We left off last month with Erica in Australia after some epic sailing in the Indian Ocean, when she came ashore in Sydney.
Coop: Ah, my hometown. What happened after the cold beer and hot shower?
EL: I was involved with the Maiden program on and off for five years during the first two World Tours, right up to the Ocean Globe Race. At the time we’re talking about, I left the boat in Sydney and rejoined in San Francisco. From there we transited the Panama Canal and sailed to the Caribbean, did some racing there. The program came to a halt with Covid. After that, we shipped the boat to Dubai and did some sailing there for a couple months. We sailed back through the Gulf of Aden, Red Sea, Suez Canal, the Med, and to Miami.
Coop: You’ve probably heard about when Tracy and crew sailed into Miami during the Whitbread, finishing in bikinis.
EL: Oh, yes. That got a lot of attention. We did a similar bathing suit shoot rounding Cape Horn in the Ocean Globe Race, but with our PFDs on so as to not give the wrong impression. I skippered Maiden into Newport, which was really cool.
Coop: When did you start thinking about shorthanded sailing?
EL: Liz, one of the skippers on Maiden, told me about La Solitaire du Figaro and I became super-interested, but she said they’d never take anyone who was not French. “I got in,” she said, “but I lived in France and speak fluent French.” I thought, “Wow, that would be really cool,” but it did not seem possible for an American to participate, so I started on my own shorthanded sailing pathway. At that point I thought solo sailing was a bit mad – I did not think I could not sleep. I was also concerned about sleeping during a doublehanded overnighter, but was very happy to try anyway.
I’ve been sailing doublehanded since 2020, when I did a race with Oakcliff. And actually, the first American did compete in the Figaro that year, with Jesse Fielding and Francesca Clapcich (Italian born and now a naturalized American), sailing under the State Street colors. The following year, (with the deflation of the Olympic Co-Ed Offshore event – Coop), these boats went back to their owners, one of whom is Malcom Geftner, who lives in Newport. I ended up running his boat for him, and that that was my first racing experience on the Figaro 3.
Coop: Do I remember you doing some sailing with Tim Kent on his Class40?
EL: Yes. We did the Bermuda Shorthanded Return in 2022. We entered the 2024 Newport Bermuda Race, but had to retire with broken sails. And we raced in the Offshore Double-handed World Championship last fall, thanks to the support of the NYYC Performance Sailing Fund.
Coop: Where are you now with Solitaire du Figaro planning?
EL: This race has been turning over in my mind for several years, but I pulled the trigger last March when I returned from the Ocean Globe Race. Prior to that I’d been looking at one of the round-the-world races in a Class40, but the timeline and budget didn’t seem attainable as a first project. I thought it preferable to do something on a smaller scale and smaller budget, which is still a huge development opportunity. Being a one-design event, the Figaro has a lot of learning opportunities, and sailing by yourself,you have control over a lot of variables. I scheduled last year to developing marketing materials and learning about corporate outreach and related tasks. I’ll say I did not know how much there was to learn about this. I’ve learned a lot, but there’s much more. At the moment I’m really pushing to find some private donations to get started. I hope to be able to start telling the story and making it more tangible and appealing to corporate sponsors. That – and to have a business model for American sailors to advance with – is the end goal.
I’ve created a minimum viable budget, vetted it with several reliable sources, and broken it down into phases. Phase One is training, Phase Two is the qualification period, and Phrase Three is the main competition in August and September. So, hopefully getting donations or pledges for Phase One will be a concrete step towards the main goal.
Coop: What’s your success rate in approaching corporate sponsors? Are you getting any traction?
EL: (Chuckles) I have not been in a boardroom yet. It usually gets passed along. I will say I was not really happy with the marketing materials until late summer. At that point I was working for a team doing the Solitaire, in order to understand it better myself. There is of course the language barrier. I was to do the year over again, I would’ve found a way to start approaching sponsors sooner, with stronger materials.
Coop: Where are you training?
EL: I started training in the Bay of Biscay in January.
Coop: Oh, are you going to one of the Poles? (The dedicated French solo training schools, of which there are half a dozen or so.)
EL: Yes, provided I can secure the funding I’ll be at Lorient Grand Large.
Coop: Yikes, you’ll be right in the thick of it. (L.G.L is the Harvard of the Poles. A repurposed waterfront using German Submarine bases from WWII. It’s like condensed Rhode Island Marine Trades industry on steroids in terms of its sailing ecosystem.)
EL: Yes, right in the thick of it. I think the only way to do something like this, in a way that you’re not just chasing your tail, is to immerse yourself straight into it.
Coop: Your French must be improving in leaps and bounds…
EL: It is certainly improving. There is always more to go with language learning. It helps that my degree is in Linguistics, so I have a good framework for learning languages.
Coop: How is the size of the fleet managed? Is there a cap on entries, like the Mini Transat or the most recent Vendée Globe, or do you get invited or need to qualify in some way?
EL: Entry is by qualifications. You need to do two qualifying races. There is a formula based on time. Using the time the winner took to finish, a percentage of the winner’s time gives you a time band in which you may finish.
Coop: Have you started to make friends with the others in the Pole? There must be a collection of first-time aspirants sailing there? Perhaps no Americans but there are always some British sailors aiming at this event, or Italians, Germans, Swiss…? Despite the French being the Royalty in this genre, is there a bit of a UN forming?
EL: Oh, yes. In Lorient just now there is a whole pile of us, from many different countries. I know a lot of them from The Magenta Project, which has been an amazing project, between Minis, 40s and Figaro 3s, and some girls working in IMOCA programs. There are a whole lot of us chasing this dream full-time.
Coop: Have you had the opportunity to do any sailing on the MerConcept Med 50s, the 50-foot tris? (Upwind by Mer Concept Sponsored by 11h Hour Racing was established to develop opportunities and experience for high performance offshore women sailors. It’s led by Francesca Clapcich.)
EL: No, I was not selected, but it’s a great program.
Coop: Have you thought about pushing your periscope a bit higher and looking at something beyond the Figaro du Solitaire? This regatta is well known as (one of the major) breeding ground for successful Vendée Globe sailors. Is that on your white board?
EL: Yes, the Vendée’s definitely an interest. In reality, that would be a 2032 program. That would be the goal, and it’s not a small goal either. Not only is it difficult to complete, but it’s also difficult to get to the starting line…and it is not inexpensive. Right now, I have about 6,000 offshore miles on IMOCAs and I’ve worked on them as well. I worked on Canada Ocean Racing for most of one year and then for two or three months on L’Occitane en Provence, with Clarisse Cremer (who recently finished 11th in her second Vendée Globe. – Coop)
Coop: All good Padawan learning stuff. Erica, thank you. It’s been great talking with you. Good luck with the project. We’ll be watching with great interest.
EL: Thank you, Coop. I appreciate the opportunity to tell the story.
To follow Erica and support her campaign, visit lushsailing.com. ■
