Stepping into the sun
Finishing our winter refit has been like stepping into the sun again, with the boat back together we can focus more clearly on our end goals and it’s such a joy to be sailing again. We’ve taken the analogy as far as we can by moving the whole team to Portugal as the more reliable weather helps us to get ready for the race season.
The delivery south was nothing short of epic. Olly and I were joined by Jack Bouttell, who has a great depth of experience in high performance sailing, ranging from the Ocean Race, to maxi tri-marans and the solo sailing in the Solitaire du figaro. We pushed hard and managed the fastest Biscay crossing I’ve ever done, reaching Cape Finisterre just over 36 hrs after leaving Gosport. This was my first experience of sailing for a sustained period on the foils with the bow out of the water and it was a tough ride. There is a constant deluge of water coming over the deck and raining down the back of the coach roof. The boat is heeled quite far, and the ride is not smooth. To move any distance across the cockpit takes planning, looking for handholds, trying to anticipate the motion of the boat. I know that I will adapt to this new motion; as human beings we do have the incredible ability to change our definition of ‘normal’ but I did wonder how long it will take for the motion and the speed to seem normal to me. Just existing at those speeds is hard, let alone trying to perform maintenance, or trim sails. I know that any time it gets too much I will always have the choice to bear away, take power out of the boat and the challenge out of moving a few metres but I need to get to the stage where I can perform, not just exist at these speeds. So, I guess I just need to keep sailing fast, a lot. What a shame!
This month we are focussing on a fast track to performance, for the boat that means checking strength and reliability post refit, then drilling down to the details that will make life onboard easier for me, and help keep the boat fast. For me it’s about continuing to build on my physical fitness, while spending as much time on the water as possible to re-learn the basics then getting to grips with how to make the most of the incredible machine that is Medallia. For this I am working with coaches and experts from across different fields and disciplines and it feels such a privilege to be able to invest in my own development in this way.
It's hard to find the right balance, there is so much to do and so much to know, and I am worried I will waste valuable time if I am not focussed. I have tried to break down the month and work towards specific objectives each week. We are also working to bring the whole team up to speed before our first event in May as many of them have not experienced race starts before, or working as a team from a base abroad. It’s an exciting time for everyone and I am really proud to see the team get to grips with a new way of working and meet the challenges of working away from our home port head on. Even getting our mobile workshop, kitted out with all its tools and spares, into Europe has been a huge learning experience and Mel who manages our logistics spent days painstakingly documenting every item we had onboard, then hours on the phone with customs trying to prepare our carnet to temporarily import our kit. Thanks to Mel’s tenacity we sailed through customs with the correct paperwork and lots of cheering from the team.
Our first week in Portugal was about establishing a routine, getting the boat ready to sail each morning, supporting me and my crew in leaving the marina safely, making sure our sailing days had measurable objectives matched to weather conditions, then once safely back on the dock debriefing, working through the job list and putting Medallia to bed in the best shape possible.
When you break your normal routine, it is difficult to maintain things like fitness training, good diet and regular sleep so I’ve tried to work these things into my day. The most fortunate piece of luck has been being offered temporary access to the incredible Club Nautico de Cascais which has a fully equipped gym overlooking the harbour, a 3-minute walk from the boat. I have kept up with my three supported physical training sessions a week with Rob, via zoom at 7am, in a completely empty gym, watching the sun rise over Lisbon. I’ve backed off on the cardio training and am focussing on weights, as sailing the boat gets my heart rate up and I have been struggling a bit with energy to fit it all in.
With normal sailing and working established, this week Jack came back along with Ben Schwarz an expert in our high performance boat electronics as well as an experienced ocean racing sailor. Together we have been working on pushing the boat hard, calibrating all of our onboard systems, recording data and settings, analysing performance and giving me the feeling and vision of what the boat looks like being pushed by a full crew to maximum power. I won’t be able to push the boat this hard for long periods, it’s not sustainable by one person and I have many other things onboard to manage, but the resulting trim book (tables of settings and configurations) that we will produce will help me understand how far off maximum I am pushing as it would be super easy to think you are sailing this boat at 90% because it feels fast, but there is actually at lot left in the tank.
We have blended dock set up, with day sailing, looking at the ranges of each of my new sails, an overnight offshore session, then finishing with a coastal ‘race’ up the river to Lisbon. Race day was nothing short of brilliant, we were joined by Mariana Lobato, a Portugese sailor from the Miripuri sailing team, as fully crewed is five people. The shore team made a start with the RIB, we counted down, crossed the line, rounded a mark and then gybed our way up the river to Lisbon under our big spinnaker (aka big Bertha). It was slick and fast and I loved throwing the boat around in this way. Solo sailing manoeuvres are slow and methodical – I think we did everything around twelve times faster than I manage it on my own. Taking the kite down under the Lisbon bridge was dramatic, the cars roaring over our heads on the iron bridge make a sound like an angry swarm of bees, the breeze and current were pushing the boat around, it was intense. Tacking our way back down the river we got tied up in a sailing school regatta, picking our way on port tack (with no right of way) through a small fleet of 30ft boats, we either terrified them or made their day. I was absolutely buzzing when we crossed our fake finish line. It was a great way to end an incredibly productive week and I feel like I have moved on a lot.
I have another couple of weeks of training to get in before I head to Brest for my first race of the season. Over Easter I will be heading out alone for around four days, to put my new found learnings into practice alone, and remind myself of the offshore routine. This will also be an opportunity to practice sending onboard media back to our team at home, test the satellite connections and apps we use for transfer and compression as well as our live onboard set up. I also hope to make the delivery north to Brest alone.
In other campaign news we are super proud to announce that Helly Hansen have released a short film show casing our team to head their ‘Be in the moment’ campaign for 2022. We filmed this last year in September at our home port of Poole and along the Dorset coast, it reminds me of what a great place we live.
Don’t forget to check out our YouTube channel for more content on training, boat set up, find out a bit more about the team and what day to day like on a campaign like this is like.
Thank you as ever for your support and encouragement, I love sharing this all with you.
Pip