Episode 14 - Oliver Heer

This week on Oceans Unplugged, we’re joined by Swiss offshore sailor Oliver Heer — the first Swiss-German skipper to complete the legendary Vendée Globe.

Oliver shares his journey from a corporate career to professional ocean racing, the realities of sailing solo around the world, and the determination required to keep moving forward when the odds are against you. We explore the preparation, pressure and mindset behind competing at the highest level of offshore sailing, as well as his ambitions for the future with Embrace The Challenge.

An honest and inspiring conversation about resilience, risk and pursuing a life beyond the ordinary.

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

Welcome to Oceans Unplugged. I'm Lee Gallica, 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 guests 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.

SPEAKER_03 0:37

Hi, and welcome back to Oceans Unplugged. And today I've got a really special guest for you, Oliver here, who is competing in the 2028 Von Day Globe and competed in the 2024 Von Day Globe. Welcome. It's a pleasure being here, Lee. Cool. Well, obviously we've known each other for a while, but I want to take you back to one memory in your 2024 Transap CIC race. Two, three o'clock in the morning, pitch black, five, six, seven meter Cs, and you suffered uh an accidental jibe and it went wrong.

SPEAKER_01 1:19

Talk me through. Well, that's life as a sailor every now and then it goes wrong. Um, yeah, as you were saying, I was sailing um into Transatasia, which is a transatlantic race from Logio to New York, and it was one of the crucial kind of qualifying races for the um for the Von der Globe, and I had quite a conservative strategy. I knew I just had to finish. The result was kind of secondary, and I kind of stuck stuck to this strategy for quite a while. And then, I don't know, halfway in the race, two-thirds in the race, we kind of hooked onto a low pressure system, and the boat went really well. I felt well, and I kept maybe some big sails up a bit too long. Um, with each position report I came in, I made up another couple of positions and uh I was a bit yeah on fire until yeah, in the middle of the night I sailed over a seamount. Uh, suddenly the waves became quite much higher. Um, the wind piped up to I don't know, 35 knots. I still had my quite big um a sail up. And as I went down a wave, my autopilot had a little hiccup. I went into a a crash jibe. And on these boats, when you crash jibe, uh, you know, you've got the keel on the wrong side, you've got the stack on the wrong side, you've got the ballast on the wrong side, everything on the wrong side. So when it goes wrong, it goes wrong quite spectacularly. Uh I fell on my nose or on my side, and um I ended up quite yeah, on my side. I tried to then kind of get out of it by easing the the sheets of my big A sail, but I ended up with a riding turn, so the boat didn't come up right again immediately. Uh, that led to me flooding the boat with we estimated probably about 5,000 liters of water inside the boat, which then flooded my battery compartment, and that led to a blackout on the boat. Um, and yeah, when you found yourself in the middle of the North Atlantic by yourself on a 60-foot boat in the middle of the night in 35 knots and pigs well, and it goes dark, yeah, it's quite a dark place to be. Yeah. Figuratively and literally. Yeah, and mentally. But then the mental part, you know, only comes in a little bit later because you're so in adrenaline, you kind of just try to first save the boat and you were in in survival mode for the first few hours. Um, and only once you kind of made the boat secure again and you know you've kind of gone through the worst, that's when that's when you crash. The adrenaline keeps you going. Yeah, yeah. Um, but once the adrenaline kind of wears off and it sinks in where you are, in which kind of state you are, um, then then it kind of hits and I hit a bit of a wall. But knowing that I had to finish this race to kind of secure my bonding club qualification, I had an option either sail, I think it was 1800 miles to New York into the finish, or sail 1300 miles to the nearest port, which was Halifax. And either options are not great, you know. And then I said, Look, Ollie, you really want to do the Monday, so you might as well try and sail into the finish. And here I was with uh some ripped sails. Um, no autopilot, no power on the boat, no nothing. Uh, the only thing I had was a handheld satellite phone out of my grab back to communicate with with with the people ashore. Um, and paper charts. And uh yeah, the great banks up there are quite foggy. Yeah, lots of shipping, yeah, no navigation light, no AIS, no radar, no nothing. So I could hear that the cargo ships around me couldn't see them. Um and I was navigating with kind of yeah, paper charts. Um, but I managed to find New York Harbor and the finish line and qualify for the Vonnegut.

