The Atlantic, solo, in a Figaro

Liz Wardley describes her preparations for this weekend's Trophee BPE race from France to the Caribbean

Papua New Guinea's Liz Wardley came centre stage in the sailing world as the barefooted bowgirl on board Amer Sports Too in the Volvo Ocean Race before last. The last four years have seen her tackling the French singlehanded offshore one design class, the Figaro, where she is now into her third season with French sponsor Sojasun, a manufacturer of soy-based food. This weekend Wardley sets off on what will be the biggest event in her solo sailing career to date - the Trophee BPE from Belle Ile (the big island you see in the distance from La Trinite-sur-Mer) to the Caribbean island of Marie Galante, just to the southeast of Guadeloupe.

Held every two years the Trophee BPE has represented another hurdle for the Figaro class. Before it existed there was the annual highlight of the year - the Solitaire Afflelou le Figaro and the biennial two handed Transat AG2R across to the Caribbean. The Trophee BPE was the class' first singlehanded transatlantic race, running two years ago to Cienfuegos, Cuba and won by Eric Drouglazet.



While the race two years ago had just 12 entries, this year the Trophee BPE has a much more impressive 27 strong line-up, including several past Solitaire winners and two other female competitors in Servane Escoffier and the experienced Jeanne Gregoire. As Wardley puts it: "It's pretty awesome. When I signed up for it I thought there might be 18-19 boats. Everyone was a bit hesitant with the last one because it wasn’t at the right time of year and there was no waypoint down south. But it was a success and everyone raved about it. Especially after the AG2R last year, which was two handed, you couldn’t stop thinking about doing it by yourself."

For her personally, Wardley says the Trophee BPE is the highlight of her year, more so than the Solitaire, the event widely perceived as the effective World Championship of offshore solo racing. Wardley gives her reasons for this: "It is longer, you are going across an ocean. To me it is the definition of offshore sailing, going from A to B and crossing an ocean in between, whereas the Solitaire is a bit more coastal and there’s a lot of contact and not what I’ve been used to before."

To date she has competed in three Solitaires and in the last two has finished mid-fleet in 24th position. "I had some moments of okayness. I came ninth on one of the legs and was in the lead for a while on the leg up to Ireland. And early on in the year in the Med I came second on one of the legs. So I get up there sometimes."

So what makes the difference? "The longer the leg, the better I go. I just get into it. All the racing I’d done before I got on the Figaro was all long, ie longer than a week. I get into my rhythm and you get a lot more options, you can play with the weather, whereas with a short Figaro leg there are not many options, although you can take a flier now and then."

Wardley says that starting the year with a race she is looking forward to has motivated her to put in some extensive training specifically for going solo transatlantic and she hopes because of this she'll do better than her normal results.

This is her second season training out of the impressive Olympic-level local government-funded facility, the Finistere Course Au Large, in the Figaro stronghold of Port la Foret. Wardley describes her preparation for the Trophe BPE: "There’s been a lot of training about mental preparation, how to be able to stay unstressed and make good decisions, stay calm, be able to go to sleep, etc - which I’ve never done before because in the Solitaire it is not the kind of thing I am looking for. We've been changing sail systems for offshore, how to make things easier, things like that. Different food I can eat and how to cook them, etc."

There has also been classroom work, looking at the weather with guru Jean-Yves Bernot and ex-60ft trimaran skipper and Figaro sailor, Jean-Luc Nelias.

"It is awesome," says Wardley of the facility. "It is also my base in Europe. We have got a gym, a trainer, we have meteo guys, there is a mental preparer we can work with, there is a coach for the swimming, three coaches on the water. You’d be hard pressed to find somewhere better to progress."

Not everyone can get into the training centre, particularly from abroad (although Sam Davies, Miranda Merron and Emma Richards all managed it - we see a pattern here?). To get in Wardley was put on a probation period but says they were keen to have her - an example to all of someone who made the effort, coming from Papua New Guinea/Australia, half way around the world to sail in the class.





Fairly vital for getting ahead in the Figaro class is the ability to speak French. After four years in France Wardley says she can understand everything but still finds it hard speaking it. "My vocab is not up there. I know how to say the bad things and I can definitely get colourful on the race course! I get by in every situation, so it is really helpful. When the safety inspectors come along and everything it was quite difficult at the beginning. They have different names for everything. But now it is good."

Working with Wardley on Sojasun is her preparateur Erwan, but when we spoke to her earlier in the week all the job list had been checked off and there only remained some safety checks.

Her Beneteau Figaro II 32ft one design, is the same one she has sailed for three years now. She bought it last year and over the winter has refaired the hull, taking all the epoxy off. "There was a lot of refairing to be done. I have always kept weight down to the minimum, I have the bare minimum in the boat. A lot of people laminate the stringers and things, but I haven’t done that and I haven’t seen any cracking. We weighed the boats recently and I was on the money."

During the Trophee BPE competitors are not allowed weather routing, however they are allowed an Iridium satellite phone and can download MaxSea Chopper GRIB files. They also have a Meteofax receiver on board. "We sign a declaration to say that we are not going to get any other meteo information," says Wardley.

While the weather is not so good in Belle Ile this week the festivities will be starting soon. A leading French singer has written a song about Belle Ile and Marie Galante and is coming to town to perform it and the 27 Figaros at various stages during the week will be teeming with local school children who are coming down to see the boats.

Wardley is campaigning the Figaro this year, but ultimately hopes to move into the Open 60 class and to pave the way for this we may see her racing on one of the boats in this year's fully crewed Calais Round Britain Race.