Dee goes Open 60

Aviva to sponsor Dee Caffarri with her new Vendee Globe ambition

Dee Caffarri, the first woman to sail non-stop around the world westabout, has announced her plans to sail singlehanded non-stop around the world again – this time eastabout aboard an Open 60 in the 2008 Vendee Globe. If she succeeds this will make Caffarri the first woman to sail around the world non-stop singlehanded in both directions – a feat only so far achieved by Mike Golding, Philippe Monnet and Jean-Luc van den Heede.

Caffarri’s Open 60 project is being backed once again by her previous round the world sponsor, Aviva (as opposed to Areva) the international savings, investments and insurance group (as opposed to the French nuclear giant). Already she has acquired Conrad Humphreys’ Finot-Conq designed Hellomoto Open 60. Ironically Caffarri’s first experience of the sailing industry was working for Mike Golding at a time when this boat was Golding’s then state-of-the-art steed Team Group 4. “I sailed on her then as a passenger,” says Dee. “My key job when he [Golding] was getting ready for the Vendee was that I had to dive on the bottom of the boat every day, so I know the bottom of it very well, but I don’t know the top too well…”

The boat has since been rebranded Ecover, then Hellomoto when Humphreys sailed her in the last Vendee Globe and now has been painted in the yellow livery of Aviva over at Marco Lefevre’s V1D2 yard over in Caen. The boat was supposed to make it to London Boat Show for today’s announcement, but unfortunately couldn’t make it due to the bad weather.

While this is a major step forward, for Dee this boat will only represent a training vessel prior to her taking delivery of a brand new Open 60 in the Aviva colours. The new boat is being designed by Owen Clarke and will be built in New Zealand, but this is as far as progress on this has got at this stage. One imagines it would make sense for Dee to come to some arrangement with her old employer, Mike Golding, to use the moulds of his new Ecover, another Owen Clarke design currently in build at Hakes Marine in Wellington, but this deal has yet to come to be done.

In the first boat Dee will mainly focus this year on the IMOCA Open 60 circuit including Calais Round Britain and the Rolex Fastnet Race, both of which she can do fully crewed. She will then round off the year with the two handed Transat Jacques Vabre and the singlehanded Defi Atlantique, which will represent her qualifier for the Vendee Globe. Her program is reasonably flexible, so it is likely the boat will compete in Round the Island and may if the appropriate weather window arise carry out the occasional record attempt. “It helps focus the mind and makes me drive the boat a bit harder. There are lots of options,” says Dee.



The step from a belt and braces Challenge 72 to an Open 60 is also a big one, the latter being a very much more complex, tweaky piece of Grand Prix sailing hardware. “I am going to join the elite club. I feel as if I am going from my HGV license to my Formula 1 licence and it is a bit daunting at the moment.”

The new boat is scheduled to launch in December this year and Dee will carry out sea trials and sail testing in New Zealand before shipping the boat to the east coast of the US early in 2008.

While she has turned herself into something of a solo upwind specialist, Dee fully admits to having done no other singlehanded sailing, racing or otherwise. “What I valuably need to do is gain experience downwind sailing,” she says. “So we are going to do a transatlantic solo, and that will allow me to requalify with the right boat.” She will follow this up in 2008 with the Transat from Plymouth to Boston, sail back and then begin the preparations and nail biting prior to the Vendee Globe in November.

While another ex-Golding employee Joff Brown is project managing the build of the new boat, Dee will also be drawing on the experience of many others. “It is quite a steep learning curve, and the key to making it all happen is to get people on board to sail with me who I can learn from and pick up all the good bits,” says Dee. “It is like going back to school, which is really exciting. The key thing for me is ultimately learning to sail downwind fast and it doesn’t really matter what boat I do that on ultimately time on my boat I’ll know it better and it will be a better performance, but I can still do it with other people to get their input which is really valuable.”

Challenge Business old salt Andrew Roberts is coming on board in a managerial capacity as well as being able to offer his formidable technical expertise while Miranda Merron and Nick Moloney are to get Dee up to speed on the water. Dee will also be gaining experience this year racing double on Oliver Bond’s Mini and on Miranda Merron’s new Class 40. Harry Spedding is boat captaining the fist 60 and is keeper of the Caffarri diary, ensuring she spends her time wisely between now and November 2008. Hot shot navigator Mike Broughton is to make her proficient on the met side as routing is banning from the Vendee. “We are going to work together so that we get the right navigation package on the boat, so that I learn the right stuff from the beginning and am au fait with that when it comes time for the big deal.”

So why are Aviva doing this? Dee explains: “Their campaign going forwards is to go international now and they saw this as a global platform for me to take it on further and I was quite forward thinking in terms of where I wanted to go next. And it is nice for them to deliver a continuity message to their customers and their other satellite companies.”

Or as Aviva's Executive Director Patrick Snowball puts it: "Dee's successful completion of the Aviva Challenge last year was a masterclass in skill, guts and determination. Dee is an extraordinary woman who is determined to push back the boundaries of her sport and inspires others to do the same in their own lives. Aviva is immensely proud of its partnership with Dee Caffari. We believe she epitomises the spirit of our 'Forward thinking' campaign and we're really excited about the prospect of her new international Aviva Ocean Racing campaign which will test her sailing skills even further."

As ever being able to speak French is a valuable commodity for sailors looking to race on the IMOCA circuit (or for that matter the Mini/Figaro) and so Dee says she will be taking the ‘learn French’ CDs with her when she competes in the London Marathon.

We wish Dee every success with her new project.