Q&A

Following The Ocean Race Europe, Pip answers your questions about the race and what’s next.

Have you sailed a foiling boat before?

No - the Ocean Race Europe was my first foiling experience.

How was your first experience racing on a foiling boat?

It was pretty incredible. It's a steep learning curve and we didn't have perfect conditions but I learnt heaps.

What was it like sailing with the Bureau Vallée crew? Did you know them all before?

I didn’t know any of them before. And that was one of the things about the Covid situation - me being in the UK means I've been very isolated from the other teams so it was really brilliant to sail with them. I learnt a lot from Louis and it was good to see how he runs his team. It was difficult for me because we were running the boat in French so you know I didn't get everything and sometimes when I was tired I struggled, but it was a great experience.

What advantages and disadvantages were there with a crewed IMOCA. Were you able to push harder?

I think the advantages are that there are multiple people thinking about the problem. Sail changes are much quicker, multiple people doing multiple things and of course you can push harder, for example, if I was doing a sail change on my own, end to end it's anything from 45 minutes to nearly two hours but with a crew it's 20 mins. The disadvantages are there are multiple people and it can get quite cramped.

What was the worst and best thing about The Ocean Race Europe?

The best thing was definitely my first experience of actually lifting out of the water on foils, which was unbelievable. And the worst thing I think was obviously we didn't have the right conditions for those boats in the third Leg, it was really light and that was very frustrating. I would've loved to have been foiling for the whole time but I learned a lot about transitions and that's very valuable. 

What was it like sailing as a crew after the Vendée Globe?

It’s a bit strange and five on an IMOCA is very, very cramped. It’s great for learning but I actually found it just a bit crowded at times - the boats are designed for one or two people.

How are you finding the switch up to foils? What’s the greatest takeaway so far?

The switch up to foils is great, it seems like a really natural progression and I'm super happy that we've got a foiling boat. The biggest takeaway is, I think just because of the conditions we had on the Ocean Race, again it's about the transitions of when you can start to use a foil and when it's no longer useful to use the foil, so that's been the biggest knowledge that I've acquired within the last two legs.

Much was expected of Bureau Valleé during the Ocean Race Europe. What went wrong?

The boat is brand new to the team and it was only launched a week before the start of the Ocean Race Europe. Many of the other teams have been practicing together for months and in the case of 11th Hour Racing, they had a year. It was always about learning the boat and lining up with other people. I think the performance from Bureau Vallée, given the time constraints and the fact all the crew had never sailed together, was incredible. I think it was a great result, it’s definitely one to watch.

Sailing foils high off the waves post Vendée Globe, what’s the one change you see as a solo sailor?

I think the motion of the boat is definitely going to be a lot more aggressive. So I’ll need to take that into account and train for the physical toll that will take on me.

How do you see your future; focus on solo-sailing or part of sailing teams?

I'd like to think there is a future with both. I am very much a solo sailor and obviously I’m focused on the Vendée Globe 2024. But I think what I'd really like to do is try and grow a team around me. There is the potential for using our IMOCA for the Ocean Race in 2026, and I am really interested to see if we could actually grow Pip Hare Ocean Racing as a team to get other people involved so that we can funnel young people in, we can have additional boats and grow the sport in the UK and offer opportunities for other people who, like me, might be following a non-traditional route into the sport.

Do you feel universally accepted as a female yacht helm or is there any discrimination in how sponsors/race organisers treat you? Now or in the past?

I think that’s a difficult question. In the Vendée Globe it’s so fantastic; we are complete equals and I don’t feel treated any differently.  And on the whole, race organisers are much the same. But still as a female sailor outside of my world I get treated differently because there is this perception that experience comes in a male form, I think it’s just an unconscious bias.

How did you enter the world of offshore racing?

I guess my first offshore race was probably not until the mid-2000s. It was a hard thing for me to get into because it's quite hard to get on a crew if you don't know people. I made up for that by going away and doing lots of sailing and getting lots of experience on my own so that I could turn up as somebody who was super-experienced. My first opportunity was given to me because someone was looking for extra crew for a Fastnet and as it was last minute they were struggling to find someone who had the necessary experience and qualifications that ticked all the boxes to meet the unique challenges of that race and I happened to be there as a professional yachtmaster, so I was able to join a crew that way. It was a sideways way in. I ended up solo sailing because I couldn’t find any opportunities to join a team, and with solo sailing, if you’ve got a boat, you can do it.

How did you get to where you are today?

