The big leap forward

I have always believed that one of the greatest things about being a human being is our ability to learn, develop and adapt throughout our whole lives. Most of our adult lives these progressions are small, sometimes imperceptible day to day but we learn routines, behaviours, we train our brains and our bodies for long term gain. Very occasionally, the jumps are huge and obvious and this, Transat Jacques Vabres, was one of those jumps.

Despite this being my 22nd Trans-Atlantic crossing, I had no idea what to expect at the start of this race. I wasn’t nervous, I worked quite hard on keeping my stress levels manageable with a pre-race routine that gave me time and space away from the hubbub and allowed my brain to think and feel other things. The delay due to storm Ciaran didn’t faze me particularly, other than the increased cost and logistical nightmare of all of our carefully laid plans being thrown in the air to start again.

Medallia at the start of the TJV 2023

But the truth is I just didn’t know what was going to happen. The huge investment we have made upgrading our IMOCA Medallia to bring it in line with 2024 generation boat performance is done. The big foils are there for all to see, a tangible obvious outcome of skill, vision, hard work and collaboration. We had trained with them strategically over the past two months, going out in big breeze, pushing, feeling, learning but never more than four consecutive days offshore. Now we were going to push across the Atlantic, weeks of stress testing would find any weaknesses in the work we had done.

 But more than that, I had only had a snapshot of what the boat was capable of. I had experienced life onboard at over 25 knots of boat speed.  It was exhilarating for sure. I had learned how to ramp up the performance and get the boat flying, full hull out of the water, how to push for those photogenic moments of glamour and wonder. But neither my co-skipper Nick nor I had no idea what extended periods under those conditions meant for the human beings onboard. This was not just about pushing the boat to find weakness; it was also about getting the first glimpses of what I might be capable of as a human being, alone for months at a time during the next Vendee Globe race.

 We had made a huge step in the performance potential of our boat. It was now my turn to make that step forward. I believed I could be capable of the increased physical and mental demands of sailing this new boat, but the truth is I just did not know.

 When we eventually set out on the 7th November it was to sail a shortened course from the original which would have taken us across the equator, round a remote Atlantic Island and back to the finish. Our time at sea was reduced by one week in a direct route to Martinique. We set sail in fairly familiar conditions for the North Atlantic in the autumn. Straight in to the path of an oncoming depression, we would need to cross an active weather front within 24hrs of leaving Le Havre, which means big winds, big seas and these are often the conditions that break boats crushing competitors hopes and dreams before even leaving the Western approaches.

Pip on board Medallia in TJV 2023

I think one of the most challenging things about this last race has been balancing my objectives. This was a race. We had a “new boat” to test. We wanted to demonstrate to all those that have invested in and supported us that it had been worth it. We needed to demonstrate to potential further sponsors we represented a good prospect. With two onboard it was an incredible opportunity to push the boat and if things went wrong there would be two people to sort it out. However, the TJV is a qualification race for the Vendee Globe and as a skipper qualifying under old boat rules, I HAD to finish this race and bank the miles. There was the added pressure that a return race from Martinique to France leaves at the end of November, which is also a qualification race and carried double the miles the TJV does as it is solo. To damage the boat in a way that would put me out of both races could mean the end to my Vendee Globe campaign. At one end of the spectrum was a safe race, a southerly route, never pushing the boat hard, taking a delivery style approach to the course. At the other end was the need to prove both the boat and myself. If we never push then how will we know what additional work needs to be done to get us around the world next year.

 I know I was not alone in this conflict. Joff our technical director perhaps feels it more than me. He is aware of all the things that go wrong, in the same way I see the potential for speed, he sees the potential for breakages. He wants to see the boat do well but he hates to see it being pushed in the moment. We all feel it.

 At the beginning of the race, it looked like there were two strategies opening up. One was a route to the South, on paper less fast, but with a lot less risk. The second was a route to the West after the Azores, this would be quicker but involve bigger winds and sea states. We did not need to make a decision on which route to take until a few days in to the race and I didn’t have an immediate feeling which one I would choose.