SPEAKER_03 4:59

Yeah, and done all that back on the basics of sort of mark one eyeball paper chart.

SPEAKER_01 5:05

Absolutely. Yeah, I think it doesn't matter how much technology we have nowadays. Um, you need to know how to, yeah, you know, do dead reckoning and and get a fix when you can and yeah, go back to the old school methods of navigation.

SPEAKER_03 5:19

And I mean, for those that don't know the Von Day Globe or the Amokas, they are basically an 18-meter, 60-foot-long surfboard, in effect, with a lot of sail area. As you said, canting keel. Is it hydraulic or water ballasted? Or yeah, how I mean, how do you transfer that ballast on the keel and the the hull itself?

SPEAKER_01 5:43

Uh well, one of the rules in our class, and it's quite an open class, but there are summer rules, and one of the rules dictates that everything has to be powered by me, by the person on the boat. Uh, there are only two areas where we're allowed to use stored energy. Uh, one of them is the autopilot, uh, and the other one is to operate the hydraulics of the keel. Um, there is, yeah, these are the two places where we can use stored energy, and everything else has to be done by me uh with winches and um or with gravity. Ballast tanks we fill uh with either water pressure when we put the snorkel down and then we transfer from side to side using gravity. Um, but yeah, I know they're exciting boats and um pretty fast boats.

SPEAKER_03 6:25

Yeah, for sure. There they are. And uh for you at home, yeah. Obviously, Ollie's talking about sort of the hydraulics on the Canton Keel. If you want to know more, go back and look at Pit Hare's episode where she talks about uh hydraulic failure. It's an interesting story. Um so obviously that kind of really started making you the sailor that you are now today, and obviously you qualified. So during the Vendée Globe, um you went through the the Southern Ocean, and uh as Dee and Pip have mentioned, obviously on these boats you are flying at high speeds, it's not like a cruise round the solar at five or six knots, um, and you're managing most of the time to stay ahead of the weather systems, but your deep Southern Ocean, there are great risks down there. Obviously, shipping is reduced. But I mean, what other hazards are there down there? Icebergs, did you have any interactions with those?

SPEAKER_01 7:22

Yeah, I mean, the risk definitely grows exponentially the further south you kind of go. Um, and yeah, as you say, there it's very remote. I have spent, I don't know, in the last one day, six or seven weeks in the southern ocean, and I haven't seen a single vessel, not on the horizon, not on the radar, not on AIS. You're properly I never heard a voice in my on my radio to properly by yourself down there. Um, and yeah, there are other risks. Um, there are some marine mammals down there because it's quite untouched. Um, whales like it, especially around uh Cape Town, around South Africa, the Ogulas Current. Um, there's quite a lot of wildlife. Um, but then yeah, I was actually I saw a big iceberg. I was sailed very close past an iceberg uh in the last one. The Globe Free Sailors saw icebergs. We do have an ice limit um to kind of prevent us from seeing icebergs or to collide with ice, but I did see one and um so did Conrad Kohlmann and Sid Marsle. And it was quite an interesting moment. I was sailing past the point of Nemo, point Nemo, which is the point of inaccessibility on this planet. It's kind of sits in the middle of the South Pacific, I don't know, 2,000 something miles away from the next next land. Um, and on that very day, I got a phone call from race management, which is quite unusual in a race that they call you up and they said, Look, uh, they have spotted what they think might be two icebergs in front of me, and I should just sail a little bit more carefully. Now, the very day you sailed past Point Nemo, the most inaccessible place in the world, which also means rescue is very far away. The last thing you want to hear is that there are icebergs ahead of you. Um, but then you know we have multiple systems on the boat that should prevent us from colliding with objects. I made sure all these systems are working and I dialed the alarm up to maximum volume and then kept sailing. And fair enough, as it got dark, the alarm went off and there was a big iceberg. We estimated it about 350 meters long, about 150 meters high, maybe about 800 meters off my starboard side. Um, so yeah, that was uh if there was ever a brown pants moment in the upper globe, that that was it.

SPEAKER_03 9:33

Uh I mean during the Vonday Globe and and all of these offshore races, yes, you are sailing alone on this 18-meter 60-foot boat, but obviously all of the other competitors are doing exactly the same. It's a bit like a family. Yeah, absolutely. What went through your mind when you heard about Pipps dismasting?

