Brits on the Solitaire

Nigel King and Artemis' Jonny Malbon discuss their Figaro prospects

It was widely recognised last year that undertaking the Vendee Globe as your first ever singlehanded offshore race is perhaps a little ambitious. And so it has come to pass that management of the Artemis shorthanded offshore racing campaign has been shifted to Offshore Challenges, who already run their Transat race with backing from the Edinburgh-based investment house. With this move has come a rejigging of the Artemis program and this has seen Jonny Malbon, who originally worked for OC as Ellen’s boat captain on her famous Kingfisher Open 60, was shifted from skippering the Artemis Open 60 and into the intensive shorthanded offshore training school that is the Figaro class.

Today he and Nigel King are the sole Brits setting sail in the Figaro class’ top event, La Solitaire.

“We are cocked and ready to get going,” Malbon told us last night. “The boat is in great shape. We have been almost finding jobs to do on the boat this week. It is a huge contrast in many ways to last year. I’m just looking forward to getting on with it.”

While OC had their own Figaro back in the Sam Davies era when it was sponsored by Skandia, this was sold to Katie Miller, however Gilles Chiorri, who now runs the iShares Cup for them, owns a Beneteau Figaro 2 and chartered it to Artemis. The boat was chartered to Elodie Riou last year.

Malbon took up Figaro sailing only in May and two to three months on setting sail with 51 other boats in this intense fleet, against many of the best solo offshore sailors France has to offer, is almost as hair raising and daunting, albeit for slightly different reasons, to his Vendee Globe venture last year.

“We got the boat in May and first of all my time was split quite heavily between the 60 and the Figaro,” Malbon recounts. “Then as soon as the 60 went into refit it was much more focussed on trying to do as much as possible on the boat.”




However in these few weeks he has carried out a lot of training with repeated singlehanded trips between Cowes and their base in Lorient. He has also had some intensive training from the French uber-coach Tanguy Leglatin (who worked with Dee Caffari before the Vendee, etc). Former Figaro sailor Liz Wardley has also helped with his training, sailing on board for a delivery between Cowes and Lorient and for the last month and a half he has had Mini turned Volvo Ocean Race sailor (Team Russia, admittedly) Nick Bubb working with him - the two will compete together on the Artemis Figaro in the two handed Tour de Bretagne later this year and Bubb is driving the van and shore crewing for Malbon during the Solitaire.

Malbon also had the opportunity to compete in one solo race in the Figaro prior to the Solitaire – the Transmanche, from L’Aberwrac’h on the north coast of France around the Eddystone light, off Plymouth and back to L’Aberwrac’h.

“It was a baptism of fire because it was the first time I’d gone up against any other Figaros and it was a really competitive fleet and it was blowing 25 knots in L’Aberwrac’h harbour,” Malbon recalls. “It was brilliant. I was really good upwind. I think I was 9th at Plymouth, but I wasn’t fast downwind. But I was quite pleased. I was 13th out of 18 on my first escapade.” Today, he still feels he is quick upwind, but only "on the pace, not rocket fast”, downwind. “For sure if there is an area I would like to work on, given the opportunity, it is downwind trim and everything else downwind. That is my weak point.”

So what has been the biggest thing he has had to learn about the Figaro? “It is funny going back to a pole! I haven’t sailed with a spinnaker pole for God know’s how long. It is a different type of sailing. I can see why it is such a good way to learn the discipline and then move on to big boats, because everything is so simple and straightforward and you have to know the drill. Hopefully for me it will become second nature, like it is for a lot of the guys. It is not how I would like it to be at the moment, but it is a tall order to get familiar with a boat like this in the time. I am competent on the boat, but the good guys know how to get the nth degree out of it constantly, and do the heavy weather gybing, and all the little tricks.”

Thankfully the forecast for the start of the first leg from Lorient to La Coruna looks reasonably light although a cold front is approaching in the Bay of Biscay and the initial tactics indicate that it will pay to go west early. “So it is going to be a more relaxed introduction to it, as opposed to setting off into 35 knots. I’m sure that will come on this course at some point.”

Compared to the Open 60 class, Malbon is so familiar with, the Figaro is vastly more competitive, as boat on boat as an inshore round the cans race in one designs. “That is what I find so interesting: The competitive element is incredible," he continues. "The boats are identical and they are very heavily regulated, down to the amount of kit you can take, water and fuel - everything is weighed and known and it is very difficult to pull any fast ones. All the tricks have been tried, so you start off with a very level playing field. It is just down to you.”

Open 60 sailing has prepared him to some degree for sleep deprivation but not the pace and intensity of the Figaro, where literally any lull or lapse in concentration costs heavily. “I am quite happy dealing with the meteo. I didn’t get much sleep at all on the Vendee and if I can take that on to this boat and push hard for as long as possible, hopefully I will be able to do well out of it. The legs are short in comparison to what I’m used to,” says Malbon.

