Solo round the world

Liz Wardley is to set sail this Saturday to walk the course of the SolOceans round the world race

With no round the world races going on this year, we were hoping for a quiet Christmas and New Year. However on Saturday former Amer Sports Too bow elf turned Figaro sailor, Liz Wardley is set to off on a lap of the planet singlehanded aboard the SolOceans one design.

Despite having a fine boat in their Michel Desjoyeaux breathed on 16m (52ft) Finot-Conq designed mini IMOCA 60 and a sound plan in a one design singlehanded round the world race, with the associated benefits of reduced costs, etc, in these hard economic times, so far the SolOceans round the world race has yet to gain its legs. With no boats sold, in March this year the start of the race was delayed from this October just gone, until 23 October 2011.

So on Saturday Wardley will set off to walk the course from Caen in northern France to Wellington, NZ and then back to northern France to finish in Cherbourg. This will be the second time Wardley has set out to do this on the SolOceans boat, however two years ago she went as part of a crew led by Charles Caudrelier (who has just won the TJV on board Safran) and only got as far as Wellington.

"We had a lot of problems last time and we had a few stopovers," admits Wardley. "We had about four weeks in Cape Town and we had 10 days in Portugal and by the time we got to Wellington it was a bit too late to be heading into the Southern Ocean, so the boat got shipping back."

Since then the boat has had substantial modifications. "When we arrived in Wellington we had a couple of pages of modifications and changes, to make the boat perform better."

Among the improvements have been rearranging the interior completely. The rotating chart table has been replaced by a fixed one with a pivoting seat. The cockpit layout has changed to accommodate a coffee grinder. The slightly less-than-robust-enough bowsprit, which retracted along the deck, has been replaced by a fixed prodder.

The light weather performance of the boat has also been turboed with the addition of a masthead code 0 and spinnaker. "Now it is really good," says Wardley. "And we have a lot more sail area. We haven’t changed the mast, there was just no masthead gear on it before, it was all fractional." The fractional sails have remained but the solent and staysail have now been increased to maximum size within the available space. "In less than 10 knots the boat used to feel under powered," says Wardley. "She is lit up now and on every point of sail it is good. Jump back on it now and sail it shorthanded and from two years ago it is not the same boat."

While they had problems on their round the world trip two years ago it has to be said the trip as ambitious with the boat fresh out of the box at the time. "The boat is pretty solid, it was always solid," says Wardley. "We’ve never had any structural problems. The only things that have been changed are things to make your life easier and make the boat perform better."

As to how she got this gig, Wardley says she was only offered it by the SolOceans' creator Yvan Griboval at the beginning of November. "I knew that they had been talking about it for a little while, but they hadn’t decided on a skipper. I went out sailing with them for a day to go and check out the new sails that they’d made and Yvan announced to me that I was the skipper. It was a bit of a shock!"

However she is well qualified to do this – having already sailed around the world in the Volvo Ocean Race and competed singlehanded for several seasons in the Figaro class. She has also done around 14,000 miles on the SolOceans one design. "All the systems and everything I know inside out," she states. "It is just getting used to the new sail wardrobe. I’ve only had a few outings to get my head around it. That was only done within the last two months."

Wardley reckons it will take about 50-55 days to get from Caen to Wellington (she is taking food for 50 days) and depending on how late she is, how much work needs doing to the boat, etc she is aiming to spend one week to 10 days in New Zealand before continuing on. "We need to be out of there before the end of January to get good weather on the way back up," she says.

For the trip she is being backed by her Figaro sponsor, Sojasun.

Aside from walking the course and setting reference times and generally bringing the SolOceans race back into the public eye, the trip also has other ambitions, being part of the ‘OceanoScientific Programme’. This is to record data allowing scientists to gain a better understanding of climate change. While scientistics typically use satellite data to find out data about the world’s oceans, during Wardley’s voyage she will be collecting data to verify the satellite data, particularly for the more remote parts of the course such as the Southern Ocean.

The data being collated will include true wind direction, true wind speed, air humidity and temperature, atmospheric pressure, sea surface temperature and salinity and partial pressure of CO2 in sea surface water.

Aside from this trip, this year Wardley has been mostly sailing with Dona Bertarelli’s Ladycat D35 team on Lake Geneva, where she is the substitute crew. This season she sailed on board during six of the eight regattas on the Challenge Julius Baer. "It is really good fun that class. The boats are awesome, a really good sensation. And to sail with an all-girl team again - I hadn’t done that since the Volvo." She is set to continue with Ladycat in 2010.

This year Wardley also competed with Tanguy de LaMotte on the Class 40 Initiatives Novedia, in the doublehanded Transmanche and fully crewed Rolex Fastnet Race in which they won their class.

However her ultimate ambition remains to race around the world singlehanded - ideally in the SolOceans.

Read our original article about to the SolOceans one design from two years ago here

More photos on page 2...