SPEAKER_01 9:57

Well, you know, um we all know the risk. We all know that there's a very high likelihood that we might not make it into the finish, that we end up retiring. And if you retire in a Vanderglob, you know, you you end up in South Africa, in Australia, in South America, wherever it, or in the Falklands, wherever you end up in. And uh Pip, yeah, I mean, she sailed a great race up until then. Um, and we know that these masts on on our boats, they're kind of like the fuse, you know, they act as the fuse on the boat. Yeah. Um, you need a weak point that is sounds stupid, but it's somewhat sacrificial. Our life is not at risk because the mast breaks necessarily. You know, if the boat breaks in half, it's a different story. And so having the rig or the mast as your weak point or designed weak point, I think is actually quite smart. And I think if you push hard and Pip was pushing hard, losing a mast is is is a realistic scenario. But it I really felt for her. I mean, it's it's bad, and she was she lost it quite far south, and it took her a long time to get back uh to land, back to Australia. And um yeah, I was very relieved to see that she then arrived successfully and with open arms by the uh Melbourne sailing community, and um yeah, that she managed to get herself out of this situation.

SPEAKER_03 11:17

Yeah, totally uh got herself out of it. Um, so now we kind of understand what kind of boat you're sailing and who you are and where you're going. I want to take it back to how you got into the industry, how you became a professional sportsman, because you you weren't always a professional sportsman, were you? You actually had, as my mother would call would have called it, a real job. Yeah. So what were you doing?

SPEAKER_01 11:45

Well, um, I mean, I was always sailing my life my my whole life. I grew up in Switzerland, which is one of the few landlocked countries in the world. Um, but I was always sailing, a little, yeah, dinky sailing as a kid. Um, and quite ambitiously, I took part in Europeans and worlds when I was a teenager, but it was always a hobby, and I was always quite an ambitious um young student. Um, my mom's a teacher, and I was kind of, yeah, school was important and getting a good education was important, and that was always kind of my the focus of my of my of my life. Um, and then I started to study international management in Zurich. During my studies, I went to Asia for two years. Uh, I I used to work in Singapore and Hong Kong. I studied uh Chinese for a year in Taiwan, yeah, uh at the Taipei National Taiwan University in Taipei. And during this time in Asia, I actually ended up sailing on a race boat out of Hong Kong. And I managed to get my first kind of paycheck from sailing, and I was like, this is quite cool, you know. Yeah, yeah. Um being able to earn some money with sailing. Or remember getting my first paycheck. Yeah, exactly. It's cool. Um, but then my time in Asia came to an end. I went back to Zurich, got my degree, um, and started working in the private sector as you do, as opposed to grads, you know, you you smell the big box and you go for them. Um, but I was not super happy, but I just ticked on sailing, went a little bit into the background. Um, and then in 2014, um early 2014, my dad passed away very suddenly. Um, cardiac arrest in our living room on a Sunday evening. And I subconsciously chose exactly the same career path as he did, and I believe he kind of died from overwork. He flew to Asia almost on a weekly basis, and I kind of went into the exact same same um career path. And when something like this happens, you kind of ask yourself some questions. And he had a lot of things on his bucket list that he said he would like to achieve, you know, doing more sailing. He did a lot of sailing, he did the Atlantic, he did Antigua Sailing Week, all these big events he did before, but he wanted to retire early and do more sailing and never managed to do it. And I think if such a thing happens, you kind of ask yourself questions. And um I ask myself, look, do I really want to sit in front of a computer, work on a spreadsheet, and do 60 hours a week work for a big paycheck, uh, just to then hopefully retire early and tick off my the stuff that I really love. And I think once you ask yourself this question, you kind of already answered it. Um so I put in my notice and I decided to move to the south coast of the UK in my very old camp van. I had like a 60, 60-year-old camp event, and I parked it in the uh car park of uh Port Hamble Marina, no electricity, no running water. And I kind of set up camp there to to get my yachtmaster uh ticket and and try and find find some work in the industry, just find some grip in the industry. And uh yeah, at the beginning wasn't super easy, but uh glad I I punched through it because yeah, 10, 12 years later here I have.

