Episode 05- Dee Caffari

🌊 Oceans Unplugged – Dee Caffari Special 🌊

In this episode of Oceans Unplugged, Lee Gallacher sits down with legendary ocean racer Dee Caffari to dive deep into life beyond the horizon.

From seven laps around the world to record-breaking multi-hull campaigns, Dee shares incredible stories of survival, speed, teamwork, and pushing human limits at sea. Together they discuss racing around the world in just 57 days, navigating Cape Horn, surviving brutal 10-metre waves in the Bay of Biscay, and what it’s like sailing at the edge of control aboard some of the fastest boats on the planet.

The conversation also explores the evolution of offshore sailing technology, the rise of women in elite sailing, life at Point Nemo. The most remote place on Earth and the mindset needed to overcome fear, whether offshore or in everyday life.

A raw, honest and inspiring conversation about adventure, resilience, leadership, and chasing the next challenge.

🎧 Hosted by Lee Gallacher
🌍 Powered by YB Tracking
⚓ Real stories. Unfiltered. In-depth.

A huge thank you to our core sponsor YB Tracking - None of this would be possible without your help and the service you provide to thousands of people every day.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to Oceans Unplugged. I'm Lee Gallagher, a formal professional sailor, mariner, harbour authority, patrol officer, coast guard officer, and lifeboatman. In each episode, I'll be sitting down one-to-one with the people who push beyond the horizon. Ocean racers, explorers, rowers, and the leaders behind the world's most demanding expeditions. We'll expand on the guest as we get into it. Oceans Unplugged is proudly supported by YB Tracking, the global leader in race and expedition tracking technology, helping bring the world's toughest adventures to life in real time. This is our stories, unfiltered and in-depth. So this week we've got Dee Kafari with us, who is a bit of a legend, and uh, as my other half uh has quite often told me, an inspiration to many. Now, you've sailed around the world the wrong way and the right way, and when I say the wrong way, it's against prevailing winds and tides, and the right way solo, and you've raced in fully crewed uh monoholes and multi-hulls. What is the next big thing? Because everything you've done is different and been another step up, which is no wonder why D uh Deb loves you. So what's your next thing?

SPEAKER_01 1:17

I think I've been really lucky that every iteration, every round the world, has been a development, and I haven't really done the same thing twice. Although the route may be the same, it's been very different in a different role or a different boat. So I'm I'm super lucky for that, and I'm very grateful for all the opportunities. Um, but you know, seven laps is pretty good innings, but uh I definitely I somebody told me that tens a nice round number now. But um while I still enjoy it, while I'm still capable and while I can still contribute, then for sure, you know, if there's an opportunity, I genuinely love been out there. I think this most recent one on a multi-hull has opened my eyes to a whole new world and a much faster world. And it wasn't quite fast enough, so maybe that's uh a hint that maybe we should go again. Also, I think the other thing with the famous project, and we all said it, that we learned so much on the way around because we didn't come from a pool of knowledge and experience um in what we were doing. We learned how to sail the boat as we went, so it was almost like this lap was a practice lap, and now we know what we're doing. We'll be really cool if we did it again.

SPEAKER_00 2:28

Yeah, I mean, I I remember seeing um social media posts where it was like, yeah, okay, we're gonna go this weekend. We're still loading the kit, the kit's on the boat, yep, we're going. And then I hear like you hadn't actually done major training before you'd set off as a team on that boat.

SPEAKER_01 2:47

No, we probably only sailed about 10 days on the boat before we left as a group, and you know, overnight we've probably done three or four days. We were gonna go and do a five-day trip, and then Deb's the youngest member hurt her back, so we had to bring her back to get treated. Um, so yeah, so we we hadn't really had the but the training and the preparation, it's all down to finances, and the more money you have, the more time you can spend training and preparing. And we didn't have the grace of that, so we were like, right, well, we signed up for this and let's make it happen. And then it all came around really quick. We made the decision. There was a hint on the Monday with the weather team. That's about a 50-50 chance of going this weekend, and we were like, okay. And then Tuesday it was still 50-50, so we kind of didn't say anything. Then Wednesday it's like tomorrow we're going to make the decision, but it's looking quite good. And by Thursday morning, we had the conversation with the weather team, Alexia and I, and it was 80-20. And I looked at her and I said, I guess we're going around the world then this weekend. She's like, Yep. So we went down to the boat and told the team, and everyone's face was like, Oh, and it was her, but it was Alexia's birthday on the Thursday. So literally Thursday night, we spent till midnight in the office with pizzas and beers, packing all the spares, and then getting it in French and English so that everybody could understand what we had on board and be able to talk about the same things. Friday we packed all the food up that we'd laid out, but we hadn't really packed or decided how we were going to pack it. We packed that up, it got loaded on the boat with our kit, and Saturday we left. It just happened that quickly, and I think it didn't really give anyone a chance to think about it, which is probably a good thing.

