Into the Roar: a sailor's love affair with the Southern Ocean

Going into the Southern Ocean is something that a lot of sailors dream of: we fear it, we love it, we also loathe it. Every time I return from sailing down there - having witnessed the brutal, unfiltered power of the ocean - I can’t stop thinking about coming back and experiencing it all once again.

Not many people visit the vast expanse of water that wraps around Antarctica. Nowhere else in the world will you surf waves that big, never sail with wind that strong, never live in such wet, cold, and icy conditions, and never see albatrosses gliding alongside you so effortlessly. It’s a special place, it’s scary at times, and I very much hope I can go back there one day.

I’ve been glued to the Vendée Globe tracker for the solo, non-stop race around the world for the last 32 days, and it’s been really interesting to follow a race that I dream to be part of in few years’ time.

My ambition is to be on the startline of the next edition of the Vendée Globe in 2028 and so I’m trying to follow it not only as a sailing fan but also with an eye on the performance of the boats, the choices the skippers are making, the way they are pushing their boats, and how they are positioning themselves in what we sailors call, ‘the big south’.

In the 2017-18 edition of The Ocean Race - the crewed and stopping race around the world - I experienced the Southern Ocean for the first time in the leg from Cape Town, South Africa to Melbourne, Australia. I’ve been privileged enough to be one of the few who has sailed past the three big Capes - Good Hope, Leeuwin, and Cape Horn - once already, but doing it with fellow crew members is a very different story to being solo.

I remember leaving Cape Town in 2017 with Turn the Tide on Plastic, destination Melbourne, Australia, and how tough it was to sail in the Agulhas Current with really steep waves, a crossed sea-state, and strong winds … potential boat-breaking conditions! That year the forecast showed a strong depression in the Indian Ocean and our skipper - Dee Caffari - decided to take a northerly route to avoid the worst of it. We were a young team with little to no experience in the big south and our primary objective was to finish the leg with the boat and crew in one piece. Other teams decided to be bolder and get into the thick of the action - a few came out stronger and well ahead of the rest of the fleet, but others had damage that ended their ambitions of a competitive result. In sailboat racing you have to balance performance with safety all the time.

I remember that December so well as it was the first time I had spent a big holiday at sea. There was a nice moment on Christmas Day where we opened little presents hidden onboard by our shore team (mainly yummy chocolate) and we watched a few videos from our families back ashore. The skippers in the Vendée Globe will have a similar experience in a few days, but in a more lonely celebration all alone and without the anticipation of being on land in few days time: they have another month or so of racing before they are back in Les Sables d’Olonne, France.

After leaving Melbourne, we headed north on a ‘quick’ tour of Asia with two stopovers in Guangzhou, China, and Hong Kong, before heading back to the Southern Hemisphere and having a longer, three-week stopover in Auckland, New Zealand. This was the chance for the shore team to work on our boat and for us to physically rest and prepare ourselves before we set off for the biggest challenge in ocean sailing: the Southern Ocean, a gruelling 20-day leg from Auckland, New Zealand, to Itajaí, Brazil.

What was ahead of us was a massive unknown for me and for most of our team, you could feel the nerves getting closer to the start. My girlfriend of the time (now my WIFE!) gave me a necklace the morning of the start and simply told me “enjoy and please don’t die”; I took both requests really seriously.

I have never experienced a similar sailing experience in my life. The waves are relentless - long and massive, over 10 meters at times - and the weather depressions are ferocious with 40-45 knots of wind [74-84 kmph, 46-51mph]. Life onboard is challenging, it’s so cold all the time and after a few days there was no way to get your clothing dry. I was sleeping with my hat, socks, and baselayer on in the sleeping bag, hoping my body heat would at least dry them a bit. Most of the time it was just wishful thinking! It was also hard to move around the boat without being thrown about, and we’d be covered in knocks and bruises.

I can’t say I did enjoy it all the time and it felt such a relief to be rounding Cape Horn, you are finally outside the hell of the last two weeks. I thought I would never want to be in the Southern Ocean ever again.

But, after arriving to an incredibly vibrant and musical welcome in Brazil, and with a few caipirinhas inside me, I was already thinking that it was not that terrible in the end … and it might be ok to go back there one day. Amazing how short-lived memories can be …!

I have such a lot of respect for my good friends across this Vendée Globe fleet, Juju [Justine Mettraux], Nico [Lunven], Boris [Herrmann], and Sam [Davies] to name just a few - it’s hard to stay impartial! To be on the startline in 2028 alongside them, and others, would be the most incredible dream come true. Perhaps I will experience the fearsome Southern Ocean once again…