The fleet is now settling down for the tough part – strong winds, heavy seas and freezing cold in the Southern Ocean.
On the Vendée website, a doctor explains the challenge of balancing a desire for hands-on control all the time against the human body’s need for sleep and food, and the importance of bodily hygeine. This is the stage of the race where skippers make a cosy nest and stay in it as much as they can. It’s cold and dangerous outside, so you don’t waste your precious stamina going there unless you really have to.
The skipper has no option but to do sail changes and sail trimming himself (or herself), but the electronic autopilot does an amazingly good job of helming, even under conditions where only the more skilful and experienced humans could cope. Most skippers have trouble relaxing in their chosen nests while the autopilot steers the boat at high speed in rough seas. I suppose the trouble is that the pilot is less sensitive, so it feels like leaving a rookie in charge – but there’s a difference. Brian Thompson, whose Pindar is a powerful boat, put it this way:
“I have done quite a bit of steering today as the average speed is higher hand steering, but the real top speeds are always under pilot, as the pilot has no fear, and it will jump into the biggest hole if it appears in front of it, and ride it to the bottom, carving like a surfer across the face of the wave.”
If you’re not afraid, it’s because you don’t really understand what’s going on.