SPEAKER_00 4:24

Yeah, definitely stepping into the uh the sort of unknown. So, how many different nationalities were on board? And and how many of the team, or what was the total of the team on board?

SPEAKER_01 4:34

Yeah, so we sailed with eight, all female team, but we had seven nationalities in that eight. Uh, luckily we sailed in English, but when I say nationalities, we had an Aussie and a Kiwi and two Brits, so you know that half of us spoke English, and then we had um Annamique from the Netherlands, Tamara from Spain, uh Alexia from France, and Molly, who was Italian American.

SPEAKER_00 4:58

So, yeah, sailing is definitely in English on board. So as you were going around, I mean, yeah, as you said, you've done it seven times. There's always a highlight. So, from this trip, what was the highlight of it all?

SPEAKER_01 5:13

It's really hard to pick one thing, and even if you have to pick, like what's the standout lap? I mean, this one is pretty standout just because it was so quick, like 57 days, even though we didn't break the record and we didn't quite come in where we like when I set off, my intention was to come in sub-50. And Donna Bertarelli went around on spin drift as the fastest female in 48 days. They didn't get the record, but in my head, I was like, okay, we need to beat that. So that's what I was kind of setting off with, and we all had our own personal what we would consider success. At the end of the day, finishing the foot on the first attempt is success. There's been 33 teams that have started a Jules Verne record, and only 14 teams to have finished until this January when two teams finished, one to get the record and one to get a female record. So you know it was it was a long shot to even go and achieve it. So 57 days ends up being the sixth fastest in history, so it wasn't too bad. Um, I'm pretty proud. But it was one of those things where you know you could have done it better because we were learning, we got to be confident with the boat and how to sail her, probably in the South Atlantic. So that first 10 days, you know, already you could have made up time. Yeah. And then when you think about all the issues we had along the way, you know, we easily could have gained another week there with all those issues and the mainsail and the foil. And so you're like, well, that's easy sub-50 days. So you know, you want to go back out and do it again. So, but the highlight, I think, one sailing a multi-hull, it's fast and it's so exciting, and it is so cool, and it feels easy. Although, in the back of your mind, you know that any limit is a kind of life and death limit. There isn't any coming back. If a boat goes over, it's over. Yeah. Whereas with a monohull, you wash the top of the mast and it comes back up again and you sort yourself out and you carry on. But you know, the the realization of just how on the limit a multi-hull is is really real. So that's very different. Um, I think, but getting used to sustained speed for days at a time is amazing, and it's such a good feeling. And the freeboard, with the boat we had, the freeboard's so high, it wasn't even that wet. We were super exposed, and we were looking at the videos from Sadebo with Thomas Coville's team, and they were like indoors in their slippers kind of thing, and we were like with the disco ball. Yeah, I saw that all the Christmas decorations out, and he had a screensaver of a fireplace. I was like, what? Are they in the same ocean as us? That is just not fair. But actually, I kind of liked the rawness that we were experiencing and the confidence we had in the boat and each other was huge, given that we didn't come with multi-hull experience. But I think, you know, for Alexia and I, eight of us on board, six were doing a non-stop lap for the first time. Four of them were rounding Cape Horn for the first time, and three were going around the world for the first time. So when you look at the opportunity and what we were achieving as a team, it was really cool. And those moments where you celebrate those things, like when we rounded Cape Horn, you know, seeing the faces and them all taking pictures and sending messages to their family and friends, it was really cool. And I was just like, I helped facilitate that, and it makes you feel really proud. And that so that for me is a standout highlight.

SPEAKER_00 8:37

I must say, actually, uh, Deb my other half, she was watching some of it, and obviously she's seen video and footage of me in my sailing days, but she uh watched as you went round Cape Horn and she happened to mention, look at how things have changed that we're we're sending photos and videos from mobile phones round Cape Horn. Whereas when I went round there, we had a massive satellite dome on the back that was costing, I think it was £10 a minute, um, just to make a very brief phone call. Um, so yeah, things have definitely progressed, as has all the technology on board. Unbelievable. We were talking just before technology and charts and things. Obviously, navigation, tactical um navigation has changed. How do you see that at the moment? And how do you see it changing, especially with developments in America's Cup, uh, obviously within a mocha? How's that changing?

