinness but also the tightness of that hull means that
32:11
[SPEAKER_01]: Staling the boat is an unbelievably physical thing and not because you're being knocked around.
32:17
[SPEAKER_01]: It's because you feel that energy, the energy comes through the boat into you.
32:24
[SPEAKER_01]: You can feel the buzzing and the humming and the...
32:27
[SPEAKER_01]: It is just incredible, but it's loud as well, it winds and it screams and you hear every slap against the hull and it's almost when it's really going well, it actually lifts all the way out of the water.
32:44
[SPEAKER_01]: and you kind of feel this kind of little lifting, flying motion and then it will tap or bash down and I think all of that energy that is so present and assaulting every sense, perhaps except vision because the weird thing about it is particularly if you're down below, all you can see is this
33:07
[SPEAKER_01]: surrounding cabin, which is completely bare.
33:10
[SPEAKER_01]: It's just stripped out carbon with all my computer screens and and and that sort of stuff.
33:16
[SPEAKER_01]: So the interior is this really boring doll flat interior that never changes.
33:24
[SPEAKER_01]: So I think every other sense is completely lit up because there is so much energy.
33:29
[SPEAKER_01]: everywhere.
33:31
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think that probably is what creates a vivid dreams.
33:35
[SPEAKER_01]: It creates the imagery that should go with that feeling of energy.
33:41
[SPEAKER_03]: Wow, that's beautifully said.
33:48
[SPEAKER_03]: That makes a lot of sense on
33:52
[SPEAKER_03]: just why you love it.
33:53
[SPEAKER_03]: You're making a case for it now.
33:54
[SPEAKER_03]: This is exciting.
33:55
[SPEAKER_03]: So we'll take us through this experience of the Vande Globe just 21,000 miles, almost 22, 40,000 kilometers around the world over 90 days.
34:13
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, it sounds like you were getting prepared for this over the years, over the 30 years, but take us through launching on this experience.
34:22
[SPEAKER_03]: What were some of the concerns you had going in as an experience sailor knowing Probably more than anybody what you were getting into So, I mean, I think
34:37
[SPEAKER_01]: I think I went into it, and I really did believe that I was capable of making it around the world, but anybody's concern is always going to be about the boat, because it's three months, you're sailing through.
34:53
[SPEAKER_01]: some of the world's toughest oceans and you prepare the boat as well as you can up to the start line and then pretty much from the moment you cross that start line the boat is falling apart around you because you're just wearing three things using something nonstop, you know, pulling a rope in and out in and out in and out nonstop for three months it's going to get
35:19
[SPEAKER_01]: you know, all of the physical components of the boat.
35:23
[SPEAKER_01]: We had to plan for failure in everything.
35:28
[SPEAKER_01]: So so much of this race is about how you prepare the boat.
35:32
[SPEAKER_01]: And actually, although all the focus is on me as a sailor, you know, we are a team sport and the boat was prepared by my technical team and
35:42
[SPEAKER_01]: you know, we together visualized every single thing that could go wrong on that boat and then we worked at how me as an individual would address that said I could carry on racing if not just for survival then for performance.
35:59
[SPEAKER_01]: So we had to have redundancy across as many things as possible.
36:05
[SPEAKER_01]: So I had three older pilot systems on board.
36:09
[SPEAKER_01]: I had two navigation PCs, I had four satellite communication devices.
36:15
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, kind of went on and on and on.
36:17
[SPEAKER_01]: You just built and braces, built and braces with everything.
36:20
[SPEAKER_01]: And then on top of that, you need to take tools and spares to cover repairing everything on the boat.
36:27
[SPEAKER_01]: boat building, say lamination, carbon, epoxy, cell repair kit, rope repair kits.
36:35
[SPEAKER_01]: And, but, you know, there's super lightweight boats, so you can't load them up with a load of rubbish.
36:41
[SPEAKER_01]: You're always everything has to earn its place on the boat.
36:47
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think I did start the race, believing the boat was as well prepared as it could have been with the time and the resources
36:57
[SPEAKER_01]: but you are always just kind of really hoping that your boat will make it round.
