Around alone by Richards Emma 1974-

Author:Richards, Emma, 1974-
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: TRAVEL & HOLIDAY, Travel & holiday guides, Travel, Travel - General, Boating - General, Essays & Travelogues, Sailing - General, Sports & Recreation / Boating, Sports & Recreation / Sailing, YACHT RACING, General, Richards, Emma, 1974-, Voyages autour du monde, Navigation à voile en solitaire
ISBN: 1405048042
Publisher: London : Macmillan
Published: 2004-02-15T00:00:00+00:00

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The storm hadn’t long abated when my nerves and patience werepushed to their limits by a succession of setbacks and frights. Thecast of conspirators sent to test me included a Frenchman, several

shoals of flying fish, Neptune and the inhabitants of a mystery

*

vessel who scared me witless and brought my vulnerability as asolo yachtswoman into terrifying focus.

The Frenchman was Thierry, who bounced back from theordeal of Hurricane Kyle to overtake me and move back intosecond place behind Bernard Stamm. I should have expectednothing less from such an experienced competitor but it wasgalling anyway. In the evening poll report on the Wednesday,Bernard was about 300 miles ahead of me but I was still some20 miles up on Thierry, who was third. By 6 a.m. on Thursday,the polls were telling me that Thierry was 2 miles ahead andmaking faster progress. On the Thursday evening I received anemail from Solidaires.

‘I can smell young blonde English girl in the area!’ Thierryjoked to mark the fact that he’d gone past.

‘Oh yeah?’ I replied. ‘Well, I’m sure it’s better than spendingdays downwind of a Frenchman!’

It was heartening at least to get Thierry’s message. After the

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eleven days we’d endured since leaving Brixham and with theadrenalin rush from the storm gone, the solitude was comingback to the fore. I tried to counter it by staying in touch with myfellow competitors via brief emails. These involved all the banteryou’d find among any crewed yacht in a race. It just so happenedthat in the Around Alone the participants were each on their ownboat, spaced across hundreds of miles. But the communicationsomehow made the race more real, reminding me that it involvedother people instead of being a solitary exercise with just dots onthe charts as competitors. It was precisely what I needed to keepmy spirits up and take my mind off boat speed and boring food.

Thierry was the most communicative of the other skippers atthat stage because we were having a good race amongst ourselves.In the first leg I’d never been within touching distance and wehadn’t communicated at all. I heard from Bernard in the secondleg too but cyberspace was the closest I’d get to him before CapeTown. I was also in touch with John Tops’ Dennis a few timesas I knew he was having a tough time of it. He, like me, wasstarting to feel the lack of human contact and our occasional‘chin up’ messages were always appreciated. John’s stop in Spain,along with the rest of the Class II boats, made his second legmuch longer than originally scheduled.

Thierry replied gamely to my accusations that he was a stinkyFrenchman by explaining precisely how he’d gone past me. He’dfound decent winds of 30 knots and had hand-steered for fifteenhours straight to get the best from his gennaker. I was tooexhausted at that stage to contemplate a similar stint myself.I took solace from the fact that there were still 5,000 miles to goto Cape Town and plenty of time to make amends.

Having fought so hard through the storm to keep myself in agood position, I wasn’t going to let a little setback stop me

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pushing again.

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