The confidence game

Dee Caffari on the Barcelona World Race

At present with Alex Thomson convalescing after his 11th hour appendectomy, so Dee Caffari is currently the sole British competitor in the Barcelona World Race. Having come home sixth in the Vendee Globe, making her the first woman to have sailed solo non-stop around the world in both directions, Dee has now embarked her fourth circumnavigation and third non-stop, co-skippering Gaes Centros Auditivos with Spanish former Mini sailor Anna Corbella.

Dee joined forces with Corbella and her sponsor GAES back in February. Corbella and her sponsor’s involvement in sailing is operated through the Fundacio per la Navegacio Oceanica de Barcelona (FNOB), organisers of the Barcelona World Race and who have been responsible for putting their sponsors together with eight of the 14 teams competing in the doublehanded non-stop round the world race. FNOB, via Corbella’s sponsor GAES, last year entered five Minis in the Transat 6.50 in which Corbella finished 15th in the 36 strong Proto fleet, top of the Spanish entries backed by the Spanish manufacturer of hearing aids.

“She had a sponsor who wanted a female team and she was looking for a boat and someone with experience,” explains Dee of how her relationship with her co-skipper came about.

Their preparations for the Barcelona World Race began in February when Corbella had her baptism of fire helping to deliver Caffari’s Owen-Clarke designed IMOCA 60 Aviva from the UK to Barcelona. As Dee recalls: “That was interesting – horrible weather, cold at the beginning of the year, jackets up to our eyes, speaking two different languages and she as on a boat she had no idea about – a big transition from a Mini - but we still had a laugh and enjoyed it and it was quite nice. I was in a position to say you drive and I’ll go and do everything because explaining everything in the conditions didn’t warrant that. But she was keen to do it and we thought we’d have a good chemistry and get on well.” Dee then had to persuade her shore team, led by newly married Joffe Brown, to relocate to Barcelona for the rest of the year.

In Barcelona they carried out various mods to the former Aviva. The coachroof was changed to offer more protection. Twin wheel steering was swapped for tiller steering. Winch population was culled from seven to five (a la Foncia). They also added a fractional halyard to create a more balanced sail plan for the Southern Ocean, whereas previously Aviva went from mastheads straight to the genniker. Since the Vendee Globe, the boat has been fitted with a new stainless steel keel foil, new mast, rigging and sails.

Throughout the summer they have been training. Rebranded in her new GAES livery, they then competed in the Vuelta Espana race around Spain for the IMOCA 60s which Dee says was part a case of familiarising her newbie co-skipper with the boat as well as for the team to assess the mods. The boat returned to the UK in the summer to fulfil Aviva commitments (the insurance giant still owns the boat and retain some branding on board for the Barceloa World Race) and during this period they also benefitted from some time with shorthanded sailing uber-coach Tanguy Leglatin. Corbella then skippered the boat back to Barcelona without Caffari. “It made her learn the boat a bit more and give her confidence rather than just relying on me. That made a big difference,” says Dee.

Back in Barcelona they continued training with the other boats up and running in the FNOB fleet, including a race between the Spanish boats that was originally destined to be from the Canaries and back, effectively pacing out the first part of the race, but in fact ended in the Atlantic due to light conditions. Finally prior to last Friday’s start they did some more training and final set-up work with Tanguy Leglatin.

“I feel that we have a really good set-up. I trust my guys entirely. Mike Golding is here and he said ‘not bad’ so I feel good that I’ve had the pat on the back!” Dee told us prior to departing.

A big part of the personal voyages around the world for Caffari and Corbella will be about confidence. “For me this is the first time where I know what to expect,” says Dee. “Before the Vendee – I had no idea. I knew what it was like to be on my own, but I didn’t know what it would be like on this type of boat. So now I am really looking forward to go and sail my boat and I want to see if the changes we’ve made are the right ones.”

However for Corbella the learning curve will be steeper. “Anna is very honest - she has done 28 days on the boat and she has been to Brazil, so once we get past there it is all new territory for her. She is happy with the boat. We trust each other and I know I can go to sleep knowing that she’ll wake me up should something happen. She has no idea what she is going into, which she is aware of.”