37:07
[SPEAKER_01]: And as the race went on, that's slightly changed for me because I think when I started, I just want to finish this race to finish this race with being credible, you know, so few people in the world have finished it,
37:24
[SPEAKER_01]: I kind of went, did my first trip down the leg down the Atlantic from France down to the Southern Ocean of South Africa and I was in the second oldest boat in the fleet.
37:39
[SPEAKER_01]: And I kind of thought that, you know, I would be happy with a, you know, a back five position, you know, because in relative terms, my boat was 20 years older than the guys at the front, but actually, by the time I got to the bottom of South Africa, I was actually close to halfway up the fleet, and so then,
38:10
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, you start then really wanting to push hard because I was enjoying how well I was performing and I wanted to kind of see how well I could do, but then you're constantly juggling this overall objective to get to the finish line in one piece because
38:33
[SPEAKER_01]: you break the boat and you can't fix it, then your game is over.
38:37
[SPEAKER_01]: That's it.
38:38
[SPEAKER_01]: You've got back to it.
38:39
[SPEAKER_01]: The rendez-globe is non-stop no assistance.
38:43
[SPEAKER_01]: So, then minute you have to go to shore or ask for help, then you're out.
38:49
[SPEAKER_01]: And you're constantly juggling this, wanting to push hard because it's a race and you want to be competitive with wanting to save the boat so that
39:02
[SPEAKER_01]: is kind of the middle leg of the race that it takes six weeks and the southern ocean is where you do the circumnavigation because if you want to go around the world and you go around the pole because it's the shortest distance and the southern ocean is unbroken by a continental land mass so effectively you drop down the Atlantic sail around the southern ocean and then pop back up the Atlantic again.
39:30
[SPEAKER_01]: And it was rather noted, like, was six weeks, and I'd never been in the Southern Ocean before.
39:37
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, it is the place that has recorded the highest ever wave height.
39:43
[SPEAKER_01]: It is the place that has, you know, the most consistent gales in the world.
39:49
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, it is quite widely, so it has a fierce reputation, and I was worried.
39:55
[SPEAKER_01]: that I wouldn't be able to remain competitive that I would just go into safety mode that I would be scared, because you're also so far away from the help there.
40:07
[SPEAKER_01]: And yet actually the thrill of pushing the boat hard grips me more than that concern.
40:14
[SPEAKER_01]: And so out of 33, halfway through the Southern Ocean, I managed to pull up to 15th,
40:22
[SPEAKER_01]: which was unbelievable so, you know, so good, and then the worst hit, because I passed to Eau Point Nemo, which is the most remote place on the planet.
40:36
[SPEAKER_01]: It's closer to an international space station than to a continental landmass.
40:41
[SPEAKER_01]: And two days after I'd sailed through that point, I broke one of the rudders, so I had two rudders staring about and I broke one of them.
40:50
[SPEAKER_01]: And I had a spare rudder on board, and I had practiced changing a rudder in between.
40:57
[SPEAKER_03]: What happened to break the rudder?
40:59
[SPEAKER_03]: Did you feel it?
41:00
[SPEAKER_01]: Absolutely.
41:00
[SPEAKER_03]: Did you notice something later?
41:02
[SPEAKER_03]: Like, what's happening right now?
41:04
[SPEAKER_03]: Like, what was, what, when did you realize it?
41:08
[SPEAKER_01]: It was, it was basically just, it was an old rudder.
41:11
[SPEAKER_01]: It was a 20 year old rudder that went with the boat.
41:14
[SPEAKER_01]: And I was just pushing so hard.
41:20
[SPEAKER_01]: It just cracked.
41:22
[SPEAKER_01]: And I realized I only realized, because I noticed I was doing a check on the boat.
41:29
[SPEAKER_01]: And it just didn't look right.
41:32
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, and I took a video of it and I sent it back to my short, my technical director on the short, and I said, so this little right to you, and he, he sent my back going, no, um, he's got cracking it.
41:45
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, so I, I, I had to change my rudder in the Southern Ocean on my own.
41:53
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, what was that?
