Grant Reports

Translated 9 is a sailing project supported by the Italian company Translated with an aim of completing in the 2023/24 Ocean Globe Race (OGR) on a Swan 65(ex ADC Accutrac) originally skippered by Clare Francis in the 1977/78 Whitbread Round the World Race.

This September the OGR fleet will start out of Southampton and will complete the 27,000nm circumnavigation race using celestial navigation and other equipment used within the original Whitbread races with no modern navigation equipment or weather forecasting software, sailing first to South Africa (Cape Town), stopping in both Australia and New Zealand (Auckland), and after rounding Cape Horn, heading to South America (Punta del Este) before returning to Southampton in spring 2024.

The final race tea will be formed of 30% professional and 70% non-professional crew, applications opened at the beginning of 2022, and I applied with the hope of joining team for the first round of selections in May and June 2022. With over 1400 people applying from around the world, I was lucky to be selected for the first round of selections with 150 others in Porto di Cala Galera, Italy where I was then selected for the second round of selections.

Due to delays with boat refit and finding time around the final year of my degree, I then travelled to Cascais, Portugal for my final selection and training for the Ocean Globe Race on Translated 9 this April 2023 for 3 days sailing on board the boat.

Vittorio and Nico Malingri, from the legendary Italian ocean sailing family, with Vittorio as Co-Skipper and Technical Manager, and Nico as Chief Mate, formed part of the professional crew on board, joined by Translated owner Marco Trombetti, acting as Co-Skipper and Team Manager who will also be completing. Alongside these seven sailors from various backgrounds and nationalities including myself, joined the training on board, with sailors coming from Italy, Turkey, France, Spain and the United Kingdom, the majority being under 25 years old. Additionally, we were joined by professional sailing photographer Carlo Borlenghi and his team as well as Translated employees also taking part in the Translated 9 project.

The training was a great eye opener as it was the largest boat I have been on, so working out how to complete processes safely in an environment that may be miles offshore was important. With a range of wind from 10 to 25 knots, some fantastic sailing took place, enjoying the Atlantic swell off the coast of Portugal. The hardest part of the training was getting the communication right, as everyone on the boat spoke a different language it meant every process had to be discussed through and checked that everyone fully understood, exchanging different variations of names of things on the boat and double checking before every maneuver. Overall, this arguably made the sailing better, as this greater focus on communication made for a more cohesive team and formed a great environment to discuss different ways of doing things on the boat found through the different backgrounds of the sailors on board. It was hard work, with every sail being bigger and every rope containing more load than I have dealt with before. It was a constant learning curve that was mentally and physically arduous but made my overall enthusiasm for the challenge even greater.

The support from the Royal Southern Yacht Club allowed me to travel out to this training, which by the end of the 3 days, I had learnt so much with the support of Vittorio and Nico on board as well as the other sailors and has given me new insight into ocean sailing. The team and the environment were incredibly supportive, and it was amazing to meet people with the same dream of offshore and ocean sailing from around the world, and I look forward to seeing where the next steps in this process will take me and seeing if I will be able to compete in the Ocean Globe Race in 2023.