From America's Cup to Open 60 solo

Mike Sanderson updates thedailysail on his campaign for The Transat

Kiwi sailmaker Mike 'Moose' Sanderson has one of the most impressive sailing CVs for a 33 year old - he is the primary helmsman on and one of the architects of Robert Miller's incredible transatlantic and monohull 24 hour record holder Mari Cha IV, he was holding the mainsheet on board Oracle BMW Racing during the last America's Cup and sailed with Grant Dalton on board Merit Cup in the 1996/7 Whitbread and on New Zealand Endeavour when it romped class one in the 1993/4 race.

Over the last year Sanderson has become an integral part of Emma Richards' Pindar team and in 2003 sailed with Richards - albeit briefly - in the two handed Transat Jacques Vabre (TJV). At present the team are campaigning hard to raise funds for a Volvo Ocean Race campaign, but currently occupying Sanderson's mind is his participation in a mere two month's time in his first ever singlehanded offshore race - The Transat from Plymouth upwind across the North Atlantic to Boston.

Richards is not doing the race because she openly admits a loathing for solo sailing - been there, done that - and because it coincides with a vital time in the production of her autobiography/account of Around Alone.

Having acquired the ill-fated Graham Dalton's Open 60 Hexagon last summer and carried out several mods to the boat - in particular the fitting of a new rig without furling sailing and with a conventional vang arrangement, Pindar's shore team have been carrying more modifications to the boat down at Camper & Nicholsons in Gosport.

"Even though we had a bad TJV - and Emma and I took that quite badly - we had to make sure we got the most out of it," says Sanderson. "We had a good first day sailing upwind against all the top boats, so we had to make the most of what we learned visually from the footage. We managed to get from the helicopter to find out what everyone else was doing and to see how we can speed ourselves up."

The main change has been in the fitting of a new pair of super-asymmetric daggerboards that were developed been the boat's designers Owen Clarke and some number crunching CFD boffins in Auckland. "We were very fortunate there were some people around with some very high powered software and we were able to get hold of Nick Holroyd [Team New Zealand's CFD man] to work with Merv Owen and Tim Sadler and we’re pretty excited with what we have come up with and what the guys at Southern Ocean Marine have built," says Sanderson.

"It is a bit different and we have modified it a little bit to what we have seen around the fleet. It’s not going to leap out of the water and make it plane to windward...but it will be an improvement and we need anything like that to turn it from being a 2001 boat to as close to the new generation boats as we can get." The team have been testing the new boards this week.

Sanderson will shortly be heading off on his qualifier for the Transat, but prior to this wants to go out fully crewed to give the boat a blast to shake out any addition teething problems.

Significantly aside from a new bigger 3DL mainsail they are sticking with their decision not to have roller furling headsails at present. "We are going to see if that works singlehanded," says Sanderson. "We were more than happy with it two handed but obviously it is quite a big step singlehanded." The likes of Pete Goss and Jean-Luc van den Heede have sailed the Vendee Globe in the past with hanked on sails and this obviously saves the weight of the furling gear, but at a massive cost in ease of handling that most solo sailors feel is too high a price to pay.

"I’m spending a bit of time in the gym that’s for sure..." says Sanderson. "It is really one of the parts I know I can work on. There are so many areas I am going to be disadvantaged in in the singlehanded world. Hopefully if I can get fit and strong then that is one tick to me up against such an incredibly experienced fleet."

Often solo sailing and the French Open 60 and multihull scene in general is viewed as being low-tech and not as competitive or professional as some of the elite Anglo-Saxon schools of keel boat racing. If he ever felt this before, with the Transat looming and following his experience in the TJV, Sanderson is now eating humble pie.

"I am really going to be the new boy on the block and I am in awe of the other competitors and what they have done. I am definitiely keeping my head down and just trying to get as many miles in under my belt singlehanded as well as putting some hard pushed miles on this boat which so far we’ve never managed to do. In the past it [the boat] has struggled to stay in one piece..."

While Sanderson has competed in a few offshore two handed races (aside from the Transat Jacques Vabre), the Transat will be his first singlehanded offshore race. "I am definitely throwing myself off the deep end but I have been thinking about it for a long time and I have a fantastic coach, with Emma telling me all her tricks about how to be a good singlehanded sailor. I hope between her experience singlehanded and my fully crewed approach we can have a slightly different slant on things and I can come up with my own style, but I'm definitely keeping my head down and trying to get the boat right and get the systems in place and taking it from there.

"I guess the main concern is that I haven’t come up through the smaller boats like the Mini and the Figaro and learned the lessons. I’m sure I’ll make some dumb mistakes and people will be chuckling away at them after my qualifier and my Transat race. I’m just going to wait and see - I’ll see how it goes and how I enjoy it. It will be a great experience for me whatever way.

"Maybe it is quite naïve of me, but I am looking forward to what for me is a new aspect of yacht racing. I’ve raced dinghies, skiffs, Volvo and America’s Cup and all that sort of thing, so it is something new and I am really enjoying coming in as a beginner. It is like beginning to ski again.

"Obviously we took the TJV result pretty personally. I don’t think I have ever pulled out of an offshore race before. So we have been working some long hours to make sure we get this thing right."

Of particular amusement no doubt to his chums back home is that the Transat will be the first occasion Pindar have sponsored a male sailor in a major race, having backed Emma Richards and Helena Darvelid's Alphagraphics in the EDS Atlantic Challenge. "They have basically broken away from the guaranteed publicity of the young good looking British woman to some craggy old Kiwi. So for all of us we have to make sure we have a solid effort..."