41:56
[SPEAKER_03]: What was that like?
41:57
[SPEAKER_03]: How do you do that?
41:58
[SPEAKER_03]: Like, what does that mean?
41:59
[SPEAKER_03]: You have to
42:03
[SPEAKER_01]: No, no.
42:03
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, no.
42:04
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, no.
42:05
[SPEAKER_01]: And it was still quite windy.
42:06
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, the water was about 60 degrees.
42:09
[SPEAKER_01]: It was still quite windy, so I never actually managed to stop the boat.
42:13
[SPEAKER_01]: The boat was going, I think, the slowest I managed to get the boat going was a bow or five or six miles an hour.
42:22
[SPEAKER_01]: Ideally, it would have been stopped completely.
42:25
[SPEAKER_01]: So I had to.
42:29
[SPEAKER_01]: It's quite ingenious, because the big problem is that the rudder comes in through the bottom of the boat.
42:36
[SPEAKER_01]: Effectively, there's a hole in the bottom of the boat and the rudder stock comes through the hole and then you attach your steering gear to that and that twists the rudder.
42:47
[SPEAKER_01]: But the rudder floats, so the pressure of the water is always pushing it up into the boat.
42:54
[SPEAKER_01]: So your first problem is you've got to try and get it out and it doesn't want to come out.
42:58
[SPEAKER_01]: So I took all of my anchor chain, I put it into a big box, a load of the box underneath the boat on a rope.
43:08
[SPEAKER_01]: I had a pulley on the top of that box with another rope going through it.
43:16
[SPEAKER_01]: and I lent over the back, drilled the hole in the old rudder attached the rope to the hole in the old rudder and then effectively I was able to pull it down because there was an anchor chain board of weights underneath the bow six meters down and I was using that as an anchor point to pull my rudder down too.
43:38
[SPEAKER_01]: So I pulled the old rudder down
43:42
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, and then it pops out the back and I got it on board and then I had a spare rather with me and I had to pull that rudder down again to my anchor chain and then gently guide the rudder stock up through the hole in the bottom of the boat.
44:01
[SPEAKER_03]: Is water coming in?
44:03
[SPEAKER_03]: Yes.
44:06
[SPEAKER_03]: Is that worrisome?
44:08
[SPEAKER_04]: Yes.
44:10
[SPEAKER_03]: Okay.
44:10
[SPEAKER_03]: All right.
44:11
[SPEAKER_03]: So there's like no trick of this.
44:13
[SPEAKER_03]: It's no.
44:15
[SPEAKER_03]: Oh my goodness.
44:16
[SPEAKER_01]: No.
44:17
[SPEAKER_01]: It took me.
44:18
[SPEAKER_01]: It probably took me about two hours to set it up.
44:21
[SPEAKER_01]: And then I waited for 36 hours because when I discovered the rudder was broken, it was blowing a gale.
44:28
[SPEAKER_01]: And I looked to the weather forecast and I decided that the wind would drop.
44:34
[SPEAKER_01]: There was another gay or coming, but I decided the wind would drop between them.
44:39
[SPEAKER_01]: I waited until I thought it had dropped as much as it would.
44:43
[SPEAKER_01]: And then I just thought, it's now on everyone going to have to do this.
44:48
[SPEAKER_01]: And it actually only took me 45 minutes to do.
44:53
[SPEAKER_01]: And while I was doing it,
44:56
[SPEAKER_01]: are kind of, you know, I really spent a long time setting up all of these ropes and police and going through it and mentally rehearsing it, mentally rehearsing it.
45:05
[SPEAKER_01]: And when I actually did it,
45:08
[SPEAKER_01]: I didn't think about failure because it couldn't fail.
45:12
[SPEAKER_01]: It had to work.
45:14
[SPEAKER_01]: And so, there wasn't one single part of me that thought it might not work.
45:19
[SPEAKER_01]: I didn't let that thought creep into my head.
45:23
[SPEAKER_01]: I just did it.
45:24
[SPEAKER_01]: And it worked.
45:28
[SPEAKER_03]: And believable.
45:30
[SPEAKER_03]: Unbelievable.