A culmination of a lot of experience and a lot of time on the water and I would say you need to try and take every opportunity to go afloat on any boat with anyone and learn. There’s lots to learn from sailing and navigation to safety and planning. And I think just say yes to every opportunity and try and learn something everywhere you go from everyone that you meet.

What is your new boat called?

Medallia – after our title sponsors. I’m so proud that many of my original sponsors have joined me for the next leg of the journey.

What’s the one thing that you would move from the old Medallia to the new Medallia?

I’m taking quite a bit of kit with me, things like the jetboil and spares but that’s about it.

In SuperBigou you added a coffee grinder, which made sail handling so much easier. In a recent post by Isabelle Joschke, she showed that her coffee grinder could be either turned conventionally with the arm or be pedalled with the legs. Is this a modification you have considered for the new boat?

It’s interesting, I have chatted to Isabelle about that and I think at the moment no. That's something to keep an eye on definitely, but the boat is designed around a hand driven coffee grinder and I think we need to think quite carefully about what modifications we make and what value they bring.

How do you manage water when racing? Stored or watermaker?

It’s a combination of the two. We make water and we fill a tank which is about 10 litres.

How do you keep your fitness up on long races?

Actually on the longer races it’s easier because you're working all the time and the boat’s moving all the time so you keep fit burning a lot of calories.

What was your transition like from the Mini Transat to the IMOCA and how did you do it?

The transition from mini to IMOCA has been hard – it took me six years to make that step and I went via Class 40s. The difficult thing is that you can't (unless you have huge independent wealth) afford these boats on your own so you need sponsorship. And so in the Class 40 I sailed on other people’s boats, getting experience of bigger boats and all the time building knowledge and experience. And then once I felt I had the experience it was actually more about finding the sponsorship than moving up to the boat. That was the hardest bit. I achieved that by working every second of every day.

Do you have a personal fitness trainer?

I’m about to start working with one which will make a real difference and bring expertise to my training regime.

Do you have any manual nautical charts onboard?

Yes we do, we have to take paper passage charts. We screenshot all of the major ports all around the world where we might end up having to pit stop and we carry what effectively is our own homemade pilot book. And then we also carry a list of lights too.

How old were you when you first sailed?

I was a baby, less than a year old. That was when I was first on a boat, I obviously wasn’t sailing then…

Favourite destination and have you ever been to Scandinavia?

I have been to Scandinavia, I've done an amazing race in Norway and I've sailed in the Baltic, which is amazing. My favourite sailing destination? I really like high latitude and I'm massively drawn to Chile. I haven't really experienced it, but it’s somewhere I’ll go when I’ve finished racing.

After seeing what happened to Kevin Escoffier when the bow broke apart and sunk within a matter of minutes, how do you train/prepare for the worst case scenario? Is there a way to attach a sonar to the keel to give the auto pilot a chance to dodge floating debris? Finally, what advice can you give to a person that wants to learn offshore sailing?

We all do the same training and we take our survival training very, very seriously. A mark of how good it is, is the fact that Kevin, even though his boat broke up really quickly, managed to get into a liferaft in his immersion suit, set off his Epirb and he was found so that’s a testament to how good our training is.

The important thing is to keep it current like with everything, keep everything serviced, and we are constantly thinking about how quickly we can perform certain actions. So for example, launching a life raft and getting your grab bag.

We had a really good session with a skipper who lost his boat on the return from the TJV in 2019. He was rolled by a massive wave - he went through everything that happened, he talked about mistakes he'd made and things that he learned and one of the key learnings both Joff (my Technical Director) and I took away was that he said how difficult it was for him to carry his grab bag out when the boat was full of water. So his recommendation was make it a backpack, so that’s what we’ve done; I have a waterproof dry bag that I can put on my back so if I get in trouble I have two hands free to do whatever I need to do. There’s constant servicing and practicing and taking the environment really seriously. In terms of the sonar on the keel, in class IMOCA we are working with various companies looking at development of forward-facing technology. We are always looking for new solutions, and we have things like whale pingers which make a noise to encourage whales to move out of the way and forward-facing technology like OSCAR. It’s still in development and as the boats go faster and faster the technology has to keep up.

Does the world need more sailors?

I would say more people need sailing in their lives. It's a great sport; it's really diverse, it's hugely adaptable. Any person at any age or any level can get involved in sailing and enjoy it. I would encourage as many people to try and experience it as possible.

What’s the next adventure?

Bringing my boat home – I can’t wait!