Finally in the bag

Emma Richards looks back at her first (and last) singlehanded round the world race

Emma Richards finally crossed the finish line of Around Alone here in Newport at 16:15 local time (21:15:26 GMT) completing her 131 days of singlehanded racing around the planet.

Around Alone's final leg was frustrating in the extreme for Richards. Going into this leg she only had to finish behind Simone Bianchetti's Tiscali to maintain her third place on the podium of class 1. Unfortunately this was not to be. After a race full of mast-related disaster Bianchetti had the bit between his teeth for this last leg, holding second place behind Bernard Stamm. Meanwhile during the opening stage of the leg north from Salvador de Bahia Richards had chosen an easterly track north that proved fatal to her her position in the overall rankings.

"All the information I had before I started was just to get across that part of the Doldrums," Richards explained on her arrival. Her weather information had indicated that the easterly course would enable her to get through the Doldrums quickly and give her a faster angle in the northeasterly Trades.

"The decision I made before the start and I stuck with it and it proved to be wrong," Richards admitted. "If I’d known I was going to lose 600 miles within the first four days then I probably would have tried to change that and go west, but I didn’t think the loss was going to be that big."

Thierry Dubois who took a similar route claimed that there had been no easy way to make it back to the west. Richards continued: "There might have been a way back, but you would have added a 200 mile loss to what you had already and if I knew I was going to end up 600 miles behind in such a quick time then I might have gone for that bail out option but how often do you think you are going to be 600 miles behind the leader in less than a week?"

It soon became apparent that her situation was dire. Although she and Dubois made up some ground in the north Atlantic as those ahead stalled, she didn't manage to make up as much ground as the Frenchman who was able to pull himself back up to third.

In the closing stages of the leg Richards had another round of bad luck as she had to contend with a depression that was tracking along the Gulf Stream.

To the east of the depression Richards found herself in strong southerly running conditions. "It was fast downwind with the genniker up in too much wind," she recalled. "I’ve had to learn my lesson so many times and I had to go and learn it again. I got it down eventually, but it was a fight to get it down. It is a bit bigger than me! Initially I started this race thinking 30 knots was my limit, then 28 knots. So I took this down in 26 and it gusted up to 34 or something, so I thought 'time to get it down the hatch'. It was also mast-losing material."

Unlike Dubois ahead of her who had managed to skirt the edge of the depression ahead of it, the centre of the low passed right across her. "I had a couple of hours of light winds when I was in the centre. I was trying to get around the top of it and I was too slow. Of course when I got in the middle and slowed down I got spat out the bottom side of it instead of the side so I had totally the wrong direction. I had total headwinds coming from Newport instead of the reaching conditions I was hoping for."

Pindar broke out into the northerlies to the west of the system. "It was a small low pressure but it built up very quickly, it was fast moving and right over the Gulf Stream so the combination of the waves and the wind was just awful," described Richards. "I had to slow the boat down completely because I kept jumping off waves and the whole boat was landing and I could see the mast going ‘DOYGGNNN’ every single time and I thought 'that is not going to last'. I saw on some website - thedailysail.com, my homepage every time I go on line to find the weather [thank you for the plug, Ed] and I saw a nice article on there and a photo of Tiscali's mast. And I thought that was a nightmare."

While the boat wanted to go upwind at 10 knots, Richards said she had to slow it down to 6 for 12-14 hours to survive the short, sharp waves kicked up by the northerly winds blowing opposite to the fast flowing Gulf Stream.

When The Daily Sail caught up with Richards 10 miles off Newport this afternoon, it appeared to be a flat calm, but Pindar was still making around 6 knots under full main and genniker, Richards keeping her fingers crossed that a small rip that had appeared in the genniker would not tear further. During the leg the main had developed a small rip in a non-stress point and the foot of the staysail had parted company with the rest of the sail during the gale.

After the struggle of reaching the finish line combined with the realisation that she had fouled up this leg and lost third overall, combined with a self-professed loathing of singlehanded round the world racing, it was one very relieved 28 year old Scots girl who finally tied up here at the Newport Shipyard.

"It feels very very good," she commented. "It feels very good to have completed a solo round the world race. But never again… That is the last time you will see Emma Richards sailing around the world alone.

"I might do one more OSTAR but I've decided singlehanded sailing is really not for me. That I’ve learned twice now. It is nice to know I can do it, but I hate the isolation. I hate not having people there to share the good bits and to share the bad bits where you could really do with a hand."

So why, one wonders, did she undertake this? "To put it into perspective I wanted to go out and have a race and that is what I got. The solitude for me is something you have deal with. I think there are some solo sailors out there who like it - but I am not one of them." The singlehanded aspect aside, Richards enjoyed competing against the other class one boats and said that she had made from great friends within the 'Around Alone family'.

Emotionally the last few days were draining: "There were so many points when I just kept flipping from 'glad to finish the race', to 'Emma, you've been on the podium since the end of leg one and now you’ve just lost it at the end'. That’s really disappointing, but then I put it into perspective and I am glad to have finished it and got here in one piece." She added: "I think I am going to take a plane back to the UK!"

Emma Richards is the youngest person to finish Around Alone (Isabelle Autissier was the first woman to finish it - although there were two occasions when she didn't...) From here, the next big event for Richards is November's two handed Transat Jacques Vabre, in a boat yet to be determined. She will be sailing in the Swedish Match Cup in Marstrand and wants to do the Round the Island Race.

Sponsor and mentor Andrew Pindar commented: "I think her achievement is just amazing. I can’t believe it is less than a year ago since we all agreed we were going to do this. I had the concept sprung upon me at Antigua Race Week last year by a very excited Robin Grey our sailing manager and by Emma and it was a bolt from the blue that she would contemplate a singlehanded round the world yacht race given her previous comments about sailing single-handedly. I think she has competed in this race with some style. If she had been on an up-to-date boat which was designed for her and had had time to train I really think she would have been way up there at the front. The best of her sailing success has yet to come."

The Daily Sail will be there...