SPEAKER_03 14:53

Yeah. I and I do remember actually when you arrived in the Hamble River and working with Fairview Sailing, Sailing Logic. Um, and it's something that uh comes up in conversation quite regularly for many young sailors. How do they get into the industry? And it's kind of changed a little bit now because I remember, well, when you arrived and when I started out, there was you'd go to organizations like Sailing Logic, and you would be the pontoon boat cleaner, you'd learn all on the boats, then you'd become sort of the the first mate bow person in all the racing, and and then you'd kind of progress through that. And that has kind of faded a little bit now, I think. Uh and maybe many of the the people I've spoken to as well. When we were at school in the UK, I don't know if it was the same for you in in Sweden, when you spoke to your careers officer, uh, there was never any discussion about any career at sea, whether that was merchant, marine, or or sailing. So what would you sort of recommend to youngsters if they want to get into sailing?

SPEAKER_01 16:00

Well, I think you're right that maybe this whole kind of the the the charter business or the race charter business might disappeared a little bit. But I think, you know, at the end of the day, skills are learnable, um, but you have to show the right attitude to the right people. Um, shortly after I did the stuff with Sailing Logic and these companies, I moved over to private boats. Yeah. Um, and I was boat capping on private boats and private race boats uh before I joined Hooger Boss and the Alex Thompson program. Um and I think now, and we see it now. I mean, my campaign at the moment with almost 20 people working on the boat, and we have lots of young kids. Yeah, I don't mind if people don't have the skills yet. You can't expect the 20, 22-year-old to have all the skills, but they need to have the right attitude. And I think that's a reason why maybe also I was quite successful in my career, because I kind of brought the I don't want to say the Swiss working mentality, but the mentality you have from the private sector into, in a way, the leisure sector. Yeah, yeah. And I told myself, look, Ollie, you have to be the first one on the boat in the morning, and you're the last one off the boat in the evening, and you just give you everything, and it doesn't matter if you work working week is five days or seven days, you just work and you show show the right people your value. And I think with this attitude, you can make it far. The problem is a bit a lot of people think just because they or from the outside, the sailing industry looks like glamour. Yeah, yeah. Um, it's not, it's hard hours, long days, a lot of drama, a lot of unforeseen work, um, not easy to plan your holidays around it, you're not often with your family or your girlfriend, and you kind of have to be willing to accept this to then enjoy the nice moments when you're working on a cool boat or competing in a nice race. And I think a lot of people might not have the stamina or don't expect that so much stamina is required to actually make it or to accept this in a way, this hardship that the sailing industry brings, also.

SPEAKER_03 18:02

Yeah, I've had uh a few youngsters under my sort of mentorship, and I've always tried to say treat it like an internship. You you're gaining the knowledge, and it's like mile builders who go off sailing to get their yacht master eventually. When you're sailing a boat, there's no fixed period of time or a nine to five. As you say, you first arrive and you finish when the job's done. And I'm sure the same with you, that it's been that you started at six o'clock in the morning and you're still going at two the following morning.

SPEAKER_01 18:34

Absolutely, it can happen. Um yeah, but that's part of the that's you know, that's part of the that's part of the industry. And and I think having the right attitude is much more important than having the right skills. The skills will come over time if you're switched on and an intelligent young person, you'll you'll gain the skills on your way, but the attitude has to be kind of has to be there from the beginning.

SPEAKER_03 18:56

Yeah. And I mean, we recently interviewed um Paul and Susanna Tetlow from World Cruising Club, and we were talking about our arc. And every year I go out to Las Palmas to work on the start. And the same as you probably see it, there's always uh, as we call them, dock walkers, people looking to hit your ride. Um those people that are dock walking, they've kind of got this, as you sort of said, this image in their head of the yachting being glamorous. Would you sort of agree that sometimes even before you you get to be with a team or any organization, sailing is a little bit still behind in the times of first impressions, and it's how you present yourself, not just any mentality.

