Less than a month...
By Jesse Rowse
Arriving in France to begin final preparations for the Mini Transat is a bit less climatic and exciting than it may seem. After four years of owning my Classe Mini with the intention of competing in this race and nearly two years of full-time campaigning to qualify, there is now less than a month until the September 13 start of this 4,200-mile, singlehanded odyssey.
Don’t get me wrong, there isn’t anywhere else I’d rather be right now even though the old submarine base here in Lorient is a bit desolate this time of year. You see, it’s August in France and the entire country pretty much stops working completely and goes on vacation. Despite working all day, mostly alone, in an abandoned WWII submarine base doing the relatively dirty jobs involved in preparing an offshore racing boat, I will admit that I’m beyond excited and quite honestly just itching to get on with racing across the Atlantic. However, my hatred of wet sanding antifouling paint has become even stronger than ever before (see photo – that’s not a smile on my face). This is just one of the many necessary evils in getting a raceboat into tip-top shape.
I am in fact covered in much more orange stuff than it appears in this photo…did I mention I hate wet sanding?
There’s an unbelievable job list involved with preparing a 21-foot boat for a solo-transatlantic race that is proportionate to preparing a much larger IMOCA Open 60 for the Vendée Globe. There also happens to be an amazing amount of stress involved in the final days leading up to a race where so much hinges upon excellent prep work.
For those young professional sailors, such as myself, trying to make a name with a successful MiniTransat campaign, there are massive financial investments involved and sponsor relationships that also hinge on this one race, and your finishing position in Salvador, Brazil. The constant worry about potential breakages, results, general preparedness and the constantly shrinking and never-sufficient bank-account balance are all the factors adding to this ever-present stress. I think I have been successful in moving most of these stressful thoughts to the back of my mind, without disregarding them, and maintaining focus on preparing myself and my boat to do as best as I possibly can in this grueling and equally thrilling race.
My days are currently compromised of about 10 hours of physically working on my boat, another 5 or so hours of dealing with emails and the logistics side of my campaign, and the remaining is reserved for sleeping, eating, and, if I’m really lucky, a few minutes to sit and read a book. I did, however, get the chance to watch the Banque Populaire 131-foot maxi trimaran come out of the water just after she set a new Transatlantic record of 3 days 15 hours and 25 minutes.
The thing about the submarine base in Lorient is that however bleak it may be, and it can be downright bleak, it is easily the world’s undisputed capital of ocean racing and presents the opportunity to see more amazing offshore raceboats of all types in one place than anywhere else on the planet. It’s a great motivation while wet sanding to see amazing creations like Banque Populaire kicking around to remind you of the future that you are aspiring towards.
This photo does very little to express how truly impressive this 131’ long monster of a boat is.
In the next 3 weeks, before I get locked into La Rochelle harbor for the Transat safety inspections, I must go through every centimeter of my boat with a fine-tooth comb making sure that there are no weak links that could become problematic during the race. I also plan on getting out for some training sails to calibrate my autopilot for the heavy downwind conditions typically encountered in the Transat, as well as judging my energy draw to calculate how much fuel to bring for my generator, which serves as an alternative to my solar panel.
I am not counting on getting much done in the race village during the days leading up to the start as there are typically thousands of visitors on the docks and numerous obligations that I’m sure will eat up the majority of my days. I also want to use what time I do have available in the final days before the start to review weather files and begin developing my tactics for the first leg. I believe that mental preparedness is a huge part of single-handed offshore racing, and for me that means knowing that my boat is physically prepared to race across the Atlantic well in advance of the start so that my mind can be at ease.
The Transat website is up and running now in both French and English and is the best way to follow the race. Although I will warn you that the English side is a bit rough (some of the bits about me have been translated from English to French and then back again to English) there’s a a nice article about me and the other American entrant, Chris Tutmark, right on the front of the English page and loads of good photos of all the skippers and their boats.
I will try to put quick regular updates about my progress in the next few weeks on my own website, www.realitysailing.com, where there are also MiniTransat 2009 T-shirts available with the proceeds going to help my campaign. I also plan on writing another blog update from La Rochelle with the hope of conveying the pre-race energy to all the readers back home. For now I’m back to my never ending job list and yes…even more wet sanding.