He acknowledges that it is all about spending the maximum amount of time focussed in the cockpit. “For me, I am going to have to try and steer all the time because there is no doubt you are a lot quicker steering. If you are asleep and someone else is steering, you will lose places for sure. It really is critical to stay on the ball as long as possible, but there is a balance. You have to be able to sleep when the conditions allow, because otherwise you will burn yourself out and you’ll be a wreck when the big weather comes and you’ll be making poor decisions again.”

Thus a food bag will be alongside him on deck and he has a screen in the cockpit that will enable him to navigate from there. “As soon as you are down below your eyeballs aren’t where they should be.”

As to his confidence and his objectives for the race, Malbon says he hopes he will surprise himself, but how well he will do is an unknown. “The Prologue [on Tuesday] was the first round the cans racing I’ve done on a Figaro so I was starting off at the deep end with 52 boats on the start line of a prologue for a huge race. But I was happy. All my manoeuvres were good. I didn’t make any mistakes and I was quick upwind. I haven’t got the familiarity with the kite downwind yet. But I hope that will come. I am confident that the boat is good, it is well prepared and I am as prepared as I can be given the time, so I have to go out there and do my best and have fun doing it.”



While Malbon is a rookie, a Figaro first timer, for Nigel King it is his second bite of the Solitaire apple, having competed in 2007 when he was forced to pull out with autopilot problems in the middle of a Bay of Biscay gale.

While Malbon has been sponsored but without time, King has been working with the Cameron Appleton on the Team Aqua RC44 project to earn money (something that also saw him compete this year Round the Island on the Team Aqua Extreme 40 alongside Russell Coutts) and this has limited the amount of Figaro racing and training he has been able to do this year.

“That has been the bread and butter and has taken up a lot of time - that is the challenge, when you are not sponsored and you are having to pay for it through work. It is great that I am fortunate enough to get enough money from that to help support it, but the problem with that is that you lose time. Ultimately time is the one thing you need and that is what having a sponsor buys you. Without time you can’t train and without training you struggle to compete. But I knew that and you have the choice of accepting that and trying to make the most of it or not being here at all. And I’d rather be here.”

Saying this he has received some 11th hour financial support from the company Bright Forensics, who came on board at the beginning of this month.

“Bright Forensics are keen to do more. They are a smallish company but they have said they see the benefit and would love to be involved. There is also a definite interest from French companies to help boats as well. And the organisers are keen to see the whole event grow. But it is difficult to do that with only one or two British competitors and both with limited time or money. We’ll see what happens.”

His only race this year has been the Solo Les Sables, in which he finished a creditable 12th. Otherwise he has spent two weeks training out of his new base in Portland and completed a qualification passage of 200 miles along the south coast of the UK.

“My two weeks of training in Portland were pretty much alone, but I focussed on getting some people in to look at what I was doing and rudder set-up and that was pretty useful. I concentrated on sailing the boat in different conditions – it was pretty windy most of the time. Although I didn’t get to test my speed against anyone I just spent a lot of time sailing .It is not ideal, but was the best of what I could afford to do.”



Compared to 2007 King admits he, like Malbon, lacks time on the water, so going into the Solitaire this will mean he has to relearn the nuances of his boat handling. However he says he is in much better shape mentally than two years ago, partly because having competed in the race once before, he knows what to expect but also because this time he has had a French preparateur working for him for the last three weeks.

“We’ve done some jobs that badly needed doing - a bottom job and we strengthened the rudders, because they hadn’t been strengthened in line with class rules, to stop them from breaking! Matthieu speaks the language and understands the class and takes the stress out of this week.” Among the stress this week has been having a genoa coming back from a recut wrong and that has had to be replaced.

As to his expections, King says he reckons he will find the start tough because of his lack of time in the boat this year. “Ultimately my first goal is to finish which I didn’t achieve in 2007 and I would like to be in the top half of the fleet. I’ll amend that as we go along!”

In terms of a favourite for the race, King reckons, not surprisingly, Michel Desjoyeaux but thinks there are five or six with the potential to come out on top this year. “There are a lot of guys who can get on the podium for a leg. What will dictate it are the conditions. If it is light, it will open it out more. If it is a pretty breezy race, it will narrow it down to a few guys who are good in a breeze. Then there are the usual suspects will come to the front who will be good whatever happens.”

Finally as a reminder of why he is doing this: “When I started out, I wanted a new challenge. I like to find out where I fit into the scheme of things, I thought the solo sailing looked interesting and the shorthanded stuff – someone said to me that once I started I wouldn’t want to stop and I understand what they mean now. It is addictive. You realise it is really good to get involved in a project where you have to do everything; you can’t just be an expert in one thing, you have to learn a multitude of skills. I have grown into the offshore stuff over the years. I enjoy the challenge mentally and physically. And if you are looking at doing the shorthanded or solo sailing, I think the Figaro fleet is the best in the world. That is where the French guys cut their teeth and you just have to look at the standard of the fleet this year and realise that if you can produce a result in this fleet, you are probably getting the hang of it.”