SPEAKER_01 19:44

Uh how how would you recommend someone to kind of look at that from the outside or well, I I'm I mean, I'm in a way fortunate enough that I've never done dock walking, but I've sent many applications to many different boats, and we've just recently advertised for a junior technical position and short crew position in our team, and we've received 300 applications. Wow. And then if you have 300 applications, you know the cover letter and your CV is very important. Yes, it's a laid-back industry, but if I see typos or a very unformatted CV, where's the attention to detail then? And if you have to pick one or two out of 300, it's the small detail that that that counts. And we now had to process that out of the 300, we had about maybe six or seven that we shortlisted as being really standout. Promising. Yeah, and it's not about their qualifications, it's just the appearance of of the of the application. And then now they're coming in, they some of them are here today, um, and they're doing a trial day. And within a day or two, you you notice quite quickly what their attitude is, their attention to detail. And I think maybe especially in my world, uh, the solar sailing world or the ocean racing world, when someone prepares your boat for a race, I need to have a lot of trust in the person. If someone tells me this job is done, the boat is good to go, I have to trust this person, otherwise it will be too stressful further down the line when I'm in the middle of the ocean. So for me, trust um counts a lot. And this then becomes very implicit, you know. How do you measure, how do you measure trust? And it's very, yeah, it's very implicit and it's difficult to quantify, but I think a great attention to detail, great attitude, um, and the willingness to, yeah, in a way, get your hands dirty, you know, uh not being too good for a job um brings you a long way. And then once you're on the job, you can learn skills and you can prove to the team that you're a value and an asset, and then you can make it far.

SPEAKER_03 21:50

Yeah. And so I mean, you mentioned it just a minute ago that after doing the sort of corporate racing in the private boats, uh, and obviously rock racing. You you went to work with Alex Thompson Racing uh on his Von Day campaign. What did you learn from Alex's campaigns that you've taken to this or those little if you look back, what are those nuggets of information to to pass on to some of the youngsters?

SPEAKER_02 22:18

I could fill books.

SPEAKER_01 22:20

You know, you I mean, I have a very quite a unique career in a way that I didn't come from the traditional, you know, how most of the Wonder Globe sailors, for instance, from France, come. They do this mini 650 class, they do a figure or they do a class 40, and then they do an Amoka campaign. Um, I came through the technical background. Um, I yeah, I was first, I did a lot of racing miles on IRC boats, but then being in the shore crew of Alex Thompson, then becoming the boat captain of Alex, then the co-skipper of Alex before I start my own one. Um one of the biggest takeaways I would say is that the race is won or lost, or to a large extent decided, let's put it like this, before the race even starts. You know, you think now it's now summer 26, the next Vanderblock starts in autumn 28. Um the decisions that we make now, it's hard to directly believe that they have a direct impact on my performance in two and a half years. Yeah, but it is the case, you know. It's sailing boats are so complex and packed full of technology that you need to really every decision you make, every screw you tighten, every sycophlex seal you put on, everything has to be right that at the end, you know, a small mistake doesn't cascade into one big drama and you end up having to retire or slow down for too long. So um, yeah, uh the learnings I took from Alex massive on the technical side, um, but also on the commercial side. You know, nowadays it's highly commercial what we do. The saline campaigns, uh, it's quite capital intensive. We need quite a lot of uh quite a high budget. Therefore, you we need a lot of sponsors or serious sponsors that don't just give you a few thousand quid, but it's it's a significant amount of money. And we're not a charity, no one gives you money for free, and you have to have a very good commercial sense and an understanding what you know what does a company or potential partner need from you for them to make this a viable business opportunity because at the end, if they give you a certain amount of money, they want to multiply this money, it's an investment for them, and that's something that I learned a lot from Alex, you know, that the business side of the campaign, and that I'm an asset or the team is an asset, and we have to um yeah, kind of play both play play both parties.

SPEAKER_03 24:49

So, as you said, you've got back sort of the business aspect of it, and um, there is forums and the business of yacht racing, uh, etc. And you spoke about the lessons that you learned from Alex Thompson, and I know Hugo Boss were really switched on on making the campaign work. I mean, going up and down the the Monaco Grand Prix with a mesh uh sale with Hugo Boss, I mean that must have saved him hundreds of thousands, if not millions, in branding. Um, but yeah, you you've got to make that um return for a sponsor. And I know that sailing is an environmentally friendly one, it's perceived to be um inspirational to young, positive. So what industries do you think really match with yachting? Or why do companies really get involved in sailing?

