While many of us are wondering who we will be able to spend Christmas with this year, Pip Hare’s dream is to be isolated and alone. Fingers crossed, the 46-year-old will be deep in the Southern Ocean.
On 8 November she and 33 other solo sailors will set out from Les Sables d’Olonne in France on the Vendée Globe non-stop round the world race. The fleet bristles with the latest foil-borne flying machines capable of reaching 40 knots, costing €10-15 million apiece. Lined up against them, Hare will be on Medallia, the almost 20-year-old, resolutely flightless IMOCA 60 she took out a loan to rent. Winning is out of the question. Yet no one is better placed to expose sailing’s fiercest test of survival than this determined, down-to-earth skipper. Galvanised by the feats of Ellen MacArthur and Isabelle Autissier, Hare always dreamed of competing in the Vendée Globe. But unlike the French sailors who dominate sailing’s ultra-marathon, or her British counterparts Alex Thomson, Sam Davies and Miranda Merron, Hare’s cruising, teaching and seamanship background put her at a disadvantage. She had no youth squad pathway, no apprenticeship with a campaign team, no network of connections to help. It has been a long, often confidence-sapping road.
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