SPEAKER_01 9:31

Well, it is totally different now, even in a 25-year career that I've had, seven laps each one's been totally different. You know, originally I Devs was the youngest on board. She's 23 years old, and she's never been offshore without Starlink. I mean, and that spoke volumes to me, because I was just like, oh my god, I've never been around the world with WhatsApp. And we had a boat phone, and you know, the girls came up, they had their three hours on watch, three hours off. For the first hour, they eat, they drink, they send messages, and then for two hours their job is to sail the boat, trim the boat, or drive the boat as fast as possible, then they go and sleep for three hours and it all repeats, and that's just life. Groundhog day. Yep. And so when you see them with a phone constantly connected and sending photos and messages, and you're just like, oh my god, you have no idea how lucky you are. I said, I took videotape the first time I went around the world, and I was like, and then I had to catalogue it all, and then I did a dump off New Zealand and a dump off um South Africa with a helicopter, and they were like, What? You know, she couldn't even fathom that. And I was just like, Yeah, and even my Von Day Globe, which was 2008, as you say, it was iridium, it was delayed satellite calls with really awkward voice and pauses. And yes, they could track you, but the conversations and the interviews are really stilted. You know, you'd get your weather and you'll try and download your emails and you try to upload some video to meet the media requirements, and then it would drop off and you'd have to do it all over again, and the bills were massive. So, yeah, it's totally changed. And I think it can only be good for the sport. Good for the sport, as in we can bring more viewers with us. You can get a front row seat from the comfort of your armchair, we can give you live updates as they happen. And if you think how we consume something, a sport like Formula One or Moto GP, where you're kind of on the track and seeing all the graphics explain. You know, now we've got cell GP where the boats are doing 50 50 knots, yet we can see what's going on and the graphics overlaid help explain it. So even non-sailors are getting excited by the thrill of the race, and I think that's transforming our sport at every level.

SPEAKER_00 11:42

And not only sort of that that change in the the audiovisual and the ability to engage with it more, there's also a change in the dynamic with the crews on board as well. We're seeing a lot more females coming into the sport because they've been engaged, um, and obviously there's a little bit more training, a lot more to be able to make it an equal sport. How and where do you see um a better way to open the sport for more women? I uh it's definitely growing, but there's a long way to go.

SPEAKER_01 12:14

It is, and I'm I'm definitely a glass half-full person because I I think you need to be positive. Um, yes, we've done it through incentivised rule changes, so we've mandated the changes, but it's from the right elite end of our sport with the next America's Cup having a female on board, keeping the youth and the women's America's Cup racing, sell GP, there's a female on board, and we're starting to see them actually actively sail the boat rather than be the tokenism that it began with, yeah. Uh, you know, which we were all frustrated about. Um, the ocean race Europe this year in 2026 will be 50-50 on the crew. So, you know, it's real steps forwards, and we know in our raw races and our jog races, we've got a really healthy number of female sailors, but it's it's normalizing it so that it's not such a big deal. I don't think we can let it happen organically yet because I still think there's not a wide enough pool of experience to draw from, and people habitually sail with the people they're comfortable with, the people they know, you sell with your mates. Uh I'm sailing, I did it last season, and I'm back on board this season with the Wally Cento in the Maxi circuit, and we're considered the girls' boat. One, we have a female owner, which is quite unheard of as well, but she then has a mixed crew. So out of 22 people, we've got eight females on the crew, but we're regarded as the girls' boat. So if we're ahead of any of the other boats around the course, they're all like, oh, even the girls are ahead of us. And I'm thinking, wow, in this day and age, we're still at that stage. But if that's what needs to happen to normalise it, then great.

SPEAKER_00 13:50

Wow. I it does surprise me that those things are still out there, especially with so many talented sailors out there that are well, actually, I'll go back onto uh something you said earlier that you wanted to break the record uh for the Jules Fern. Didn't you actually just set it rather than break it? There was nothing before.