SPEAKER_01 25:50

Well, the the the reasons are so diverse why why someone or why a company would would sponsor or invest in sailing. Um, I think just answering this question does not solve the problem of finding the funding because nowadays you have the Amoka clause that's quite um yeah active and interesting, and then yeah, um, but then you have CLGP, and CLGP at the moment gets a lot of sponsorship deals and in many partnership meetings, and we're also still looking currently for for more funding and more partners, as we always do. You know, one of the first questions I get in a meeting, be it in England or in Zurich or somewhere, it's like, well, why shouldn't we sponsor Sale GP? And so you have to then try and find your own unique selling points. You know, why should they sponsor us as a campaign and race the challenge and not another Amoka campaign or a Sale GP team or the COP team? Um, and then it comes down to your own, you know, to your own, to you as an asset. Um people want to have someone who's no drama, who can communicate, who kind of can represent their company in a good way, be an ambassador to what they do. And it becomes very multifaceted. And when we, you know, we have a sponsorship pipeline of I don't know 500 companies. Out of these 500 companies, we maybe identify 30 as being promising, and then you really do your due diligence for a long time on these companies and exactly check where are our parallels, how can we position ourselves to make this sweet? Who are the decision makers? Are we approaching the right person? Um, and then a decision maker, be it the CEO, a CMO, or a chairman of a company, depending on who you approach, they are such busy people. You do have about 30 seconds to convince them to give you meeting. Yeah, yeah. You know, a lengthy email, a 20-page pitch deck. It's too much. You need to just light the fire enough in them that they say, I'd like to hear more. And then once you're in front of them and you have half an hour of their time, that's when you can then properly sell it. So it's quite a um, it's quite a difficult process, challenging process. And that's where I'm also very glad, you know, that I did my business studies and that I would work in the private sector because I have I believe that I kind of can put myself in their role and in their shoes and think, you know what, if I'm now at the other side of the table or if I receive this email, what would I like to see to be interested? Yeah. Um, but it's it's hard, and we have three people, four people, you know, almost full-time looking for more partnerships, and it's um it's hard. I always say sailing around the world by yourself is the easy part.

SPEAKER_03 28:46

Just getting to the start line is actually the exactly the most difficult. Exactly. Yeah, that's definitely the case. Yeah. Well, obviously, you've got some funding at the moment, and you've just got a new boat to yourself. Um, and obviously you've been testing it, trialing it, adapting it, making it yours. Um, and you've had a great team around you.

SPEAKER_01 29:07

And I think Liz Wardley is Liz Wardley sailing the Earth Trace Atlantic with me. We're sailing, well, yeah, um, yeah, in four days' time we're sailing to New York and she's on the boat.

SPEAKER_03 29:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 29:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 29:17

And she's just got back from rowing Trans-Pacific from uh California to Hawaii. She's a powerhouse.

SPEAKER_01 29:24

Yeah, she set off set off a new world record and double-handed rowing across the the Pacific. Yeah. Um, she just arrived last week, really, yeah, in Hawaii. And yeah, no, I've got I've got a good crew, but then again, you know, that circles back to what I said earlier. It's all about the trust and in a way the attitude and the soft skills. It's it's not easy to find the right people um to work in the technical side, but also to be on the boat with. So it's um yeah, a lot of thinking goes into picking the right people to work in the campaign.

SPEAKER_03 29:56

Yeah, I mean, it's one of those life skills anyway, isn't it? It's who you surround yourself with. Um and yeah, my mother and uh um Stephen Chaprow, who kind of came up with this concept of me doing this podcasting, he was always one of those inspirational, motivational lines surround yourself with great people. Yeah, absolutely. So um obviously you've been testing the boat, trialing it, um finding out its limits. Um, is there any kind of challenges that you've got to work with uh before you go to the ocean base?

