Nigel King talks to the Solitaire du Figaro about his race this year and competing against offshore sailing and Figaro legends…
On his race this year: “It’s not the race I’ve hoped for, the race I would have liked to have but the reality is that you need to understand how hard this race is. Once you’ve finished you sit back you get that it wasn’t very straightforward, it was not easy and clearly there were some things that were not the way I wanted them to be. But that’s the lesson the Solitaire is always giving. The important thing is to get to the finish and learn the lesson and make plans to come back again. The best lesson I’ve learnt is that I arrived too tired, too much work beforehand and a lot of my preparation was disrupted with problems and mentally I arrived too tired. If you are not 100% then the race is way too hard to do well. Also I was physically tired so that’s not good as well. Preparation is everything, you have to spend time on the water and time relaxing making sure you turn up at the best, fresh.
“I think the French they have much more understanding of what is required and I thought I understood, but the reality is that every time you turn up you realise more is required. Also, this time around more and more good skippers turned up, better and better prepared and in one of the preparation races you can be 20 or 30 minutes behind Jérémie Beyou and you come second. At the Solitaire you do the same and you come 33rd! All the British sailors are good but we still have a lot of time to work on the preparation and understanding the details of solo offshore over this kind of courses like the Figaro…”
On why he’s so fascinated by the race: “I keep coming back to the Solitaire, because I’m not very bright (he laughs). There is something… it’s the complete race, it is so hard to describe to someone what is the Solitaire du Figaro until they’ve seen it. You come here as a reasonably good sailor and you have to addd so much more to your skills to be able to be successful. And on top of that, it’s got to be your year. There are a lot of guys here that are potential winners and finished in the thirties either in a leg or overall. Its one of those races where you can do everything you can do to put yourself in that top bunch and still come 30th, sit back and say “what did I do wrong?” we didn’t do that much wrong but the others did it better. This is the general fascination with the Solitaire, the quality of the sailing, and add the solo, short course racing. We were discussing last night about the part of the Chenal du Four, how crazy it was… so many crosses, you couldn’t see the boats and I though this is the craziest thing I’ve ever done. What madness. You look at it and you think this sis crazy but then it’s quite cool to be involved. When I finished the leg I thought it was not the result I wanted but from an experience point of view this is very cool. The overall fascination with this race is that once you’re in it it’s very hard to hear someone saying I don’t want to be here. I don’t want to miss out something that’s pretty special.”
On whether he’s proud of having raced the Solitaire: “I’m happy to be finished, I don’t know if proud is the right word. But you’re in a very privileged company. I think we get carried away on how important the result is, while the reality is that being among this lot is just this special. One of the things that is stuck in my head is that when we finished yesterday, finished in the thirties Jean-Paul Moren (the French skipper at his 25th participation) walked past and he said “you made a very nice race”. I figure he knows what he’s talking about… he’s been in front, he’s a very good sailor. When you’re not actually in the moment you can’t apply in the right perspective what you’re looking at, if someone else is making a comment like that you get a bit more realistic about it all. Probably I was a bit unrealistic in my expectations for the race because I like to challenge myself. I learned a huge amount, I understand much more about the Figaro than I did in 2009 and in 2007. So next year we come back and we tried with a little bit more understanding. Maybe it will take five places higher, maybe ten places higher. Keep trying… Apart from the sailing the Solitaire is an experience, a feeling, an emotion and it would be nice for me to be more involved in that. I asked Jean-Paul Mouren the question if he enjoys race 25 as he enjoyed race one and he answered “yes I have no chance of winning but it makes a very nice family” and I guess it’s a good way of putting it, he feels a part of something and he wants to go on being a part of it. That’s what the Solitaire does to you, it’s more than just a boat race I want to go to, something you feel emotionally attached to.”
Did you learn a new word in French during the race? “Not one I can tell you now!”