45:31
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, I mean, do you celebrate something like that?
45:33
[SPEAKER_03]: Or is it just back to business right away?
45:36
[SPEAKER_01]: I was very, really, and actually, it was, I was also a bit desperate because I, two boats over took me while I was doing it, and I was really gussied there to overtake me and, and so I kind of went straight back to it, just straight back, hitting it racing, and actually,
46:02
[SPEAKER_01]: in hindsight, I absolutely should have just gone okay, included in this process is me just chilling out for six hours, 12 hours, whatever, I just should have actually allowed myself to go to sleep, to sail slowly because in the big picture, I think that would have been better, but I got straight back on it.
46:30
[SPEAKER_01]: And I just didn't really account for the mental and emotional toll that had already taken on me and I had a very tricky part of the race coming up.
46:45
[SPEAKER_01]: So over the next 10 days, I sailed to around at Cape Horn.
46:52
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, and and the way that was terrible is going to say, K porn, yes, which has, you know, that's the Drake passage.
47:01
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, uh, some of the worst conditions for in the ocean, the world.
47:09
[SPEAKER_03]: It's yeah, and frankly speaking, or just kind of the legend of of Drake passes is that way you experience there.
47:16
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, actually, it wasn't too bad when I actually went roundcapable, but it was very difficult getting there.
47:24
[SPEAKER_01]: Not so much with the winds and the waves, but actually one thing I wasn't prepared for was that how flipping cold it was and it was, when it was very stormy and it was snowing in the storms, it was snowing, the snow is landing on the deck.
47:45
[SPEAKER_01]: I just saw I didn't sign up this, though I'm not talking about this.
47:48
[SPEAKER_03]: Wow.
47:49
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, how are you seeing land as you go around these capes or are you too far away?
47:56
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, so I did see Cape Horn, but from the start of the race to the finish, that's the only bit of land I saw was Cape Horn.
48:08
[SPEAKER_01]: no you're not allowed to yeah not allowed to and I'm just trying to set it up for and you don't see anyone else in less of both passes you no in a game so we probably don't see each other no so 33 competitors and in the whole trip I saw D-Dak Costa the Spanish competitor twice on the horizon tiny little dots and I saw a Stefan once that's it
48:37
[SPEAKER_03]: It's for us human interaction, that was it, and that was two dots on a horizon.
48:43
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I mean, we did.
48:45
[SPEAKER_01]: We did.
48:46
[SPEAKER_01]: So we all kind of have a satellite link open for safety reasons, but also for the race management and for the kind of media story.
48:57
[SPEAKER_01]: We keep a satellite link open and we all use a chat messenger.
49:02
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I was kind of chatting with some of the other skippers and you'd be vaguely in the same patch of water, you know, two or three hundred miles apart, you you think your neighbours really and and would be chatting with each other and it is quite important because
49:22
[SPEAKER_01]: for a safety perspective.
49:24
[SPEAKER_01]: And this did happen in our race, you know, if anything happens to you, then it's those people that are going to come and rescue you.
49:30
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, the safety, authorities, such a rescue at thousands of miles away, whereas your nearest competitor is 200.
49:40
[SPEAKER_01]: And in our race, Kevin is Scolfier's boat sank and he was rescued by another competitor.
49:48
[SPEAKER_03]: Wow, his boat sank, what led to that?
49:56
[SPEAKER_01]: Probably, so his boat had been adapted to be more powerful and I think probably they're just, it was quite early.
50:07
[SPEAKER_01]: So, you know, I mentioned that our boats have these wings sticking out the side called foils.
50:13
[SPEAKER_01]: and it was still kind of quite early on in understanding the implications of putting big foils into older boats and I think probably it just didn't have enough structure inside it and so the foils just basically because of the power and the foils the boat just folded up and it sank in seven minutes.
50:36
[SPEAKER_03]: Oh my gosh!
50:38
[SPEAKER_01]: So what, I mean, you have equipment on there for rescue, you know, a raft, I assume, and yeah, so I think in the same way that, you know, we, we are equipped for redundancy.
