Transat Jacques Vabre - Q&A

How far did you meet your objectives for the race?

Pip: I think we did well, the objective was to get here in one piece, to learn about the boat, push quite hard and aspire to top 15 finish.

What part of your body hurts the most right now?

 Nick: My head, I banged it a few times, I wore the scrum cap quite a lot and then had general brain fry trying to take everything onboard and improve my performance and not stress about breaking stuff – it was a lot to keep my mind working!

Best moment and worst?

Nick: The knock down, I was in the cockpit  pushing hard with full main, with a damaged mainsail and when it happened it was a calm moment and we dealt with it methodically but it’s not something I want to do again. Thankfully we didn’t need to. The best - seeing the sun on that reach south, warming up a bit and stretching our legs on the boats behind, seeing the options play out and seeing we were in the mix for top 10 with great boats and sailors ahead of us and behind was the highlight.

Pip: Worst was we had just gone through final front, really broken away from dagger board boats behind us and got stuck under clouds and we lost 30 miles, that was hard - psychologically those things are very hard. Best moment, just the last few days of driving this boat fast. It’s amazing!

Are you happy with 12th?

Pip: Yes - happy because I believe we could have done better.

Are you going to sail for Return to Base?

 Pip: Yes! The next race is on 30th November. We will share how to follow the race soon!

How did the mainsail repair hold up?

 Nick: It was incredible – we didn’t use first reef very much at all, after a quick test initially and checking it every 20 minutes it was fine.

Anything to focus on for the solo race back?

Nick: Watching the tracker

Pip: My biggest challenge is going to be in those fast modes, how do I give myself enough rest bite to be able to sleep… that’s the hardest thing.

What did you learn about the boat?

Pip: It’s fast!

Did you wear bobble hats?

Pip: I think I had three bobble hats on rotation and when they got wet they were drying on rotation on top of the engine they got stiffer and stiffer as we went on, they will all get a nice wash for the way back but I’d have thought on way back I’ll be using more.

Nick: My rugby scrum cap got a lot of use!

Photo by Jean-Marie Liot / Alea