Pondering the caffeine habits of the 2024/2025 Vendee Globe fleet
by David Schmidt 13 Nov 06:00 NZDT
November 12, 2024
The 40 IMOCA competitors are photographed at the start line of the 10th edition Vendée Globe © Jean-Marie Liot ?/ Alea / VG2024
A confession: I'm a stone-cold coffee addict. Whether it's a double shot of espresso (OK, two double shots) after debarking my indoor rowing machine in the morning, or a more relaxing AeroPress on a sleepy Sunday, I take my coffee (and my caffeine) seriously. The thought of going cold turkey (I've done it before) floods my brain with thoughts of headaches of yore, and while I'm the first to recognize that addictions of all kinds are bad (except for sailing, of course), I'm also the guy who religiously cleans out his burr grinder each evening, to ensure that the next morning's first doppio lives up to expectation.
This morning, as my trusty grinder reduced my dark-roast Sumatra beans to the right grind, I couldn't help but consider that the 40 skippers who just began the solo and nonstop around the world Vendee Globe race (November 10) on the waters off of Les Sables d'Olonne, France, won't have this luxury (or many, many others) for months.
The horror!
I recently stumbled upon an article touting the best instant coffees, so I suppose that the brave skippers in this mix who might share my same chemical dependency can catch a "methadone fix" this way, but to drink that stuff for north of 80 days would seriously test my mission resolve.
Don't get me wrong, I love sailing more than just about any other activity, but 80 days of instant coffee? That's commitment.
Then I started thinking about something that my friend Allan, a retired Boeing 777 captain for American Airlines (his were the long-haul routes, New York to Tokyo, London, or Buenos Aires), once told me. Namely, that he never touched the magic beans, even when he came offshore sailing with me, as he wanted to be able to wake up on command, sans any chemical dependency.
While this concept of caffeine-free living sounds quaint, if not downright provincial, during the final 100 meters of a typical morning indoor-rowing session in my unheated garage, that first doppio hanging in my imagination like the promise of Christmas morning as a kid, there's no question that he's right. Afterall, would you want to fly a quarter of the way around the world with a pilot whose hands start shaking (I jest...sort of) if they haven't had their preferred fix?
I've got to imagine that the same holds true for the 40 Vendee Globe skippers, who will be spending the next 80-plus (or, if their foils don't break, possibly fewer) days racing around the world. Sleep in this race, so I'm told, is often absorbed in small cat-nap slices that don't exactly add up to the eight hours of deep, REM, and light sleep cycles that my Garmin watch tells me I need to hit each night.
Given that caffeine has a half-life of about five or six hours in the average adult, I can only imagine that a piping hot mug of (shudder) instant coffee could have chain-linked consequences, especially if a great cat-nap opportunity unexpectedly materializes within that window.
(Trust me, there's no sleeping on command in my world.)
Given that the majority of this year's Vendee Globe fleet are flying French flags, I've also got to imagine that many of these brave skippers are no strangers to espressos, French presses, pour-overs, or any of the other inventive ways that humans have found to extract the best that the coffee bean has to share. But I'd be downright curious to know how these sailors manage their caffeine intake at sea, if they partake in my favorite morning ritual at all.
Perhaps burning questions of this ilk can be answered when the fleet returns to France, but, for now, it's fair to say that most fans and observers of this high-level offshore race will be far more concerned with questions of strategy, tactics, navigation and weather routing, and—of course—yacht and foil design.
Fortunately, we have about 78 days to empirically ferret out some of these answers based on publicly available data (e.g., weather/GRIBS, boatspeeds, distances to the leader, and distances to go).
So, settle back, brew up a mug of your favorite brew, and get ready for a late fall and early winter of following the fleet around the world. If history is any guide to the future, the 2024/2025 Vendee Globe will be a wild ride for the (probably un-caffeinated) skippers, and for the legions of armchair navigators and tacticians who are following their adventures via their web browsers.
Sail-World wishes safe, fast and rewarding journeys to all 40 starting skippers, and we can't wait to see how the next few months of high-level ocean racing play out.
May the four winds blow you safely home.
David Schmidt
Sail-World.com North American Editor