On a wing and a prayer

Phil Sharp recounts his sleep-deprived voyage, sail damaged voyage the Mini Transat's first leg

British Mini Phil Sharp put in a great result on the first leg of the Mini Transat, pulling into Puerto Calero, Lanzarote on Saturday afternoon in fourth place of 72 starters.

"I was well chuffed actually," Sharp told thedailysail yesterday after he'd woken up. "It was really intimidating down in La Rochelle [prior to the start]. You had all these quick boats around, 20 people who could win it, and you just have no idea which way it is going to go. I just sailed my guts out and it was all really good."

Sharp's result was all the more impressive as during the leg he destroyed a significant spinnaker and suffered serious sleep deprivation. "I lost my medium spinnaker, which I used to sail with pretty much all the time. It’s really good because it's very quick in quite strong airs and also in light airs, so it has a lot of overlap between my small spinnaker and my big one...and I lost it the first morning of the race."

During a drop the kite ended up in the water, got dragged aft, caught around the rudder and then around the keel. Game over. "The only thing to do was cut it away and even that took about an hour. And it was completely screwed."

From then on, Sharp had to rely on his big kite and his small fractional. However not having used the big kite too much before the start, it soon became apparent that it was simply to big and powerful for the autopilot to steer when it was up when it was anywhere close to the top of its wind range. "As soon as you put the autopilot on and get pressure in the sail, it just heats up and you end up luffing up and luffing up and it goes into a big broach. Or if it reacts too much, you crash gybe. So if you leave it on for five minutes you either crash gybe or you broach. If I’d had the medium kite, it would have been fine, a really well balanced boat and not much slower, but I ended up having to put my fractional up to go to sleep."

Fortunately not all the conditions were this marginal and there were times when it was blowing less than 12 knots and the pilot could handle the big kite and other occasions when the wind was up and he could use his fractional.

On Wednesday night there was a second near disaster. "I had no sleep for the first three nights, because I had this major problem. Then I decided I had to have sleep, so I took the big kite down, put the fractional up and then 1-1.5 hour later, woke up and put the big kite back up and sheeted on and it was ‘wait a minute, there’s no pressure in the kite – what’s going on, there’s plenty of wind?’"

The big spinnaker had split from the head down the middle of the sail and out to the clew. "One half was rolled up and twisted and flying all over the place and the other half was flying. So I thought then that my transat was over - I didn’t have a big spinnaker - 'why did it have to happen in the Transat?' and I was pretty depressed for half an hour or an hour but then I decided to try and repair it."

To effect a repair he used an entire roll of duct tape and sticky-back Dacron. "My friends had come down and sealed all the electronics with sticky-back Dacron before the race, so I was ripping that off and putting it on the spinnaker...and it lasted - I was pretty impressed. There was a huge bulge where it was repaired, but it did the job."

One end of the spinnaker pole also broke.



More disturbing was Sharp's physical shape during the race. "Before the start I’d heard a few wise words - the last thing you want to do is lose your mast on the first night. I also said I’d be getting 2-3 hours sleep a night, and I’d definitely sleep on the first night, but it didn’t happen, because I didn’t realise I couldn’t sleep with the big kite. And I was going so well the first night with the medium kite up in 23-24 knots of wind...there was a voice in the back of my head going ‘twat, get it down now otherwise you’ll break something'. But I was catching up on all the front runners, and there was another voice saying ‘you’re doing so well, keep going’. But I decided enough was enough, take it down, put the fractional up and put it up again in the morning when it cools off a bit, just because you are never totally confident with everything the day you set out. You learn so much throughout the race, because you gain confidence. You need to get back in touch with sailing a Mini and that takes a few days."

Sharp reckons he got around 1 hour of sleep per day on average for this seven day leg. He slept during the night, because this felt more natural and also it was harder to steer and trim the sails efficiently at night. Otherwise when he could sleep was entirely conditions-related. With the big kite up there had to be less than 12 knots for him to leave the helm. "Other than that I just kept sailing until I dropped and then I changed kite. One time I went bare headed for about an hour because by the time I’d put the fractional up, taken it down and put the big kite up again, you wouldn’t really lose that much time over just going on a dead run under full main."