50:53
[SPEAKER_01]: We are, you know, really equipped to manage our own safety offshore as well.
51:00
[SPEAKER_01]: And so we have two
51:03
[SPEAKER_01]: one outboard, one outside, one inside and so obviously if you lose one then you've got another one but if you get trapped in the boat you've still got one in multiple scenarios we have emergency beacons so we'll have normally five or six emergency beacons on board so we can alert people to our
51:32
[SPEAKER_01]: we're constantly sending them locations, we have special suits, emergencies that you put on.
51:40
[SPEAKER_01]: If you think you're going to end up in a survival situation, you wear this emergency, which is kind of like a massive big near-prem suit, but it doesn't allow any water inside, and it stops hyperthermia is the key to survival offshore.
51:57
[SPEAKER_01]: Just, I mean, so many layers of safety, we all have a huge amount of safety training.
52:04
[SPEAKER_01]: Earlier this year, I did my dive training, so we all carry small dive tanks on board, and every year we have to do a training where we swim under a boat.
52:17
[SPEAKER_01]: layers and layers.
52:19
[SPEAKER_01]: And with any kind of outdoor training, you know, you need to keep repeating it, keep repeating the process.
52:26
[SPEAKER_01]: And also keep up-to-date with, you know, searching rescue devices, personal devices are coming on in leaps of bounds now.
52:34
[SPEAKER_01]: So it's just kind of keeping up-to-date with every single thing that's out there that
52:39
[SPEAKER_01]: can let people know where you are and let them find you.
52:43
[SPEAKER_01]: So all of that, it is kind of why Kevin survived and why he was found so quickly.
52:50
[SPEAKER_03]: Unbelievable.
52:52
[SPEAKER_03]: That's probably my biggest fear is dealing with that, but you know, this is just kind of the
52:59
[SPEAKER_03]: the absurdity of what you're doing.
53:01
[SPEAKER_03]: I want to put it into context.
53:03
[SPEAKER_03]: You are racing against, you know, 30 somewhat other boats and people.
53:08
[SPEAKER_03]: And your race course is the only planet that we know for sure has life on it.
53:15
[SPEAKER_03]: Like you're in your race course is the Earth itself.
53:19
[SPEAKER_03]: That is just so absurd.
53:20
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, I've done, you know, races where you're going across a country or a state or something,
53:28
[SPEAKER_03]: the earth itself.
53:30
[SPEAKER_03]: That is just so mind-boggling that you are circumnavigating the entire planet.
53:35
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, is that crazy?
53:37
[SPEAKER_01]: I've never had any fruit like that, I love it.
53:40
[SPEAKER_03]: I have there's not a bigger race course out there, unless you go around the moon one day and your own little capsule, but we're not there yet.
53:49
[SPEAKER_03]: I can't think of just a grander
53:52
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, there's nothing bigger than that.
53:53
[SPEAKER_03]: That is just so absurd.
53:55
[SPEAKER_03]: And you're doing it in a matter of months with the power that is out there, the wind.
54:02
[SPEAKER_03]: And you're skill with this tool that can capture that.
54:05
[SPEAKER_03]: It's amazing.
54:06
[SPEAKER_03]: It's absolutely amazing.
54:07
[SPEAKER_03]: So you,
54:10
[SPEAKER_03]: Take us through.
54:12
[SPEAKER_03]: When did you know you had this kind of in the bag?
54:15
[SPEAKER_03]: I know you probably didn't doubt like you could actually do it, but you finished in a very good place what the eighth woman to ever complete this?
54:24
[SPEAKER_03]: When did it really start sinking in that this was happening?
54:28
[SPEAKER_03]: I was going to do this.
54:30
[SPEAKER_03]: Complete.
54:32
[SPEAKER_01]: So it's weird because I think when I came around Cape Horn,
54:40
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm done now, you know, I just thought, oh, it's just a knit back up the Atlantic and I, you know, I've sailed all my life on the Atlantic.
54:47
[SPEAKER_01]: I've done so many miles on the Atlantic and I kind of just felt, yeah, this is this is in the bag now, which was really stupid and because it's quite a long way still I eight thousand miles four weeks and some really tricky sailing and I actually got quite ill on the return leg as well.
