At first glance, it is not attractive. After half an hour’s sleep and keeping a sailboat for seven months and powdered meal mixed with water, after a while you have to rest in a bucket with your teammates less than a meter away. The question we asked British Annie Lush was essentially: Why?

“It’s very long and brutal. What sets it apart from other long sailing events is that it’s not a single event. I can’t think of any other team sporting event that’s as tough as this. It’s very intense for six months. The team is stuck in a small space in the most extreme conditions on the planet. This is the ultimate test.”

Lush’s class teams will cover around 23,000 nautical miles during the race. These are divided into seven stages completed around the world. This is Lush’s third entry in the race after the 2014/2015 and 2017/2018 editions. At that time he was part of teams of eleven and nine sailors.

This year, however, things will be different, and Lush will form a crew of four sailors and a media reporter. It has it all with the new characteristics of sailing yachts. As the boat is called, a process in which the boat hovers above the boat instead of actually entering the water, the crew must be as light as possible.

No holiday

“I think people who think of sailing imagine you’re sitting on a boat with a gin and tonic, but that’s not the case. It’s basically about you racing all the time, and there’s no breaks, no time to sleep,” he explains. green.

As a result, a cycle has been devised where sailors can work three hours straight on deck and rest for an hour and a half below, Lush says: “A 90-minute break doesn’t mean you can sleep. 90 minutes. You also have to eat there, maybe there’s something to be repaired. There’s a medical aspect or other things like organizing food.” There are tasks for everyone.”

“There’s an exaggerated description of a small space below deck where you can’t stand and you essentially have to crawl to avoid being pushed out by an unexpected wave. The galley is a kettle in the wall and the food is definitely not ship standard. The ship. Food is also available to astronauts.”

“There are good freeze-dried foods that the military uses, but not this one. After eating it’s time to sleep, but it’s not easy to sleep on a boat flying over the waves, because you always fall off the bed, so you have to lie on the floor and sleep.”

There are no toilets on board

Insomnia isn’t the only drawback on board. Not even a toilet: “You get to know each other better when you’re at sea for a month. Wherever you go on a boat, there’s always someone there.”

This year will be extra special, with the longest stage schedule in the race’s history. It departs from Cape Town after traveling under Australia and New Zealand and finally ends in Itajai, Brazil.

Lush looks forward to this morning: “I don’t have to get dressed, I don’t have to worry about what I’m going to eat, I don’t have to manage, I can’t read emails. I don’t have a phone, I don’t worry about everyday things. I try to work on the boat.”

Why does Lush love Ocean Race so much? :”You learn about yourself, and that’s usually not a good thing. You learn a lot about other people, too, and that’s fascinating. There’s something about being so far from the beach and watching every sunrise and sunset for a month and stargazing. We’re so lucky to be able to do this.” “

“We’re going to extremes, and it’s hard to live in places like that. There are times when I think the albatross are laughing at us. They fly there without a problem, while we’re all completely demolished. Try to bring new technology and products, but for many people that kind of You don’t get a chance to see things.”

Where are you looking?