Series 2 - Ep14 - Vendee Globe Part 2

11/04/20 • 74 min

The world renowned Vendee Globe, the non-stop solo lap of the planet, is the topic of this month's podcast, as Shirley Robertson talks to five soon to depart skippers and one IMOCA designer in this two part Vendee Globe extravaganza.
In Part 1 Robertson has already talked to Alex Thomson (Hugo Boss - 5th Vendee Start) and Clarisse Cremer (Banque Populaire x - 1st Vendee Start) as well as world renowned naval architect Juan K about the progression of the IMOCA Class, and the use of foils through out much of this edition's fleet.
In this Part, Robertson catches up with long time friend and previous podcast guest Sam Davies (Initiatives Coeur), as she prepares for her third Vendee attempt. Sam finished fourth at her first Vendee back in 2009 but four years later suffered a cruel dismasting after just five days at sea. This time around, she's racing in another of the retro fit foilers, and is confident, after a well thought out build up to the race. As a French resident, she's also perfectly placed to explain just how big the race is in France.
"The Vendee is huge in France, its a race and a competition but it's not just that, it's huge, all the schools follow the Vendee Globe while it's happening. Maybe the reason why it's so huge is because it's so simple at the same time as being so hard, and such an extreme event because it's just one person on a boat sailing around the world non stop without assistance."
In this part Robertson also talks to the impressive Charlie Dalin (Apivia), about taking on the race for the first time, and how his skills as a naval architect helped finesse his new generation foiling machine. And Robertson talks to the first ever German entrant into the race, the very experienced Boris Herrmann, (SeaExplorer Yacht Club de Monacco)

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The world renowned Vendee Globe, the non-stop solo lap of the planet, is the topic of this month's podcast, as Shirley Robertson talks to five soon to depart skippers and one IMOCA designer in this two part Vendee Globe extravaganza.
In Part 1 Robertson has already talked to Alex Thomson (Hugo Boss - 5th Vendee Start) and Clarisse Cremer (Banque Populaire x - 1st Vendee Start) as well as world renowned naval architect Juan K about the progression of the IMOCA Class, and the use of foils through out much of this edition's fleet.
In this Part, Robertson catches up with long time friend and previous podcast guest Sam Davies (Initiatives Coeur), as she prepares for her third Vendee attempt. Sam finished fourth at her first Vendee back in 2009 but four years later suffered a cruel dismasting after just five days at sea. This time around, she's racing in another of the retro fit foilers, and is confident, after a well thought out build up to the race. As a French resident, she's also perfectly placed to explain just how big the race is in France.
"The Vendee is huge in France, its a race and a competition but it's not just that, it's huge, all the schools follow the Vendee Globe while it's happening. Maybe the reason why it's so huge is because it's so simple at the same time as being so hard, and such an extreme event because it's just one person on a boat sailing around the world non stop without assistance."
In this part Robertson also talks to the impressive Charlie Dalin (Apivia), about taking on the race for the first time, and how his skills as a naval architect helped finesse his new generation foiling machine. And Robertson talks to the first ever German entrant into the race, the very experienced Boris Herrmann, (SeaExplorer Yacht Club de Monacco)

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Series 2 - Ep13 - Vendee Globe Part 1