SPEAKER_01 30:30

Um so well we've I mean we've been sailing the boat now for about two months. Uh-huh. Um, we have done many miles in many conditions. Um, what's nice is the boat is a solid platform, you know. Yeah, uh we have bought a very proven asset. Um, so we know exactly where we are. We also have a very good relationship with um the team of Justin Metro, of whom we bought the boat from. So we received all the intellectual property from the boat. Okay. Um we also had about three weeks of sailing with her, which was invaluable, you know. Uh sailing with her on the boat over multiple weeks, staggered, um, helped us a lot to kind of get the grip of the boat quite quite um soon. Now we have our first race. Um, so we're delivering the boat to New York, and then we race back to Europe, which we for sure it's a race and we take it as a race. But for us, it's kind of the I think the final learning platform, uh, learning stage, because even if you do it subconsciously, you push the boat a little bit harder in a race than you do in training. And every now and then you have to expose yourself to this kind of environment to maybe accept this extra little bit of risk and just push it um and and actually see then get the feedback of how is the boat in a racing environment, line up with other boats, see if we've actually you know developed the right polars for the boat, etc. etc. Um, and then yeah, in January we we go around the world in the ocean race, and one of the big or one of the only major challenges, well, actually it's two challenges. One is changing from a sole and double-handed boat to a fully crude boat. Now, for eight days, it doesn't really matter. We can do with what we have. Um, but from an ergonomics point of view, the first leg from the ocean race, uh Alicante to Auckland, 15,000 miles, 30 days, 35 days, um, it's a long time to be on the boat, five of us. Um, so we get the boat out of the water in autumn. Um, and and we're in the shed for about six weeks to do these kind of changes um to the boat. The other big rule change, um, and that's actually a rule change within the Anoka class, is for the next Vanderglobe, we're only allowed to use 60 liters of diesel um to go around the world. And this boat in the last Vanderglobe used almost 300 liters, so we have to reduce the diesel consumption by almost 80%, um, which is a real challenge. Um, and what sort of uh waves are you gonna regenerate? Well, exactly. So it's it's one is is maximizing renewable energies, you know, trying to get some more solar panels on the boat, seeing if we can make the hydrogenerators more efficient or a bigger range where they're efficient, um, thinking about potentially even wind generators if they function. Um but then the other side is as important, you know, minimizing the load on the boat. Yeah. So how is the boat wired? How much redundancy do you have in place? Each connection in the wiring system maybe only draws 0.1 million there. But if you add it up times 100, 200, it quickly adds up. Um, so yeah, we're kind of fighting it on both fronts, you know, trying to reduce the the usage on the boat, the draw, um, but then also trying to maximize the input that we have, um, more efficient batteries, uh, more efficient alternators, trying to, you know, make a study on in which battery percentage does the alternator charge the most efficient? How many kilowatts do you get out of a liter of diesel? And it's um, yeah, it's an interesting project. Uh, so it keeps us on our toes.

SPEAKER_03 34:12

Well, it's good to see that amongst, I mean, it's not just I'm I'm mocker, I'm seeing quite a lot of um change across the industry and other sports as well, about being more um environmentally friendly, using more green energy, uh, and reducing reliance on uh um traditional methods, uh uh oil, coal, yeah, uh diesel, etc. Um obviously there are brand new boats in build uh that they've really changed hole shape as well. Um how do you think you're gonna your boat is gonna fare against these new design holes uh in terms of speed? I mean, quite amusingly said about making T at 30 knots.

SPEAKER_01 35:00

Yeah, yeah. Is there gonna be a big differential? Um, you know what? I'll be able to answer you this question more in detail in about the month's time when we've sailed the first transatlantic race. Yep. Um you know, which with every cycle there are new boats coming out, and now there are about 10 new boats um that are have hit the water or about to hit the water, and you never know if it's an evolution or if it's a revolution. Um, fact is, and now we're watching the videos of Malicia and Tomaruya's boat um literally flying across the water outside Lorian. Um for sure there are certain wind ranges or conditions where the new boats are much, much faster. But then put this boat next to my boat in the southern ocean in 35 knots when you anyway have to throttle down. Yeah, yeah. The the difference is less obvious then. So um I think it will be very interesting to see now in the Ocean Race Atlantic, also in the first leg of the ocean race, you know, over a few thousand miles, what's the actual actual difference? I think one of the big advantages for me personally is that we have a very proven platform. We know Chusting Metro has given it everything on this boat, and before that it was Cheremie Beyou. Um, and the boat has been upgraded and reinforced and optimized to the absolute limit. We know we have the best possible kind of platform on this boat as we can have. Um and the new boats they've just launched a few weeks ago, not even a month ago. Uh, they have done barely any trading miles, very little commissioning. They're now delivering the boat to New York, then they race back. Um, then they go into a routerum, then back and then straight into a 15,000 mile um ocean race lag. You know, if you go at 20, 25 knots, you don't have to slow down or stop the boat for very long for us to be able to sail away. Even if it's a few, you know, if it's a hundred miles or something. So yeah, we have to try and just keep sailing. Don't hopefully not slowing down for repairs or inspections. And I don't want to say I hope that they have issues, but it's it's it's a realistic risk for them with a brand new boat that they do have some teething issues, or even you know, on these boats it's very noisy, the boat makes a lot of noises. Yeah, hearing a funny noise that you don't recognize, and it's like, what was that? And all if they are if they have to slow down every I don't know, eight hours for 20 minutes, it quickly adds up. And if they're they're they're only a knot faster than us, suddenly you kind of hopefully can keep up with them. So we'll see. It will be an interesting year ahead of us, that's for sure.