 In a way the deciding factor on our route choice was the incurrence of a five-hour penalty for passing between the committee boat and the inner distance mark at the start (in truth we passed some 50m away from the tug, and never even saw the buoy so assumed we were right but just hadn’t spotted it) and the damage to our mainsail on the first night of the race.

To take our penalty, we needed to stop for five hours. Give the committee a position, then return to that position five hours later.  We had until 30 degrees North to take this penalty. I decided we could use this time to fix the mainsail and we had already come up with a plan to lash the back of the sail together with carbon plate and dyneema line. The concept was the right one, the timing was not.

I let the need to fix the main overtake my strategic view of the race. We took our penalty when the wind dropped for the first time but it was the wrong time. The other boats around us while still sailing fast and the drop in the wind had only been temporary, but in my eagerness to get a fully functioning mainsail I lost the view of the big picture. Once we had started the main repair, we had to finish it and the whole thing took four hours during which we were sailing dead downwind. By the time the repair was done, it was going to take us several hours to sail back upwind to our penalty gate. We fixed the main but we lost around eight to ten hours of ground on our fast-moving competitors still heading south. I was kicking myself hard for having jumped to the wrong decision.

Our mainsail repair allowed us to use the main at full hoist and at two reefs but would still be too weak to use at one reef.  To gain the places we had lost we would need to sail smart and hard. The Westerly route was still an option and even with the competing objectives of preserving the boat I could not give up the chance of gaining places back in the race after having made a bad call.

We made the decision to go West on day four of the race, it was a definitive decision and we were lying 22nd, over half way down the fleet. It wasn’t a crazy flier; it was on paper the faster route but it represented more risk. When it came down to it, I could not bear to follow the fleet around, clawing back small miles here and there, knowing that I could have done better. We exist to race and that is what we needed to do.

From the moment we went West we had to be committed to sail fast and push the boat. There was no point in taking the riskier route but not pushing. For me this was the step I needed to take.

The rest of the race was a huge learning experience. Only when we finally broke out into the bigger breeze in the West did we really get to see what our boat is capable of and it was a whole new experience.

Imagine being on a roller coaster, the cars are being slowly shunted up the steep incline to the top of the ride. There is tension but its ok. When you get to the top, there is a huge drop in front of you. You fly down it, around corners, over small humps and back down again. You are strapped in, maybe screaming, the g-force pulling your body this way and that. It’s exhilarating, the speed makes you giddy but the ride is short and at the end you will get off back on to the firm hard land. Our roller coaster did not end. In the first ten minutes of acceleration, you have the same feelings. ‘This is so incredible’ ‘This is crazy speed’ You are holding on hard, watching the speed increase through 30 knots to 35. This is Instagram moment will make a short film to share, amaze and astound. But it’s not. Because this lasts longer than 30 seconds. Now you must find a way to live without a seatbelt on a vehicle that is traveling at an average speed of over 20 mph. You must stand up on the constant bucking and lurching surface, trim sails, make food, navigate, sleep and in our case bail out water from the leak in the back. Imagine a rally car co-driver taking off their seatbelt and climbing into the back of the car to boil a kettle while the other continues to drive. This is our life.

The whole boat will fly out of the water, the foil lifts us up, the bow rises in the air and we are left with one rudder in the water. The boat is designed to fall down at the back so our flying is interspersed with the stern of the boat, crashing down, rhythmically on the water underneath us. Tonnes of weight smashing into the ocean then lifting again. This is the normal slamming, jarring rhythm we can almost predict. But occasionally, often when we achieve our maximum speeds, the bow comes crashing down first. These nose dives are the most violent and the most likely to damage a human being. This is like being in a car crash, the speed comes off but the small human being carries on moving. I was thrown across the cabin twice from these nose dives, the second time quite proudly still holding on to my freshly made bag of porridge and not a drop spilt. It is not fun and you cannot predict it. You just have to hold on, you have to keep your body in a defensive position never drop your guard, never assume the next second is not the one to catapult you forward. I was wearing padded shorts, a hard hat at times and spent as little time standing as I possibly could. Navigating I sat on the floor cushioned by beanbags. When I attempted sleep it was again on the floor with a nest of beanbags between me and the front of the boat, so when we did nose dive I was forced into their soft protection.