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The world renowned Vendee Globe, the non-stop solo lap of the planet, is the topic of this month's podcast, as Shirley Robertson talks to five soon to depart skippers and one IMOCA designer in this two part Vendee Globe extravaganza.
The podcast kicks off with Vendee Globe veteran Alex Thomson (Hugo Boss), about to cross the start line of the legendary race for an unprecedented fifth time. Thomson's record in the race holds true to the gruelling fifty percent attrition rate that has seen him finish the lap of the planet twice from four attempts. Thomson is well known in the offshore sailing world for running an impressive campaign with long term sponsor Hugo Boss, each of his attempts has seen him race one of the newest boats in the fleet, and this time around is no exception. His new 60ft IMOCA was one of the last to be launched and sits at the forefront of offshore evolution, utilising a state of the art set of foils and progressive hull design.
"Hugo Boss is for us the culmination of nearly twenty years and with this boat we felt we had the confidence to make some bold decisions that perhaps we wouldn't have made before. So this time we were very bold and I'm as happy as Larry you know. The feeling of these things going along, you've got the traditional sound of a boat going through the water and sometimes you feel yourself fully in the air, it's an odd felling to be on a monohull where you physically feel the acceleration, it's been a massive change since I first started."
This year's edition sees thirty three entrants attempting the solo non stop charge around the globe, with a fleet that for the first time sees foiling mono hulls outnumber the non-foilers. Nineteen of the fleet boast foils, the design of which vary significantly. The favourites are very much the newest designs, the eight second generation foilers built and designed after the finish of the last Vendee, which saw the first foiling monohulls taking part in this race. As with the rest of the sport, the evolution in offshore foiling has been fast, and the results are stunning. World renowned naval architect Juan Kouyoumdjian has two brand new boats in this edition, and in his interview here provides a revealing insight into the design processes that go into a new generation IMOCA...
"The first page of the rule book, rule 101 I think it is, says 'everything that is not explicitly forbidden is therefore allowed' so you look at that and you think 'this is my favourite book you know.' But there's so many compromises to be done because the best theoretical boat is probably the opposite of what a single handed guy needs to go around the world."
Juan K goes on to discuss the fleet, the performance gains that the new foils have brought, and how these gains may effect the level of racing as the fleet charge south down the Atlantic and into the Southern Ocean.
Robertson also talks to three Vendee Globe rookies across the two podcast editions, in Part 1 talking to rising French star Clarisse Cremer (Banque Populaire X) about her campaign sailing for the team that won the last edition of the race with Armel Le Cleac'h.
In Part 2 Robertson talks to the impressive Charlie Dalin (Apivia), about taking on the race for the first time, and how his skills as a naval architect helped finesse his new generation foiling machine. And Robertson talks to the first ever German entrant into the race, the very experienced Boris Herrmann, (SeaExplorer Yacht Club de Monaco). Robertson also talks to long time friend and one time team mate Sam Davies, as she prepares to take on the Vendee for the third time.

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Series 2 - Ep15 - Skip Novak Part 1

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The worlds of offshore sailing and unbridled adventure meet head to head in this month's edition of Shirley Robertson's Sailing Podcast, as the two time Olympic gold medallist talks face to face with legendary American Whitbread skipper and off the grid sailing expedition pioneer Skip Novak.
Today, Novak is known throughout the sailing world as the go to man for sailing led polar exploration. For over three decades he has been running his famous "Pelagic' exploration yachts and is a man with much to say about his career exploring at high latitude, a passion that first came to him while racing around the planet in his first of four Whitbread Round the World Yacht Races.
"Not many people know this but as navigator I used to 'tweak' the course every now and again, saying 'we need to head up ten' only to see these places and come a little bit closer to get a view, something you wouldn't do today, but I loved to see these mountainous places coming up out of the mist and fog, and blowing like hell, and there was wildlife, seals jumping all over the place, and penguins, and I thought 'I have to go there one day, I have to see these places, and step on shore'".
That first Whitbread adventure took place in 1977, as the navigator onboard second place finisher 'King's Legend', but perhaps his most famous Whitbread entry was also one of the race's more unusual.
By 1985 British pop sensations Duran Duran were widely acknowledged as one of the decade's biggest super groups. A platinum album, world wide tours, Rolling Stone magazine covers, Grammy Awards, number ones either side of the Atlantic, the band had become a global phenomenon.
However, their meteoric rise to stardom had totally passed by a busy Skip Novak, but the global success of Simon Le Bon and his band were about to impact heavily on Novak's sailing career. Having unsuccessfully trawled the boardrooms of corporate America for sponsorship, Novak's Whitbread future looked uncertain, but a phone call from the eighties pop ensemble very quickly changed everything. It's an amusing tale, a story of how Novak was soon skippering the most famous band of the eighties around the world in a seventy seven foot maxi the band christened 'Drum'.
"We stuck (the hull) in the water and towed it across to Cowes, and we were all down below, Simon (Le Bon) came down for this of course, and we were all down below and somebody said 'Simon, what are we gonna call this thing, what are we gonna name it Simon', and he banged on the hull, and the whole hull reverberated like this and he said 'Let's call it Drum' and that's how that happened."
Duran Duran front man Simon Le Bon makes a guest appearance in Part 1 of this podcast, talking to Robertson about the band's exploits onboard 'Drum'. Before the Whitbread itself had even started, Novak, Le Bon and the crew had already taken an unwelcome visit to the front pages of the world's tabloid press, following a catastrophic capsize in the 1985 edition of the Fastnet Race. Novak's eloquent and dramatic account of the incident is typical of his laid back but descriptive style, "I got out as the water was pouring in through the hatch, I was like a salmon trying to swim upstream, the deck was coming down on top of me, I grabbed the rail and it went 'bang', like a coffin had shut!". The tales that follow are as amusing as they are compelling, and leave the listener pondering on whether such an oddball pairing of financial backing and sporting endeavour could ever possibly be beaten.

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