Sam Goodchild radiating positive vibes passing the Cape of Good Hope in the Vendée Globe
by Agence TB Press 30 Nov 2024 03:54 NZDT
29 November 2024
Sam Goodchild - Vendée Globe 2024 © Pierre Bouras / TR Racing
The British sailor Sam Goodchild is enjoying the time of his life on board VULNERABLE in the Vendée Globe solo round-the-world race, as he begins the long haul through the Southern Ocean in a very useful seventh place.
The 35-year-old skipper from Falmouth in Cornwall, has been radiating positive vibes since the start of this race in Les Sables D'Olonne three weeks ago, and in the last week has enjoyed a fast and furious passage across the South Atlantic.
Tomorrow he will reach his first big geographical milestone when his boat will pass the longitude of the Cape of Good Hope at the tip of South Africa and then enter the Southern Indian Ocean.
Anyone who has watched his on-board videos or read his many interviews since the start, can see that Goodchild is loving every minute of his first Vendée Globe, as he underlined in an interview today as VULNERABLE continued eastwards about 400 miles from the Cape.
"I'm definitely making an effort to try and enjoy it," he said on the satellite link, as he enjoyed slightly easier conditions after a week of hard racing. "This race is something that I've been working towards for a long time in my life and in my career, so I feel that enjoying it is an important part of doing it.
"It's not all easy, it's not all fun," he added. "There are bits which are hard - like the first day of getting into the tough reaching conditions of the South Atlantic took a bit of getting used to, and finding ways to stay comfortable on board and not stressing too much about breaking things. But I'm trying to appreciate it."
Goodchild's entry in this race is one of two by Lorient-based TR Racing. After 19 days at sea, he is 221 miles behind race leader Charlie Dalin, with Goodchild's TR Racing stablemate, Thomas Ruyant, also sailing VULNERABLE, just 13 miles behind Dalin with Yoann Richomme another 16 miles back in third.
Goodchild has lost a bit of ground in the faster conditions of the South Atlantic after leading the race for much of the early stages. He says that is partly due to the fact that he is sailing an older boat than all his top-10 rivals, but also the result of a couple of sail choices that he said he might do differently next time. But he says he is quite content with seventh place in this stage of the race, with more than 6,000 miles now under his keel.
"Yes, seventh is a good place," he said. "When you look at the experience of the guys around me, I am definitely in a good place. There is nothing shoddy about it. For sure, in the past couple of years, I have got used to finishing on the podium but seventh is perfectly reasonable and I'm quite happy with that."
Goodchild is now focusing on sailing his own race through the Southern Ocean as he enters new territory as a soloist, having never raced alone at sea for longer than 10 days at one stretch before. "I want to try and enjoy the Southern Ocean, sail intelligently and not try to force a result by going and banging corners. Just try to do something simple and enjoy it while I'm doing it - that's my aim anyway - just keep going with that ethos of keeping it simple and not giving into the pressure of thinking 'oh, he's going faster than me; shall I go north or shall I go south, what shall I do?' My aim is to avoid that."
In the next few days the weather looks favourable for a reasonably controlled start to the "Big South," but the 2023 IMOCA Globe Series Champion says there is one depression that will come through the racecourse next week that he is watching carefully. "The forecast isn't exactly clear on how deep it is going to be, or where it is going to be, but it doesn't look very appealing," he said. "We could find ourselves going upwind or going a long way round over the top to avoid some gnarly conditions. It's a bit too early to decide what we are going to do, but there is definitely one system which is more concerning than the others."
So far Goodchild has managed his boat extremely well and he has had very few issues with the platform formerly sailed to great success by Ruyant under the colours of LinkedOut. He has been taking advantage of calmer conditions to give it a thorough check before the big weather to come.
"I've had a few small issues but nothing major, nothing that has impacted on performance in any way," he explained. "The sails are in good shape and I just went and looked at the boat this morning. I went all the way up to the bow and all the way down to the stern and had a good look around and I didn't find any surprises. The primary autopilot is still not working (it went wrong very early in the race), which is not an issue until the secondary one stops working, but I will try and fix it."
The VULNERABLE skipper has settled into the rhythm of his race and says he is sleeping well on board, averaging about four-and-a-half hours every 24 hours which was his goal. He remains determined to try and stay with the leading group as the long journey towards Cape Horn begins.
"To be honest I haven't looked at any weather routing for any of the other boats behind or in front of me. I'm really just concentrating on what I've got to do and trying to do that well, not getting too wound up about what's happening around me. The only thing I can do is sail tidy, and sail fast, and see where I end up at the end of it," said Goodchild.
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