Since the Vendee Globe, Dee has had a chance to learn greatly, setting a new Round Britain record on board Aviva with a team including old hands such as Sam Davies and Miranda Merron and then competing in the Transat Jacques Vabre two handed with Brian Thompson. She says she now has a better understanding of weather strategy and in this race it will be a case of putting that into practice. “Like when you see the position reports where you see other people doing different things - that slight bit of doubt gets bigger when you are under pressure. I am aware of that.”

She will also benefit from familiarity with the race track. “When I turn the corner at the bottom of the Atlantic, I was scared stiff for a week to ten days on the Vendee, when the boat was going so fast. 'How do you slow it down?' I had to learn that you don’t slow it down - that’s what the boat does and you have to learn to live like that. That was a big transition. Now I know what to expect, I am prepared for Anna to have her eyes out on stalks and ask ‘is this okay’ and I am prepared to be the confident one.”

The new fractional sail plan Dee hopes will also come into its own on the long lap around the bottom of the globe.

As to how competitive they will be, Dee says that with her experience she now feels she has earned her place on the start line, but recognises she has formidable opposition, particularly against the top French teams such as those on Virbac Paprec 3, Foncia and Groupe Bel. “There are some really strong combinations and I don’t think we are as strong a combination as they are. But personally I have what I achieved on the Vendee and how I sailed it and I want to show I am sailing a bit quicker and looking for a bit more competition. I want to make that transition from doing the adventure to actually being competitive in the fleet.”

What they are taking on board during the Barcelona World Race also differs from the Vendee. In particular there are more spares. Dee points out that the boat is now two years old and has a lot of miles on the clock. “So there is a little bit of rather than something being a race stopper, let’s take a spare so we can change it out should we need to. I am carrying a bit more boat building stuff as well, the theory being that with two of you, one of you can keep sailing while you are repairing something.”

For Dee and her co-skipper, during the race they will be using Jean le Cam and Bruno Garcia aboard President as their pace setter, for this is GAES’ sistership, formerly Mike Golding’s Ecover 3. “Jean sails really hard, as Mike would, so it is nice for me to see what we should be doing or what my boat is capable of doing. Then we have to look at Renault, Estrella... There is no reason our boat should be slower. Most of our racing has been around Spain which is their back garden and we have been very close to them but have made the tactical mistakes, so there is no reason why over this time and when we are in the most stable conditions of an ocean that we can’t deliver. Boat on boat we have shown we can be faster, it is just the consistency.”

Elsewhere in the Barcelona World Race fleet there is a mix of well known names from the Volvo Ocean Race, Olympics, IMOCA and offshore multihulls, but there is also a lot of new blood, particularly among the Spanish crews, most undertaking either their first lap of the planet or their first doublehanded on an IMOCA 60. It is against this latter group where Dee hopes her experience will now pay off.

“If you look at Virbac, Foncia or Groupe Bel – you expect the French to deliver. But here are a lot of unknowns. Iker [Martinez] and Xabi [Fernandez] are a good choice and they have a boat that is fast – but will they do three months? Will they push like Estrella or push too far and be able to fix it and keep it going? You just don’t know. The boat can definitely be in the top third and I WANT to be.”

As to whether the Barcelona World Race will see the two new boats, Virbac Paprec 3 and Foncia, come out on top, as was the case when the event was first held and has been proved already in this early stage of the race, Dee reckons it is more down to the crew. The Route du Rhum, she says, proved that older generation boats are competitive, particularly over a longer race course.

“It is the sailors who make the difference, the tactical decisions rather than whether the boat is a bit quicker,” she says. Then there is always the possibility that the new boats are ‘too new’ and don’t make it around.

Beyond the Barcelona World Race, Dee’s future is uncertain. When she returns in March, she has until the end of June to find a new sponsor for her boat that will take her through to the next Vendee Globe, otherwise Aviva will put the boat on the market.

“It is hard while I am missing, but hopefully I will be doing a good job and keeping a profile to make it easier to talk about,” she says. “I have to work quite hard when I get back because literally at the end of this race it is this project done, the stickers come off and the boat goes back to the UK.

“It has been quite hard when you are in another country focussing on something else. There are signs. People are confident that things are going to get better, it is just whether they get better quick enough for me, because ideally I’d like to keep the boat with me. A good result in this would be a start.”