55:08
[SPEAKER_01]: and so that that trip to me up a bit and then coming into the coming into the North Atlantic.
55:23
[SPEAKER_01]: I had a weird experience, I don't know if you know, I got a birthday message from Russell Crow, while I was in the North Atlantic.
55:31
[SPEAKER_03]: I did not know that.
55:35
[SPEAKER_03]: Russell Crowe.
55:37
[SPEAKER_01]: It was the strangest thing that ever happens to me in my life.
55:43
[SPEAKER_01]: It was too, where it wasn't even five days before the finish.
55:47
[SPEAKER_01]: It was coming into the finish.
55:48
[SPEAKER_01]: The weather was absolutely awful.
55:50
[SPEAKER_01]: I'd been unbelievably sick.
55:53
[SPEAKER_01]: I actually look at the photos of me at the time.
55:55
[SPEAKER_01]: I'd lost so much weight.
55:56
[SPEAKER_01]: I looked like a stray cat.
56:00
[SPEAKER_01]: And I was having, I was really struggling mentally and emotionally, I was struggling because I had been on well and I just hadn't expected the last bit to be so hard.
56:14
[SPEAKER_01]: and I was quite low and a local DJ in the UK who had been following the race, knew it was my birthday and wanted to record a load of birthday messages for me and send them to me and so he started tweeting as many people as he could and he got some great people.
56:37
[SPEAKER_01]: to some great kind of sailing legends, wished me well and all that, but he said to my team, or, you know, it does pick up any kind of favourite musicians or movie stars or anything, and they panicked, because they just didn't know that about me.
56:53
[SPEAKER_01]: But I'd always said, whenever anybody asks you what my favourite sailing movie is, I always say master and commander.
57:03
[SPEAKER_01]: And so they kind of went miles through the mother.
57:06
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, Russell Crowe.
57:08
[SPEAKER_01]: And so this DJ tweeted Russell Crowe and told him what I was doing.
57:12
[SPEAKER_01]: And Russell Crowe recorded me a birthday message and sent it to me in the Atlantic.
57:19
[SPEAKER_03]: Oh, my gosh.
57:20
[SPEAKER_03]: So I googled it and I found it.
57:22
[SPEAKER_03]: And it made the news and made the BBC.
57:25
[SPEAKER_03]: It did.
57:28
[SPEAKER_03]: Holy cow, that is, I haven't listened to it.
57:32
[SPEAKER_03]: I'll have to listen to it after this now.
57:33
[SPEAKER_03]: And I'll have to link it for folks.
57:35
[SPEAKER_03]: That's hilarious.
57:36
[SPEAKER_01]: It's a really great message.
57:38
[SPEAKER_01]: I claim the globe, he said.
57:40
[SPEAKER_03]: Wow, so it was, I mean, obviously not expected.
57:43
[SPEAKER_03]: What did that, what did that do for you?
57:46
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, do you know what, it, and not just him, it's so many other incredible people, send me messages.
57:54
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, it's not all about Russell, sorry Russell.
57:56
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, but it just, it was at my lowest point on the race and I think it was a surprise, but also really kind of made me,
58:11
[SPEAKER_01]: just I was so close to the finish and I had so much to celebrate about and it kind of just gave me that that burst of energy I needed to get to the finish and I still had so I'd gone from 15th to 19th because of my rudder problems four boats had overtaken me but I started to reel them back in again and I thought
58:35
[SPEAKER_01]: can take them, I can take them.
58:37
[SPEAKER_01]: And it was quite interesting because I did have friends of family texting me on board saying, you're so nearly there, don't push it too hard, you've got nothing to prove, we've seen how just get home.
58:49
[SPEAKER_01]: And I was thinking, no, I can take them, I will take them.