But it is not just the physical challenges that make this tough. The noise is relentlessly loud. The rushing of the water, the slamming the loud howling of the foils. It is impossible to hear a normal level human voice and the noise gets inside your head, it is a constant reminder of pressure the noise will never let you relax.

 For days on end this is beyond brutal. You are managing the dual worries of can the boat handle it and how much can I handle. This intensity is something completely new. I felt something similar on the last Vendee Globe race when I really started to push my old boat Superbigou hard in the South, I was pushing limits for myself and the boat, constantly worrying but also not willing to let this opportunity to perform as an athlete slip away from me. The truth is we don’t have to sail that hard. We can bring the foils in, we can use smaller sails. If it all gets too much, we can turn the bow downwind and everything just stops. But my question is who am I and why am I doing this? This is the question that makes me put my foot on the gas.

We finished the race in 12th place, having taken 10 places since making our decision to go West. We made more mistakes along the way and I believe there was potential for us to finish in the top ten. I stepped off the boat more exhausted than I have ever been on any IMOCA race. Physically I was a bit battered but it is my brain that had taken the biggest pounding, I was mentally exhausted from pushing so hard and managing the stress that goes with that.

The boat has more than proved itself as I knew it would. My team and all those we have collaborated with could not have done a better job at upgrading our power and performance. I knew the race was going to be tough, I knew sailing the boat in this new configuration would require something different from me. When I set out there was still the tiny demon sitting on my shoulder telling me I had finally stepped too far. I am a woman in my 50th year, late to the world of ocean racing and almost entirely self-taught and self-made. I did always believe I was capable of racing at this level, that’s why I have pushed myself so hard, but when I started out solo racing in 2009, I never imagined the end result would be flying across the Atlantic in 2023.

It wasn’t easy. None of this is easy. But together with Nick, a co-skipper who supported me unequivocally all the way we have made a good start at bringing human performance in line with our incredible boat.  I needed to know what I was capable of as well as testing the boat. Nick allowed me to make decisions to decide how hard we would push and to investigate my own performance potential which I desperately needed to do as the next step in my solo development and the path to the Vendee Globe. I hugely appreciate his constant positive presence and support. He gave me space to make a huge leap forward in my own performance, while giving me the confidence of knowing I was not alone.

Sailing our boat in the new configuration requires a different set of skills again. There is more to learn about the technical management of the boat, sail trim is different, sensations are different, even setting the autopilot up is different. But above all it requires next level performance, grit, determination and strength for the human being. The mental pressure is constant, there is some part of your conscience that is constantly looking for the ‘off ramp’ and I have to work hard at keeping it under control.

In reality we only pushed the boat that hard for a few days. On the Vendee I will be alone and it will be for weeks at a time. This is just the start, it was a big leap forward and I made it, but from here we must build, both the boat and the person. I still have a long way to go and am under no illusions at how hard this is going to be.

I have always said at the end of each race or each race cycle I ask myself three questions: do you want to do more? Do you think you are capable of more? Have you got the energy to do more?

The answer is yes, yes and yes. Sailing this boat is still incredible. It is intense and I think on this race in particular it was hard to get out from under the weight of that stress. But it is still incredible. I still laugh out loud at the speed, I feel an intense pride in the fact I am able to race this boat at this level. I love the energy, the tactics, the sport and the fact that we are absolutely at the interface between the power of nature and human ingenuity. This sport makes me proud to be alive, proud to be me. It feeds my soul and makes me strong and even if my body is bruised and my mind is exhausted I cannot get enough of it.

And so the TJV is over. The team is flat out turning the boat around, repairing the damage caused by hard pushing on the way over. I have to rest, recover, regroup and on the 30th November we will start again.

This time the race will be solo. From Martinique to Lorient in Brittany France. It’s another big leap from double to solo. With every step we move forwards.