A life on the ocean wave – Part II
Renowned Maxi and oceanic racing navigator Will Oxley reflects on sleep, preparation, and on staying in one piece while racing today’s fastest, super-powerful offshore giants
Comanche days Seahorse: You have now had several suc- cessful seasons with Comanche; she’s a beast of a boat that brings all sorts of new considerations even stepping up from a Volvo 70. Until the 125ft Skorpios appeared she was surely the most powerful racing monohull of all time? Will Oxley: It was interesting, coming from the world of handicap racing, to join a group of people and a race programme that is totally focused on line honours vic- tories; that said, in the 2021 Middle Sea Race we saw perfect conditions as we went downwind all the way in a circular race! We managed to make good calls at the
54 SEAHORSE
right times, broke the course record, took line honours on our ‘little’ 100-footer against the much larger Skorpios, and as a bonus we also won that one on handicap. Just occasionally we could do it all… Then after the 2022 Middle Sea Race
we did the Rolex Transatlantic, which was initially just going to be a delivery… Then as we were going so well things began to get serious, but there still wasn’t a huge amount of pressure. That one worked out too and so we got the record and won on handicap – again unexpected! Then we did the Caribbean 600, and we gave Skorpios a good nudge there. They beat us but not by much; we finished second on handicap to a TP52, Warrior One. So not bad for a line honours programme. SH: And the key decision makers in that programme? WO: To be fair to some of our competi- tion, we really do have a ‘strong’ after- guard… Mitch Booth, Kyle Langford, Tom Slingsby. So you’d really expect us to do reasonably well.
SH: You spoke previously of your per- sonal sleep patterns. What is important? WO: The transatlantic was a seven-day race – a lot ‘longer’ than a three-day race, and so after three days I try to get a longer period of sleep to reset. There has been a lot of research here and it shows that after working a five-day week people really benefit from a two-day rest period (5:2); and it is a similar concept where you have to get a bit of a break offshore to reset. My sleep cycle is about 90 minutes, and
I can either have a 20-minute nap and I am good, or I can roll through to 90 minutes. If I get woken up after an hour – which is often – it is harder on me. So when we are in the fun stuff – steer this course and let it rip – I disappear for that 90-minute sleep. The overall tally is that I am getting
about four and a half hours in 24, and I can do that for three days; but then I need to try for six or seven hours’ sleep in 24. That may or may not happen, but if I can pass information on to someone else and try for a bit longer sleep, to recharge and
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