58:55
[SPEAKER_01]: and I chased and chased and chased and I finished within six hours of two of them and 24 hours of all four of them and they knew I was coming for them if the rakes have been a week longer I would have got them but it wasn't really until crossing the line that I
59:16
[SPEAKER_01]: you always have this fear in the back of your mind that is something is going to happen that you cannot cope with and actually you know it did it so the guy one of the guys who came in in the top five he hit a fishing boat he collided with a fishing boat 36 hours before the finish and he he did manage to finish the race he kind of limped across the line but that could have been
59:45
[SPEAKER_01]: So I never stopped being on alert to that.
59:50
[SPEAKER_01]: And I don't think I ever thought this is in the bag until it actually was in the bag.
59:59
[SPEAKER_03]: I don't blame you.
1:00:00
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, because the closer you get to the finish in France, the the
1:00:06
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm sure traffic picks up.
1:00:08
[SPEAKER_03]: So it's almost more dangerous.
1:00:09
[SPEAKER_03]: The closer you get, you really got to make sure you dock or whatever it is, you do right there at the end.
1:00:17
[SPEAKER_03]: you know I always want to ask this because we hear stories those of us that don't sail around the world that you know there's shipping containers and floating you know heaps of circles of trash and all sorts of you know seaweed fronts almost looking like a weather system but you know in the water like there's all sorts of things out there
1:00:40
[SPEAKER_03]: Did you come across anything that was unique or bizarre out in the ocean that you just didn't expect or or something also really beautiful that you didn't expect?
1:00:50
[SPEAKER_01]: So, I mean, the answer is yes, there is all of that stuff in the ocean, but for us as racing sailors.
1:01:00
[SPEAKER_01]: We don't see as much as you might think because, for example, you know, all the big powers of rubbish and that sort of stuff, they collect in areas where there is no wind.
1:01:11
[SPEAKER_01]: So they're taken in by the current and they stay there because there's no wind, but obviously we're always looking for the wind.
1:01:19
[SPEAKER_01]: So you wouldn't see that volume of detritus in the water,
1:01:26
[SPEAKER_01]: anywhere that the wind's kind of constantly blowing it on.
1:01:31
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean in terms of things like sargato, weed and stuff, then you have to constantly keep trying to kind of have a look at your any bits of the boat, the rudders, the keel, the foils, you have to keep monitoring them because they quite quickly pick all of that up.
1:01:50
[SPEAKER_01]: But also old fishing gear.
1:01:52
[SPEAKER_01]: So I've had a fishing net wrapped around my keel before you quite often pick up long lines that they do the tuner on, you know with all the hooks still on them and I mean in terms of the bigger stuff.
1:02:09
[SPEAKER_01]: I, you just have to put it out of your mind a bit because if there is a sea container out there that's partially submerge floating under the water, I'm not going to see it and even if I did see it, the chances of me being able to get out of the way are pretty slim so you just kind of have to put it out of your mind.
1:02:30
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, and in terms of the things that you see, you know, I'm so privileged to have seen what's out there.
1:02:39
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, the albatross in the Southern Ocean are just gravity defying.
1:02:47
[SPEAKER_01]: They look like there's huge cargo planes with massive big underbellies and these wings that just don't ever flap and they glide and they really, really follow you that absolutely locked onto you as a target and it's beautiful and any time you see whales or dolphins and because the boat's so thin you can hear them through the hull you quite often hear them but you won't
1:03:16
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, just you hear them chattering, just waking and chattering from quite a long way away.
1:03:22
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think one of the most incredible things is the, and I'm sure you've seen this, you know, anywhere you go where there is no light pollution.
1:03:32
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, yeah, there are nights when there are no clouds and no moon, you can actually say or by the stars, they're so bright.
1:03:43
[SPEAKER_01]: And when there is a moon, it is kind of an intensity that you don't need to talk to or anything.
1:03:51
[SPEAKER_01]: It's the most incredible intensity of light, but it's all monochrome.
1:03:56
[SPEAKER_01]: And the, well, it's not colours, is it?
1:03:59
[SPEAKER_01]: There's a lack of colour there, but the shades, the way that the light looks on different things, the shadows that you cast, you know, it just is unbelievably beautiful.
