Back in the solo saddle

Nigel King on his return to the Figaro class

While the Trophee BPE finished this last weekend, so Nigel King is this season set to make his return to the Figaro. With Andy Greenwood having not secured funding this year, so King is set to be the sole British competitor in this, the world's premier singlehanded offshore one design class. The class’ top event, La Solitaire du Figaro is having its 40th birthday this year and will include one of the strongest line-ups in recent history. In addition to all the Figaro regulars, like Gildas Morvan and Erwan Tabarly who had a photo finish in the Trophee BPE on Saturday, Open 60 skippers including past Solitaire winners Michel Desjoyeaux, Armel Le Cleac’h and Jeremie Beyou are set to return along with the recovered Yann Elies. In short, the line-up this year is as daunting as it is formidable.

A well known figure around keelboat circles, King made his debut in the Figaro class in 2007 when he made the wise decision to buy his boat (many skippers in France tend to charter them). Sadly that year he had to pull out of the Solitaire on its gale force leg to Spain with equipment failure. Last year he did one event to keep his hand in, but money issues prevented him doing more.

This year King has more equipment suppliers on board and is returning with a self-funded campaign , which he says would benefit from around £20,000 in sponsorship. But this of course coincides with the present appalling economic climate, not making it the best time to be hunting for money to go yacht racing.

In the meantime King juggles Figaro sailing with his work as a professional sailor and coach, a job he is at present fulfilling for Chris Bake’s Team Aqua on the RC44 circuit. “That is my major work for the year. I am boat captain for Team Aqua and I am working as their coach.” King started with Team Aqua in May last year getting the call from Cameron Appleton just at the time he had come to the conclusion he would be unable to compete in the Figaro that season. Fortunately while the unregulated sailing calendar is full of clashes, the RC44 and the Figaro circuit are mercifully free of them in 2009.

Already this season King has competed in the Figaro Solo Massif Marine, a 320 mile race from Les Sables d’Olonne up around the islands of France’s west coast - Ile de Ré , Ile d’Yeu and Belle Ile. In this he finished 12th in the 22 strong fleet, just behind former Mini Transat winner Armel Tripon and 1 hour 14 minutes off the race winner, to give some idea of how close the racing is in this class.

Next up for King is the La Solo portsdefrance.com in Concarneau over 7-10 May.

While most of his competitors are working full time on their Figaro training, sadly King is having to work between events and this is eating into his training time. However this year he is basing his boat out of the Dean & Reddyhoff marina in Portland and is using the deliveries to and back from races in France to augment his training. He is making a point of sailing the return deliveries singlehanded.

With the all-important Solitaire starting on 30 July from Lorient, so King has allocated three weeks to training out of Portland in June. He is hoping to entice some of the French Figaro sailors across from Cherbourg and he says he still has strong ties with the Figaro training centre in La Rochelle, from where he did some training in 2007. “They have been fantastic saying I can be still be part of their support structure at events, part of that team, even though I am not based there any more.”

Obviously the ultimate ambition would be to set up a Figaro training camp in Portland, so that he and Katie Miller, when she joins the class next year and possibly Andy Greenwood, if he finds funding, can concentrate on developing their campaigns in the 9-5 way they do at the centres around France. King already has connections with the RYA through their Keelboat program and has access to Olympic coaches and he recognises that while they don’t have Figaro expertise, they do have considerable experience in making one designs go quick. “Adam May has been helpful in saying he’ll help whenever he can.” However King recognises the importance of keeping in the French loop and in addition to getting sailors to come across to Weymouth, he would like to get some of the French coaches too.

In terms of his training, as ever it is the solo sailing skills and technique where King says he needs practice. “I think the big thing to settle on is getting the pilot up to speed. The last race, the Solo Les Sables, I got a good result, but I didn’t do a huge amount of driving. I did that deliberately to see if I could get the pilot to go fast. I was pretty pleased to be on the pace and not drive the boat a lot.”

Other than it is getting to grips with the settings on the Beneteau Figaro 2. At the training centres they spend ages working on these – as you would in any one design. According to King and as a fine example of the kind of generosity one finds in the Figaro class, Fred Duthill, who won the Les Sables event, has said he will come on board prior to the start of the Concarneau event and look at the rig settings on King’s boat and will let him see his tuning guide. In a perpetual bid to make the Figaro more international, the class are particularly keen to help sailors from outside of France. “That is positive and makes me want to carry on doing it,” says King.

Once the setting are in place, then King recognises the need to learn them so they are second nature - there is the famous exercise of being made to do them blindfolded, as if it were night time. While he found in the Les Sables event that his boat speed was generally good it was the manoeuvring where he was losing time. “Just the being able to get to your setting quicks - that tends to be where most of my losses are made. In the night if I change the set-up or I do the manoeuvre, I do okay but it takes me a while to get the boat going quickly. I just haven’t sailed the boat enough in a range of conditions to know what my settings are.”

Then it will be a case of being able to do this on a relentless, round the clock non-stop way. “It is fantastic to get support, that will bring me up another notch, but it is about me delivering it on a 24 hour basis - that is the challenge. If you copy the guys at the front you should be up to speed – the difference is that then you have to deal with your personal management when you are alone and that only comes with time and experience. My frustration is the lack on money doesn’t allow me to train as much as the French guys. All that means is that it just takes me longer than if I had been sponsored from the beginning.”

With Katie Miller joining the class next year, King is hoping to persuade the organisers of La Solitaire to bring the race to Portland next year. The obvious attraction is that it is the 2012 Olympic venue and will be a focal point of our sport over the next four years. “It would be a brilliant venue to do it at. It would be great to see 50 Figaros racing in Weymouth Bay.”

As to his longer term ambitions, King says he still would like to do a Vendee Globe. “But we’ll tick this off first…”

Those wishing to support his campaign should visit this website.