As the 2022 Route du Rhum approaches, we take a look at some of the top names set to compete in the race. We take a look at Pip Hare’s chancesRichard Langdon\/Ocean Images \/Pip Hare Ocean RacingPip Hare is a British professional sailor and solo skipper, and the 8th woman ever to finish the Vend\u00e9e Globe. She needs little introduction to regular readers of Yachting World, as a regular writer and boat tester on these pages.
\nPip Hare grew up in landlocked Cambridgeshire but spent many holidays and weekends cruising aboard the family\u2019s Folkboat, and later a Moody 33 moored on the River Deben near Ipswich. She read extensively about the Whitbread Round the World Race, and the achievements of solo skippers like Isabelle Autissier and later Ellen MacArthur, and realised from an early age that she wanted race across oceans.
\nShe has been working in sailing for over 25 years, as an instructor, coach and race skipper. She also cruised \u2013 on and off, around sailing work \u2013 for eight years while living aboard her Lightwave 395 The Shed, completing many short-handed ocean crossings.
\nHowever, it wasn\u2019t until 2009 that Hare first moved into solo racing, aged 35, sailing The Shed in the OSTAR singlehanded race from Plymouth to Newport, RI. Her preparation for that first single-handed race including delivering The Shed back from Uruguay to the UK on her own, a passage which took 58 days.
\nPip then moved into the Mini Transat class, competing in the solo transatlantic in 2011 (aboard a Mini 6.50 named The Potting Shed)\u00a0and 2013.
\nSwiftly working her way through the ranks, she moved into the Class 40s, and finished 9th in the double-handed Transat Jacques Vabre in 2015. She campaigned in the Class 40 fleet for many years, also working as a coach with other teams.
\nThe ultimate goal for any solo sailor is typically the Vend\u00e9e Globe\u00a0non-stop around the world race, which departs every four years from Les Sables-d\u2019Olonne. Pip Hare set out to join the hallowed ranks of Vend\u00e9e skippers in 2018, committing to take part in her first Vend\u00e9e Globe aged 46, at the time with no sponsor and no IMOCA experience, and an old, early generation boat which she had chartered.
\nThe route to the Vend\u00e9e is a tough one and for many the hardest race is simply to get to the start. Hare\u2019s incredible determination got her there with a tiny budget and a support team made up of volunteers and friends, but in June 2020 she secured Medallia as a title sponsor for the Vend\u00e9e Globe campaign, allowing her to finally recruit a small team in preparation for the start in November 2020.
\nIn her own words, Pip says she had to: \u201cjust make it happen, force a campaign into existence and not be fussy about what I had. I just wanted to experience the [Vend\u00e9e Globe] and show potential sponsors that I was worth backing.\u201d
\nNo one was more surprised than Pip Hare when Leslie Stretch,\u00a0CEO of software company Medallia, stepped in to sponsor her 2020 Vend\u00e9e Globe campaign, just months before the race start.
\nShe admits she had been Googling \u2018How do you go bankrupt\u2019 just days before Stretch contacted her with an offer.\u00a0A keen solo sailor who keeps a Beneteau 41.1 in San Francisco Bay, Stretch said Hare\u2018s track record as \u2018an intrepid offshore sailor\u2019 meant sponsoring her campaign to race around the world in a 1999 vintage IMOCA 60 was an opportunity he couldn\u2019t pass up, and \u2018it was an easy choice to sponsor her again in 2024.\u2019
\nHare sailed an impressive 2020-21 Vend\u00e9e Globe, despite the challenges of her IMOCA 60 (the former\u00a0Superbigou\u00a0built by Bernard Stamm), which was well known to be one of the hardest to sail in the fleet \u2013 with halyards led to the mast base, a block and tackle canting keel system, no foils, and little in the way of cockpit protection.
\nShe finished in\u00a019th position, with a final time of 95d 11hr. Despite sailing the\u00a0second-oldest boat in the fleet she finished within a few hours of the two closest foilers ahead (Alan Roura\u2019s\u00a0La Fabrique\u00a0in 17th, and St\u00e9phane le Diraison on\u00a0Time for Oceans).
\nOn her Vend\u00e9e Hare suffered power generation issues, lost her wind instruments, and even had to replace a rudder mid-ocean in the Pacific.
\nHowever, she also proved herself a fantastic communicator during the race, turning the skills she regularly utilises in writing for Yachting World to share the emotional rollercoaster of a Vend\u00e9e Globe campaign with a non-sailing audience. Her blog posts from the race captured her raw, unfiltered enthusiasm for what it feels like to achieve a lifetime dream, and inspired many followers.
\nHer ability to drive every ounce of performance from her boat, meanwhile, proved she would be capable of much improved results with the right machinery underneath her.
\nPip Hare now has a foiling IMOCA 60 having completed the 2020-21 Vend\u00e9e Globe on a 1999 vintage boat.
\nIMOCA 60 Medallia
\nSail number: GBR 77
\nDesigner: VPLP \u2013 Verdier
\nBuilder:: CDK Technologies, Port-La-For\u00eat
\nYear: 2015
\nLWL: 18,.28 m
\nBeam: 5.80 m
\nDraught: 4.5 m
\nDisplacement: 6.5 tonnes
\nFoils: Yes, 2020 generation, new ones in build
\nFollowing the huge success of their original partnership, Medallia backed Hare again for a second Vendee Globe in the 2024-25 race.
\nCEO Leslie Stretch had asked Pip mid-race on the race\u2019s live video show: \u201cWhat\u2019s next Pip? Let\u2019s get to the end and then let\u2019s go shopping for a new boat, shall we??\u201d \u2013 on her return they did just that, buying the fastest boat ever to complete the Vend\u00e9e Globe.
\nLaunched in 2015 as Banque Populaire, the new Medallia comes with an impressive history. It was one of the first generation of yachts that were built specifically to foil, and it won the Vend\u00e9e Globe for Armel Le Cl\u00e9ac\u2019h in 2016, setting an unbroken course record of 74 days.
\nIn the 2020 Vend\u00e9e Globe it competed as Bureau Vall\u00e9e with\u00a0skipper Louis Burton, placing an impressive 3rd despite Burton having to stop and reattach a mast track among other repairs.
\nPip took ownership of her new IMOCA 60 in 2021 and has spent the past year learning how to get the most out of a foiling IMOCA. She has new, larger foils in build as part of her ongoing optimisation and development programme for the boat.
\nAlthough she has a wealth of ocean racing experience, Hare will take on the Route du Rhum for the first time in 2022 and will be hoping to demonstrate her potential in a new foiling IMOCA 60 whilst also critically securing qualification miles for her second Vend\u00e9e Globe.
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As the 2022 Route du Rhum approaches, we take a look at some of the top names set to compete in the race. We take a look at Pip Hare’s chancesRichard Langdon\/Ocean Images \/Pip Hare Ocean RacingPip Hare is a … <\/p>\n