SPEAKER_01 14:11

Well, there's no female standard, but you know, you you go for the overall. Um, and I think, you know, back before it was 1998 when Tracy Edwards led Royal Sun Alliance round and they capsized at Cape Horn. And actually, I sent just before Cape Horn, so near Point Nemo, it was quite an emotional time for us on board. Uh, for three of us, when we did the last ocean race, um, that was where we'd lost um John Fisher from Scallywag. And at the same place, it was also in a similar location to where Royal Sun Alliance had dropped their rig and their Jules Verne attempt had come to an end. So it was quite an emotive place for a lot of us. We were all very aware of it. I'd marked it on the chart. And at the time we had pretty bad weather as well, and it was just like, let's just keep the boat in one piece. I sent Tracy a message and she went, just keep the stick in the air. And actually, I was like, once we got to Cape Hall, and I was like, okay, we're there's no way we're not doing this. And trust me, we were tried and tested all the way for the final miles, but uh there was no way we were not getting to the finish line. But I think, as you say, I think visually there's a lot more representation, it's being seen as normal, it's we've got some really good role models and personalities being seen and in held in high regard. And I think you know, when you're doing it, your peers don't treat you any differently. You're on the boat doing the same thing in the same bit of water with Mother Nature kicking butt, and it's it didn't seem deemed as no different. And I think it's the media we have to educate because they make a big thing of it. We were very much questioned, you know, is there a need in this day and age for a fee all female team? You know, does it matter? And I said, Well, to date, when we ran round Cape Horn, there were three women that had rounded Cape Horn on a multi-hole, on a non-stop stop lap, and we just made that number 11. I said, So the numbers speak for themselves that yes, it does still need to happen. But hopefully now we've done that and we've showed and we've created a pool of people with some experience, things will change. And that's what you've got to hope to do.

SPEAKER_00 16:19

Yeah, uh and just for our listeners, Point Nemo is the furthest point from land or rescue anywhere in the world, is that right?

SPEAKER_01 16:26

Yes, right. It's called the Ocean Pole of Inaccessibility, it's in the Pacific, and it's about 2,000 kilometres from the nearest human on land. So the closest person to you is actually in the International Space Station.

SPEAKER_00 16:39

Ahoy.

SPEAKER_01 16:40

Yeah, and I don't think he's gonna help you much. So yeah, you you really are kind of as remote as you can get down there.

SPEAKER_00 16:46

Yeah. And then again, as you say, after you came around the uh Cape Horn, you were going for the finish, and it was like, we're not gonna so this is gonna happen. That final few hours, few days. Mother Nature decided to sort of go, you're not finished yet.

SPEAKER_01 17:03

Yes, well, if people remember January in the UK, there were two back-to-back storms, Storm Goretti and Storm Ingrid, and uh they came and saw us that last 1500 miles, literally between the Azores and the finish line, where that passage that we needed to do, those two storms came and hit us hard. And as you get closer to the finish, you've got less runway, less um space to kind of avoid the worst. And with those boats, it's not really wind speed that you worry about, although it's pretty uncomfortable, but it's the sea state, and a sea state debilitates a multi-hull really quickly. And we had pretty much chosen to be in like six and a half meter waves max around the world. We hadn't really seen more than that because we could move our course and go and get what we wanted, really. Because after that, you have to slow the boat down just to manage it. And here we were between the Azores and the finish line of eight to ten-meter waves and fifteen knots of wind and continental shelf in the Bay of Biscay, like everything was just piling up, and we had nowhere else to go but point at the finish. And the waves were on the beam, which was horrendous, and it was the worst conditions we saw the whole way around the world, just in that last 1500 miles. And I was just like, we just need to get to the finish. All we need to do is survive. We were sailing with no sails and just the rotating mast, which is 30 square meters in itself. And we rotated it to 21 degrees, I think was the magic number. We were doing 18 knots.

SPEAKER_00 18:29

Just with the mast.

SPEAKER_01 18:30

Yeah, and I we questioned like actually, if we still had the main sail in one piece, I wonder what sail plan we would have chosen. Because actually the the main had ripped itself, so it made the decision itself at the Azores that all we were gonna have was the head plugged in. And I I questioned, you know, I wonder what decision we would have done for the cell plan if we had a choice.

SPEAKER_00 18:50

Mother Nature was definitely going, we're gonna get you across that finish line. Maybe, yeah. One way or the other.

SPEAKER_01 18:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 18:56

Oh man, I I can't imagine what it was like um coming in for that at the final approach, thinking this is really building. And for those at home that are listening, 10 metres, if you go outside and look at your house, that's about the height of your chimney on a two-story house. That's pretty massive.

SPEAKER_01 19:13

Yeah, and and it's it's hard to imagine when you've been sailing, and then you say to the girls, like, we've actually not put ourselves in more than six and a half meter waves, and they're like, Oh, okay, some of those waves are quite big, and you can't choose the angle because we were having to point one way because land was on one side, and so therefore, the the attack of the waves on the boat was very uncomfortable and quite risky, is on the side, so the chances of being pushed over were higher, and so the stress levels rise, and when you get to see it firsthand, like we'd come on deck, and everyone was just like, Wow, and these walls of water were towering next to us and just breaking, and uh, you know, the the sunlight would disappear, and it was just like, Whoa, this is quite big, isn't it? And it was like, okay, let's go as slow as we need to go. All we need to do is get to the finish now, and it was when they stopped breaking, we were like, okay, this is getting better now.

