Jonathan Spencer Jones : Sailing
South African Lynnath Beckley, navigator on board the all-female crewed EF Education in the Whitbread Round the World yacht race, likens the event to Formula 1, calling it “the Formula 1 of sailing”.
And it is an analogy to which she returns frequently, with good reason: the Whitbread entries represent the latest in yacht design and technology and the skippers and crews count among them the world’s top sailors, with experience including events such as the Olympics and America’s Cup – and the result is totally professional and highly competitive sailing.
Indeed, Beckley says, this is the most competitive fleet ever for a round the world race.
For Beckley, a marine biologist by profession at the Oceanographic Research Institute in Durban – from which she has taken a year’s special leave – the race is a first, and she speaks enthusiastically of it, saying she has “really enjoyed” it so far.
Speaking in Cape Town during the stopover there, a few days before the start of the second leg, Beckley said she had been recommended by French solo sailor Isabelle Autissier, for whom she had provided weather information. She has been working on the event full time since June, putting in over 6 000 miles of training on the yacht before the start of the 7 350 mile leg from Southampton on September 21.
Bringing with her extensive experience on the South African sailing circuit, including both the main inshore regattas as well as offshore events such as the Cape to Uruguay and Cape to Rio races, she described it as “a quantum leap” from South African sailing. Most noticeably, the yacht is “very powerful” off the wind, although it tends to be rather noisy beating into the wind.
While she had some initial doubts about sailing with an all-female crew, these soon disappeared, however, and she said the crew was a happy one. Also it is “mentally very strong”, if not as physically strong as the male crews.
Thus more hands are required for sail changes, for example, and in her case she does “a lot of deckwork” in addition to the 12 hours a day she spends in her “pod”, navigating and monitoring the yacht’s performance.
The first leg had its ups and downs and one of the worst was in the Bay of Biscay, where the yacht was becalmed, she said. “We were all psyched up, going fast, and then trapped. We were just in the wrong place. We were desperate!”
Of the highlights, Beckley said the start, with the Solent awash with 4 000 spectator boats, was unforgettable, as was the “fantastic” welcome in Cape Town, while another – and “a taste of things to come” – was hitting speeds of 28 knots coming across the south Atlantic.
She described the first leg as tactically difficult because of the different weather systems encountered, but said the second – through the southern ocean to Fremantle in Australia – is likely to be more straightforward because of the “relentless lows”.
But it will also be “very tough, cold and wet”. Though she has not sailed in the southern ocean, she has some experience of the conditions from a trip to Marion Island and is under no illusions as to the difficulties it can pose: “We know the southern ocean is fierce. The biggest challenge will be to keep the boat together and trading off when to push and when to be more conservative.”
But she is cautiously looking forward to the leg, she said. “It is what the Whitbread is all about.”
After the first leg the leaders in the Whitbread are Swedish entry EF Language (sister ship to EF Education) skippered by American Paul Cayard in first place, followed by Merit Cup skippered by Grant Dalton of New Zealand, veteran of four previous races and winner in the maxi class in the last race in 1993-94, and Innovation Kvaerner II skippered by Knut Frostad of Norway in second and third places respectively.
EF Education currently lies in eighth place. The second, 4 600 mile leg through the Roaring Forties to Fremantle, Australia begins on Saturday.