Having endured this regime for six days, come the final night at sea Sharp was a wreck. "I was completely screwed - just totally out of it. I didn’t know what direction I was going in. It would crash gybe and I would wake up on the leeward side of the boat in the water and then would have to get the boat going again. It was definitely not fast. It is quite amazing when you are properly rested how you can sail a hell of a lot quicker and make up the time, but it is very difficult to realise that and put it into action."

His sleep deprivation reached danger levels when he started hallucinating. "I had people speaking to me the whole time. I really wanted to be at the finish, to get it over and done with and I kept visualising these pontoons with the frontrunners drinking in bars and it was really hard to resist them - I just wanted to go upwind, put down my sails and pull in and that was the finish. But it was ‘wait a minute, there’s nothing on my GPS which says I’ve finished'. So I just ignored anything and everyone that ever spoke to me over the last night and I just followed the arrow on the GPS and nothing else. Fortunately I did manage to convince myself it was all crap and I was telling everyone to 'bugger off - I know you’re not there'. It was pretty scary actually."

During the last night Yves le Blevec slipped past him to take third place.

Come sunrise on Saturday Sharp had pulled himself together again and by the time he reached Puerto Calero was in reasonably good shape. "I had wound myself up a bit and I was in good spirits. I didn’t just completely fall asleep on the pontoon when I arrived." However he went to bed at 2pm on Saturday and didn't wake up again until 8am the next day... 18 hours of sleep. "I didn’t know if it was light because it was evening or morning."

In terms of food and drink Sharp was also fairly hard line. He only drank water and says he ate a lot of flapjacks and ready-made camping food he could eat cold. "I cooked twice, but it was pretty annoying because I wanted to eat it straight away and it was all too hot to eat. So for the second leg I am only going to take the cold food I think. That’s great because you can just squeeze it out of the packet and you can eat it at the helm."
Tactically the race was fairly straightforward with downwind conditions the whole way and the wind shifting only between northeast and due north. Although forecasts are transmitted to the fleet, the week-long first leg was enough to do off the forecast supplied to him before the start by Commanders Weather. "I stuck to it pretty closely and it turned out to be pretty good. I looked at it to begin with and I thought this is way too quick because it said we would get in Friday night/Saturday morning. Then I realised it was going to be such an amazingly quick race.

"The main thing to do was just head west after Finistere. I headed too far into Finistere and I got bogged down into light weather for a bit, but it was okay, because I could replace some sail battens which I broke during the night and I needed some quite calm weather for that, because I needed to be under the pilot. After that I just headed west and I made up a lot of ground going offshore, putting the fractional up in 25-26 knots and just caning it the whole night.." During that night (Wednesday) he pulled up from sixth to fourth.

During the race he only heard a couple of the reports with forecasts and the top three positions, broadcast by Monaco Radio (only VHF two way communication is allowed during the race). "I heard I was in third and I heard Corentin’s position - 22 miles ahead of me. So I sailed like mad that day (on Wednesday) and in the evening he was 20 miles ahead of me. Then I blew my big kite and didn’t hear my positions again. I thought I was further back than I was to be honest. The last night I don’t know how quick it was, but it seemed very slow being so spaced out. When I was coming in I heard something about seven boats finishing, so I thought I was eighth. Then I got in and there were only three boats there."

Leg two of the Mini Transat starts on 8 October and for Sharp there will have to be a major regime change if he is to survive it. While the sail down to Puerto Calero was 1,350 miles, the second leg across the Doldrums to Salvador de Bahia in Brazil is 2,900 miles and there is no way he will be able to keep up the same pace. "I have got to definitely improve on my sleep for the second leg," he admits. "You feel really crap, then you go to sleep for 20 minutes you wake up feeling great and you think you’ve had enough sleep but you haven’t had near enough and two hours later you are just as spaced out as you were before you went to sleep. It is very difficult to go to sleep for more than an hour. I did that maybe once or twice during the race."

He will also have to be more disciplined about listening to the forecast as even Commanders Weather will be pushed to give Sharp a two and a half week forecast, although the information he gets prior to the start he says will dictate his tactics through the all-important Doldrums passage.

His big issue over the next days will be over whether he will be able to repair his medium spinnaker. He can replace the sail, but this would result in him receiving a 24 hour penalty and that is out of the question.