Phil Sharp and the Artemis Academy

 Phil Sharp's return to the Figaro Class

It has somehow been two and a half years now since my last major offshore race in which I competed in the double-handed Figaro transatlantic, the Transat AG2R. Now things are back in full tilt once again after having joined the new Artemis Offshore Academy, the first structured program of its kind for offshore racing that has been put together in the UK aiming long-term at helping put British sailors on the podium of the famous Vendée Globe round the world race.

With a firm objective to be on the startline of the next Vendée in 2012, this is an ideal opportunity for me to develop my solo sailing in a competitive team environment working from the ground up in a similar structure to the highly successful GBR Olympic programs. The focus over the coming winter will be to work hard on performance in order to claim the scholarship prize to be awarded at the end of March to one squad member. The winner of this will compete in the Solitaire du Figaro next summer, the effective Solo Sailing World Championship that consists of a four offshore legs of between 400 and 500 miles long around the coast of northwest France, as well as a stopover in Dun Loaghaire, Ireland. In parallel to this I will continue to build my IMOCA 60 ft monohull campaign over the winter, for which I am in the search for a title sponsor in order to progress to this premier class of ocean racing.
We recently completed an exciting first few weeks of training in the academy which marked the end of the UK-based introductory program before things kick off at the winter training camp down in the south of France next week in La Grande Motte, near Montpellier.

The first week of the course was like being back at school, with lessons on sea survival, first aid, navigation software and even French lessons. The first aid course most definitely gave me one of the biggest tests to date, where we had to pair up and inject hypodermic needles into each others arms. Normal I'm scared stiff when I have to go to the hospital for a jab, so the experience of having a novice as petrified as me trying to stab a large needle into one of my vital blood vessels is not one I'll be repeating!

Figaro Championship, UK Nationals.

The second and third week primarily focussed towards getting to grips with the 33 ft Figaro racing yachts, with the highlight of this being the first edition of the UK Figaro Nationals, a three day racing series which gave the squad the opportunity to line up against each other in a racing environment for the first time after only a few days training. I was paired up with Simon Hiscocks for the event, a two-times Olympic medallist who has come from the 49er inshore skiff circuit. We took it in turns to swap between helming and crewing for the three day event, which included a 35 mile offshore race on the Saturday in very light airs, where quite often we were drifting backwards in the tide rather than progressing to the next mark! Coming from two very different sailing backgrounds we found we had a good mix of skills on the boat which seemed to pay to our advantage. We were very pleased to win overall, just ahead of Nick Cherry and Nick Houchin who recently won the UK match racing nationals. Following on from this positive start to the programme, there is a lot of training to do over the winter months to get up to speed with the French. Throughout the winter we'll be training against 18 other French skippers on the water, competing in a series of coastal and offshore races, and drinking only strong black coffee in order to turn us into Figaro sailors as rapidly as possible!

Look forward to updating you with things early in the New Year,

Cheers,

Phil

www.sharpracing.co.uk