1:04:14
[SPEAKER_01]: And that is
1:04:16
[SPEAKER_01]: you know, one of the many reasons why my heart and my soul and everything about me wants to be on the ocean all the time, because it's a spectacular environment in so many ways.
1:04:32
[SPEAKER_03]: I can only imagine.
1:04:35
[SPEAKER_03]: Wow, you know, what I want to know as we wrap up is, you know, you, there's never a point you get off the boat.
1:04:46
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, no, I mean, in some scenarios, you might have to.
1:04:52
[SPEAKER_01]: So if there was some damage, the bottom of the boat, or something wrapped around the bottom of the boat that I couldn't get off, then I might have to.
1:05:04
[SPEAKER_01]: get my diving gear on and dive under the boat.
1:05:08
[SPEAKER_01]: But I mean, you would really avoid it because the boat is it sales so quickly in so little wind.
1:05:18
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, the danger of being either dragged behind it or left behind by it is really, really high when you're on your own.
1:05:26
[SPEAKER_03]: talking out by this is scariest imaginable scenario.
1:05:32
[SPEAKER_03]: Well let's wrap this up on a positive note because you did finish and you've got you've had some incredible experiences.
1:05:40
[SPEAKER_03]: I know you're also a runner as well but I mean two two two
1:05:46
[SPEAKER_03]: wrap all this up what what I don't even know how to close this out like what is next for you let's ask that if there is you know anything else on the horizon this was a 30 year you know you this baked for 30 years so I don't know if you've had something else that has
1:06:02
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, once I do that, I would like to do this after if not, that's fine.
1:06:06
[SPEAKER_03]: I feel like adventures are pressured to what's next.
1:06:09
[SPEAKER_03]: Sometimes you're just content, and that's great.
1:06:13
[SPEAKER_03]: If you have something that's next, please share and also any parting words of advice for those that want to take on something big like that.
1:06:22
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, so yeah, I'm doing the fun day again and November next year.
1:06:26
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
1:06:27
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, I've got a new book on the flies.
1:06:29
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, and actually flying it lifts out of the water.
1:06:33
[SPEAKER_03]: Yes.
1:06:34
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
1:06:34
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
1:06:34
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
1:06:35
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
1:06:35
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
1:06:36
[SPEAKER_03]: Okay.
1:06:36
[SPEAKER_03]: Doesn't fly like a plane.
1:06:39
[SPEAKER_03]: So kind of.
1:06:41
[SPEAKER_01]: So yeah, the start is the 10th and November next year, but there's a kind of I'm doing build up races to it.
1:06:48
[SPEAKER_01]: So I've got one in July, July 22nd, I've got a small race all the fast net.
1:06:55
[SPEAKER_01]: I've got one in November, which is.
1:06:57
[SPEAKER_01]: double handed, so two of us on board from France to the Caribbean.
1:07:01
[SPEAKER_01]: And then next year I'm coming to the US.
1:07:03
[SPEAKER_01]: I've got one race that finishes in Charleston and another that starts in New York on the Hudson River, which would be really exciting.
1:07:11
[SPEAKER_01]: They're both single handed and then the bondage.
1:07:14
[SPEAKER_01]: So and guess what's my vice-renewy body that has an adventure?
1:07:23
[SPEAKER_01]: Just I think
1:07:26
[SPEAKER_01]: Sometimes it seems really hard to just get to the start and
1:07:34
[SPEAKER_01]: I found getting to the start of my race was way harder than the race itself, but that made me strong enough for the race and actually it was worth it.
1:07:48
[SPEAKER_01]: It is worth the sacrifice, it's worth the hard work and when you're there enjoy it because you deserve it.
1:07:59
[SPEAKER_03]: That is exciting.
1:08:00
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, uh,
1:08:02
[SPEAKER_03]: Thank you so much and have a great rest of your evening.
1:08:05
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, I'm going sailing.
1:08:06
[SPEAKER_03]: Oh, well, I'll fit it.
1:08:08
[SPEAKER_03]: All right.
1:08:09
[SPEAKER_03]: Let's see you here.
1:08:10
[SPEAKER_03]: All right, cheers.
1:08:11
[SPEAKER_03]: Cheers.