Sam Goodchild: On course for the Vendée Globe start and the fulfilment of a life-long dream
by Agence TB Press 10 Sep 2024 13:06 BST
Vulnerable © Pierre Bouras - TR Racing
With just two months to go to his first appearance in the Vendée Globe solo round-the-world race, Britain's Sam Goodchild is in a good place with his preparations on his IMOCA, VULNERABLE, and is ahead of schedule.
The 34-year-old 2023 IMOCA Globe Series Champion, who races alongside Frenchman Thomas Ruyant in the Lorient-based TR Racing team, may not have had the perfect return to competition this year, when his boat dismasted during the New York Vendée-Les Sables d'Olonne race in June, but that dark cloud has had a silver lining.
With a new mast stepped and a planned winter re-fit completed two weeks ahead of schedule, because the boat was in the shed earlier than planned, Goodchild is ready to go on the biggest challenge of his career. The former Pro Sailing Tour champion in the Ocean Fifty class, who produced a spectacular run of podiums in his first full season in IMOCA last year, is loving the build-up.
"It's starting to get busy, for sure," said the Brittany-based father of two who is married to a French woman. "I mean we kind of knew it was coming so it is not a complete surprise. But it has gone from being a fairly normal pace to now, when something is happening every day until the start (November 10th), so things are getting busier."
Goodchild's VULNERABLE, the former LinkedOut raced so successfully by Ruyant, not only has a new mast, it also has new sails for the Vendée Globe and will start the round-the-world marathon as among the highest rated second generation IMOCAs in the 40-strong fleet. Right now, Goodchild and his team are into the fine-tuning stage of pre-race preparations.
"We are pretty happy, pretty comfortable," summarised the self-effacing Brit. "We are on top of most things we wanted to be on top of. We are into details with the team in terms of final preparation and, for example, what we take and what we don't, what are our back-up systems, how they work, what we need in terms of spares and things like that - so we are in a pretty happy place."
Like many of his rivals Goodchild is taking advantage of pre-race weather strategy workshops being run by the renowned French sailing meteorologist Jean-Yves Bernot at the Pôle Finistère Course au Large training centre at La Forêt-Fouesnant. Even though Goodchild has been to the Southern Ocean as recently as last year's Ocean Race, he knows he can learn a lot from Bernot.
"It's good to go through the Vendée Globe course with thim," he said. "Jean-Yves has obviously got a bank of knowledge which is huge. He has done this I don't know how many times, so it's interesting to hear his experience, especially for parts of the course where we don't actually go very often.
"We go back and forth across the Atlantic fairly often, but the Southern Ocean is much rarer and the south Atlantic doesn't happen that often either, so it is nice to go through the standard weather patterns of those areas and start to get your head in the game a bit in terms of what to expect, what could happen and what it has been like in previous races."
One thing is clear with Goodchild: This is a very special project for him. Although he has set sail three times previously on non-stop round-the-world voyages, in Jules Verne record attempts - twice in the maxi-tri Spindrift and once in Sodebo, all of which ended prematurely - this is very different.
"I guess it's special because of the amount of energy and time I've put into it," he explained. "It was amazing to sail on Sodebo and Spindrift, but the reality is I got a phone call and they said 'do you want to go sailing round the world?' and I said 'yes,' and six months later we set off. Whereas with the Vendée Globe I've been much more integrated into the building of the project and how we are doing it, and it's something I've been aiming for and wanting to do for nearly 20 years. So it's got a bit more weight to it, for sure."
The next step in the build-up is the annual IMOCA Class showcase in Lorient, the Défi Azimut starting on September 10th. Goodchild is looking forward to entertaining guests from the team's founding partner, the cyber security leader, Advens, and sharing his plans with them.
"It's nice to share the project with people and there are very few times of year when all the people involved in the project are in the same place. The Défi Azimut is one of them and it's the only one where we are not three days away from the start of a transatlantic race or a round-the-world race when things can get a bit stressed, so it's a good time to enjoy it a bit more as well," he said.
He will also be looking to put both himself and his boat through their paces during the Défi Azimut 48 Hours solo race. "It will be dictated by the weather, but obviously you don't want to break anything and especially not crash into anyone - the worst case scenario," he said. "It will be good to spend 48 hours racing and doing so 100% in Vendée Globe configuration with the sails and foils."
The British sailor originally from Falmouth in Cornwall who spent much of his childhood living aboard a family cruising yacht in the Caribbean, is thoroughly enjoying being part of TR Racing surrounded, as he says, by a shore and technical team full of people "who've already done it before." And he likes the efficient way the team operates. "Everyone's got their job, their role and they know what they're doing," Goodchild said.
It is now five months since TR Racing became the first in IMOCA sailing - and the sport generally - to name two boats identically, with both Goodchild and Ruyant racing VULNERABLE as part of a mission by Alexandre Fayeulle, chairman of Advens, to tackle the causes of environmental and social crisis in modern society. Goodchild says this ambitious and innovative communications mission is highly effective.
"Communications programmes are made to make people think and provoke discussion and that's working with this one," he said. "The overall objective is multifaceted, but that's part of its strength. You can put your own twist on it and that's consciously done. I completely trust our communications team who are putting it all together and making it work, led by Alexandre. They have been ambitious before and they have managed to make it work and this is no different."