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Solo round-the-world sailor Pip Hare in moral quandary over pursuing life's dream during pandemic
With promised investment having disappeared due to the coronavirus crisis, Hare finds herself in a difficult position.
Solo round-the-world sailor Pip Hare has admitted she is in a moral quandary over trying to raise vital sponsorship to continue her Vendee Globe campaign, even going so far as to question whether it is right to continue to pursue her life’s dream while coronavirus exacts such a devastating toll on the country.
Hare, 46, is one of 30-plus skippers entered into this year’s Vendee Globe, the non-stop, solo circumnavigation of the world which is commonly referred to as ‘sailing’s Everest’. It is an apt description. Since Sir Robin Knox-Johnston first managed to complete the voyage in 1969, fewer than 100 sailors have successfully sailed non-stop, solo and unassisted around the world. Of those, fewer than 10 have been women.
Hare is hoping to be one of a record six women competing in the 2020-21 edition, which begins in November. However, with the economy having contracted due to the global pandemic, and with promised investment having disappeared, she finds herself in a difficult position. Her 60ft IMOCA yacht Superbigou was put in for a refit just before lockdown, but she now needs further funds to complete the work and get it back out on the water.
“It’s so hard to know what the right thing to do is,” Hare told Telegraph Sport. “Everyone is donating to the NHS and to Captain Tom, which is absolutely right. Businesses are facing ruin. I don’t want to be that person who sticks their hand up and says ‘What about me?’ I don’t want to be shouting about my campaign. On the other hand, this is my dream, my business, my entire life. I’ve invested everything into this. There’s no way on earth I’m just walking away from it.”
It has been a 10-year journey even to reach this point for Hare, who almost certainly enjoys the smallest budget in this year’s fleet.
The 46 year-old’s dream only started to become a reality last year when she managed to charter one of the older generation IMOCA 60ft yachts off an Estonian whom she had met doing the Mini Transat and who had bought it with the intention of racing it himself. It was, by Hare’s own admission, a “really, really cheap deal”.
Hare managed to get her campaign going thanks to crowdfunding, backing from a business syndicate, and deals with suppliers local to her base in Poole. She then successfully completed last year’s Bermudes 1000, Rolex Fastnet and Transat Jacques Vabres, banking the necessary qualification miles in the process to satisfy race organisers that she was competent. Everything was going swimmingly. Then coronavirus hit.
While most of her existing backers have reconfirmed their commitment to her campaign she needs more sponsorship if she is going to be back on the water once lockdown is eased. Most of her fellow competitors, the vast majority of them based in France, are expected to be out sailing from May 11.
“It’s really hard,” she said. “I’d very much like to upgrade my autopilot and some of the electronics on board. That would give me increased reliability as well as effective performance while I’m sleeping.
“The real big budget stuff is the sails. And then on top of that there is a working budget which allows me to tell my story as I go round. The sat-comms bill is not insignificant and the more I have to spend on that the more I’ll be able to deliver in terms of race coverage and sharing my story. I feel it’s a great investment for the right sponsor.”
Hare feels her campaign offers value for money to sponsors but admits she finds it frustrating that her sport attracts such little coverage. The Vendee Globe is undoubtedly one of the greatest sporting challenges on earth, and a great story for these troubled times. Solo ocean sailing, she points out, is perfectly suited to social distancing, with the skippers at times nearer to the international space station than any land mass.
It's also due to actually take place.
“The Vendee is one of very few major sports events this year which can say with some certainty that it is going ahead,” she said. “Yet every morning when I listen to the sports news all I hear about are things that aren’t happening and footballers’ salaries. I just think surely right now, however small they are, we should be including in the sports news things that are happening.
"Conventional sport will start up again, that is for sure, but in the meantime we have a window to showcase some other athletes and other sports and diversify our consumption of sport."
Despite the uncertainty, Hare says she is trying to remain positive. She is burning off excess energy by "running loads", working her way up to a full lockdown marathon having already run a half-marathon and a three-quarter marathon in the last couple of weeks. And she "throws kettlebells around the garden" when she isn't running.
"I’m also doing online French lessons for my friends’ kids. I'm not sure where it ends as I keep making every lesson bigger and better, printing out menus, playing bingo. This week we did 'At the restaurant'. I dressed up as a snooty French waiter and then ignored them a lot."
Hare remains “100 per cent convinced” she will make it to Les Sables d’Olonne in November.
If needs be, she says she will complete the refit herself over the summer with friends and volunteers, many of whom were already donating their time and effort before lockdown hit.
“People I’d never even met before would come down and sand the boat,” she said. “Somebody brought their 80 year old mother down and she just pottered around and cleaned the shed up. I don’t want to let them down.
"Everything has slowed down a bit because of coronavirus but I know I’m going to make it. I come down to the sea here every day and I look out and I can imagine being out there. It’s just going to be amazing."