SPEAKER_03 37:45

And before we wrap up, uh there's other races that are going on that we've spoken to competitors recently. We spoke to uh Don McIntyre and Gunnar Christiansen. Is that ever sort of an event that you ever thought you might have done? So the Golden Globe, just no electronics, no foils, and and just chilled, chilled.

SPEAKER_01 38:08

Um, no, no, yeah, within a reasons. Um, I mean, I think it's great that offshore sailing and especially the short-handed sailing world has got such a I mean, it's they're on a win. And it's great to see so many people being kind of affect or infected by by the bus that I also have, um, and that there are so many various different kind of long distance races um happening at the same time. Personally, for me, um I think it would not be the right thing to do. Um, I started tinky sailing and I've actually never been on a cruising holiday in my life. For me, a boat is a sporting platform, and if I go onto a boat, there has to be a clear objective. Either it's a training or a commissioning sale. Yeah, and then when I go racing, I have to get to the finish line as quickly as possible. And I think if I'd be sitting on a, I don't know, a rustler or something that they're sailing in the uh in the golden log race, I'd be sitting there and thinking constantly, oh, if I'd be allowed to have this or do that, then I would be so much faster. And I think I'd go, I'd go bonkers on one of these boats, but I have the biggest respect of the ones doing it. Um, I've done also the celestial navigation thing. I've done once in A Atlantic um with only this extent. Um, I've got my Ocean Yachtmaster uh ticket. So I know the basics of it, and I think it's it's brilliant that there are people still out there that you know say we don't need the fastest boat and everything built out of carbon, and I don't know, having a dozen GPS antennas and free Starlink antennas on the boat to go sailing, but to actually break it down to the to its essence, what sailing is about, and then be happy to enjoy that and do that is uh I'm pulling my head from them.

SPEAKER_03 40:01

Really, and if there was one boat that you could sail that you haven't sailed yet, what would that be?

SPEAKER_01 40:09

Um from a racing perspective, um I would love to one day sail on a J Clos. I think the J Clos boats are just the most beautiful boats. I've been on a J Clos before, I've never sailed one. Um, but then you know, my wife keeps going on about buying a cruising boat for us um to just enjoy here along the south coast. Um, if I ever buy a cruising boat, it would be something tested and slightly old. I always say like a Contessa 32 or something would be my my dream boat as a private sailing boat because once there is no race and no start line, no finish line, it can go slower. Yeah, um, and if you do that, I don't want to be sitting on a moss production GRP plastic hole, but I want to sit on something with a bit of history, and I think yeah, the something like a contesta would be. I could see myself in a few years cruising along the south coast and one of that.

SPEAKER_03 41:06

Yeah, yeah. Um, but going back onto the Jays, uh as a young child, I think it was about four or five, I've actually got a picture of me uh on Val Shida trying to hold both sides of the wheel. Yeah, uh, and it was at Shamrock Key. Uh my father was working on it. So yeah, been on it, but never sailed. Exactly. Yeah, I know exactly where you are. Yeah. Well, Ollie, thank you very, very much for your time. Um if people want to follow your campaign, where can they find you?

SPEAKER_01 41:34

They can find me anywhere. I'm on all the normal social media uh channels, LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, Oliver Here Ocean Racing. Um, otherwise on our website, um, there's a news newsletter you can subscribe to and um yeah, follow us on all the channels. Um I'll be doing two laps of the world in the next two and a half years, so yeah, follow us.

SPEAKER_03 41:55

Well, thank you very much, Ollie. Cheers, thank you, Lik, thank you.