Vendée Globe

Makes me glad I'm an inshore sailor.

What they're- they've experienced in the last week, it, it could even be worse than what they experience in a circumnavigation on a, on the Vendée Globe.

The New York Yacht Club, um, has asked the New York Attorney General to examine whether the America's Cup partnership complies with the Deed of Gift.

It's taken it to a, a higher level of seriousness [upbeat music] Hello, and welcome to episode 37 of The Foil Podcast, your independent take on all things sail racing, both foiling and not foiling.

These, these, these men and women are used to sailing 40, 50, even 60 knots in the Southern Ocean, but when you see the footage of the sea state, that is the kind of point of difference with sailing in the middle of Atlantic [laughs]

Yeah.

And, and it, it could be that what they're, they've experienced in the last week, it, it could even be worse than what they experience in a circumnavigation on a, on a Vendée Globe.

It's weird, you always think you're gonna encounter the worst of everything in a Vendée Globe, but it has been on these shorter races sometimes that they've-

If you listen to Charlie's podcast at the start of this year, you'll know his remarkable story.

A story that saw him battle his way to a Vendée Globe win while fighting the effects of cancer.

Sadly, ultimately, the fight against his cancer was a battle Charlie succumbed to earlier this year.

It was a privilege to have recorded our interview with Charlie.

So it is financially quite a tricky one as well.

And you don't get paid in the same way that you would if you were, you know, by sponsors, if you were a Vendee skipper or something where you're, you know, if you're one of the top skippers with massive sponsorship, then you're actually earning out of it where in the GGR case, you're not really earning out of it.

With luck, you might cover your expenses through sponsorship, but it's not exactly like it's a salarized thing that you're doing.

Who managed to cover your expenses then?

So with the pro race boats, obviously they are built specifically to race.

So like the Vendee Globe boats, it literally gets to the point of From the paper design, they are designed and built like Formula One cars.

It's optimised to do that specific task.

Admittedly, they're minimising weight, they're pushing performance levels, even to the point of like a Formula One car where the seat is designed for the driver on the Amoka boats, especially when they're solo.

So that will be live when this goes out.

Also, the Atlantic Ocean race.

So Oliver here, all the Vendee Globe guys, they're going to be doing the crude transatlantic race.

They're all high performance foiling and mockers.

What kind of things did you do to get her fixed up? And how did you find her? What do you think? Wiley 39 is definitely a classic.

My good friend, Bruce Ladd, who used to come to my shop all the time and hang out and talk sailing and racing and Vendee Globe and who's winning what and who's racing in what.

Bruce ended up owning Lightspeed.

I had worked on her when I was working with Scott with Eason Rigging.

You know, this is not a, the Vande globe or whatever.

I mean, Not that the Vendee Globe goes upwind.

They generally go downwind.

But there's got to be stretches where they go upwind.

Yeah.

It's a, it's a hectic start a race, but the thing about the Clipper race is that they w- and any, you know, the Golden Globe and, uh, the, the Vendée Globe, you know, these, these conditions exist and there's no hiding from them.

It is a round the world circumnavigation, so if, if we're about to start a race and it's gusting 40, it's gusting a gale or even worse, they will just go...

You'll just keep going, you know, to a safe, to as safe as it can be.