News Around the World
The closest offshore races are often won or lost right at the end, especially racing in tidal waters. The famous advice of Jules Verne winner Bruno Peyron applies even more so racing shorthanded, when exhaustion, cold and a lack of good food can turn a promising race into a disastrous final result… ‘Eat before you are hungry, rest before you are tired and add layers before you get cold and wet’
‘I knew we were in trouble,’ recalls Thomson, ‘but we fought back
on the final leg and got ourselves into this great position where we could gybe for the finish and still possibly overtake – except we still had to get rid of our penalty.’ Instead of resigning themselves to an honourable defeat the
women dialled up the aggression and tried to force Williams into an equalising penalty. ‘At that point it was a case of throwing everything at the wall and hoping something would stick,’ Thomson laughs. ‘It didn’t pay off, but we had to try it.’ Having proved that women can compete with men at the highest
levels of match racing, Thomson is now keen to see more such opportunities. The physical strength imbalance could be redressed by allowing women to sail with one more crew and she also argues for a change in the weight limits for women. ‘The average weight from generation to generation is going up,
but for women’s match race teams we are still working with 68kg as the average across a crew of five, which can be quite a challenge. It often means some hard dieting a week before weigh-in – and that certainly doesn’t help with strength and stamina when you are up against the best men’s crews.’ While match racing continues to occupy Thomson’s energy and
ambitions, she is aware of other opportunities opening up for women, not least in the America’s Cup and The Ocean Race. ‘I have tried a bit of foiling here and there, but I have not given it enough time to get competent,’ she says of the America’s Cup option. ‘But I am always tempted to get out there and up my foiling skills… We’ll see.’ As for ocean racing, she woke up last year to find a text message
asking if she wanted to join Team Jajo on the 2,200-mile final leg of The Ocean Race. ‘That was a crazy opportunity,’ she says. ‘I thought they had the wrong number, but I called them back, then off I went. It was my first proper experience of ocean racing.’ Once again she thrived in a mixed-gender environment at the highest level. ‘I loved it – the whole team dynamic and always pushing to keep the boat moving as fast as possible. I would definitely like to do more.’ Back home for the New Zealand summer, Thomson could reflect
on two years of high achievement. ‘When they see what has been happening people say to me, “Oh, it must be a dream come true”. The truth is I never really dared to dream some of the things that have actually happened,’ she remarks.
30 SEAHORSE ‘I did not really see sailing as a career, especially for women. A
few women are making a living as pro sailors, but they work incredibly hard just to scrape through in the industry. At the same time it is exciting to see that now changing. We are seeing more and more opportunities, so I guess anything is possible.’ For Thomson and her team the results they have achieved are
all the more impressive given they are mostly part-timers. Thomson is the only one who has been sailing full-time, with the team mainly self-funded with support from various sports foundations and occasional private sponsorship. ‘Any prizemoney we earn goes straight back into the pot,’ she
says. ‘In three years of competing internationally we only just recently had our first trip away where all our expenses were being covered. Every one of us has invested a lot of our own money into making this work. ‘Now we are reviewing how we keep going next year,’ she says.
‘All the girls have jobs and mortgages or university degrees they need to focus on. A big lesson from this year was quality over quantity. We maybe spread ourselves too thin and tried to do too much.’ Meanwhile, Thomson’s summer break was not spent on the
beach basking in their success. Instead, she was hard at work on the sponsorship trail. ‘I treat it like a full-time job,’ she says. ‘Monday to Friday, I set up in a café and get on the phone cold-calling. ‘It would be nice to have somebody else doing that for us, but
in our case it is a matter of, if you don’t do it yourself it just ain’t going to happen.’ Ivor Wilkins
AUSTRALIA Garbage in, garbage out After finishing the brutal 2024 Sydney to Hobart Race in just over three days, co-skipper and owner of the doublehanded entry Disko Trooper-Contender Sailcloth Jules Hall said, ‘I could not face one more bag of dehydrated food – it tastes like cardboard…’ I know the feeling. Eighteen days into the four-week Cape Horn
leg of the BT Challenge, racing from Buenos Aires to Wellington, against the prevailing winds and currents, I was trying to eat the freeze-dried food and it just wasn’t happening. ‘The crew had decided to run with dehydrated food that had a very high fat content, leaving a lard-like metallic sheen floating on
JEAN-MARIE LIOT/DPPI
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