Back to Figaro-ing!

Since returning from my stint in the Global Ocean Race 6 weeks ago, all my time has been spent preparing for the 2012 season. This started with a trip to the London Boat show for the Official announcement of the Artemis Offshore Academy racing program this year. Thankfully for me this involves funding for another Solitaire du Figaro as well as the double handed Transat AG2R with fellow academy graduate, Nick Cherry. I am very excited to have Artemis supporting me for another season that allows me to focus just on sailing.

I am currently using the relative ‘down-time’ to invest a bit of time and energy into getting some professional help for a sponsorship proposal as well as a new website which, excitingly will be live very soon. The aim is to find partners to complete the 2012 Championship of France and then follow through into 2013 and beyond.

With our Figaros in Lorient

In mid January I was also re-united with my Figaro(#23) which, has seen very little love and action since the Solo Quiberon in September. Nick and I sailed our boats to France and are now about to start our 3rd week of training with the training camp based in Lorient. We have chosen to train in the Atlantic this year as the conditions are much more similar to that of the Solitaire du Figaro, in fact we train on parts of the course on a daily basis. The down side to this is its colder and we are more likely to loose training days to ‘adverse’ weather conditions, thankfully we’ve had no problems yet. Despite being a bit cold, we have had some of the most productive training so far, with a competitive group, currents and waves(unlike the Med) and a couple very expereinced sailors in Yann Elies and Seb Audigane.

Trying to keep warm

We have a very busy 2 months before the start of the AG2R on April 21st. All the preparations involved with doing a transat, while focusing on the key event of the season, Solitaire du Figaro. Along side this, the search to find partners to make sure I can continue progressing towards my competitive Vendee Globe ambitions.

All for now

Sam