SPEAKER_00 20:07

It it's phenomenal, and I am absolutely uh chuffed for all of you on board and hoping to see something further on coming down. I'm gonna change the the conversation a bit because obviously that shows how much of an adrenaline junkie you are. So I also hear that you're a biker.

SPEAKER_01 20:27

Oh, well, this is a new thing. I I wouldn't call myself a biker chick yet, but I did do my CBT last year.

SPEAKER_00 20:35

Well done.

SPEAKER_01 20:36

And uh it was the most stressful day I've ever had. And I literally did figure of eights around a tennis court, like with no net in the middle, like this car park for like most of the day before I went out on the road. The road bit was actually the easy bit, but this bike control within this car park of doing figure of eights was horrendous. I was so hot and like sweaty and like really stressed about it all. But I came from not having any experience. Like most people, most young people go and think, oh, I'm gonna go and ride a bike and they've driven a dirt bike or a trail bike or something. I had no bike experience. But in the back of my mind, every movie I watched, the chick, you know, the kick-ass chick in the movie got on a bike at some point. I was like, I need to be able to do that. So I decided I need so it's still on my to-do list because I want to get my full licence and I haven't done that yet.

SPEAKER_00 21:26

I'm sure you will. I'm sure you will. So, what I mean, looking at it, because obviously I've been asked to ask you this because obviously Dev's past hers a couple of months uh a couple of years ago, what bits out you're sailing kind of helped you get over those nerves? And the reason I asked that, because obviously there's people listening at home, some young people who have situations in their life where there's a barrier or a challenge or something they feel uh or and fear. How can you sort of say, look, whether it's sailing around the ocean or getting on a motorbike, how can I get over? Those fears to do the thing that I really want to do.

SPEAKER_01 22:03

It's really interesting. I hadn't actually kind of equated what I went through on that day to get my test done on this bike. Because initially, as well, the guy, through no fault of his own, he said, Like, look, just get it done. Like, just jump on the scooter and we'll just get it done. And I felt like saying to him, Excuse me. I said, No, I'm gonna do it on a bike. He's like, Oh, okay. And he said he said to me, If I if you came for a juggling lesson and he said, I threw five balls at you, he said, You'll probably drop them. He said, But if I give you one and then I give you two, and if I give you three, you'll probably juggle with them. He's like, It's the same with gears and having an automatic. And I was like, I will do it. But I think I was so like, I must be able to do this. Other people can do this. I just need time and practice. And I think in your head, and it's the same with everything, sailing around the world is just a massive challenge, it's a ridiculous thing to do, especially on a boat that you haven't had much sailing time on. So take the last round the world, you know, what are we gonna do? Well, we're gonna take it day by day, step by step, and we're gonna gain confidence and get better, and then it becomes easier and easier, and you get the support network around you to make it happen. So when you're faced with something that's a little bit like, I've stalled again, and I can't do it, and I can't get this figure of eight, I can only go one way around this figure of eight, I can't change direction. What do you mean you need me to change direction? What are you saying? It's like, yes, I can like step at a time. Okay, what was I doing before? Okay, let's start again. And you have to reset. And it's all about positive mindset most of the time, and just not letting the gremlins get in and have the negative conversation in your head.

SPEAKER_00 23:37

Keep it positive, and just break it down into smaller bits, is what I told Debs. So going back on, I'm gonna use that analogy about that if I threw five balls at you.

SPEAKER_01 23:45

When he said that to me, I was like, no. Yeah, but it's so true.

SPEAKER_00 23:50

Yeah, she had exactly the same. And I said, just break it down into small steps and just go for it. And then uh, I think after she'd passed her CBT, she was then training, went for her full bike license, managed to pass her bike test, and literally on the way back, she dropped the bike and was like, I can't do this. I was like, get back on a bike, go on, go and do it. And she did it, and since then it's just been break it down, focus on here and now rather than the whole trip around the world.

SPEAKER_01 24:19

Yeah, definitely. And and everybody drops the bike, everybody does something wrong at some point, everybody has an issue. So don't think that you're underachieving or not doing as well as you could, because everyone will have a setback. And actually, it's not the setback, it's how you come back from that that defines who you are.

SPEAKER_00 24:36

Oh, fantastic. Well, Dee, it's been an absolute pleasure having you on today. And I wish you all the best for the next challenge. And uh I can't wait to hear and see what is next.

SPEAKER_01 24:48

Well, I'll be back on and tell you all about it when I've done it.

SPEAKER_00 24:51

Thanks a lot.

SPEAKER_01 24:52

Cheers.

SPEAKER_00 24:52

Cheers.