I spent three weeks working with the technical teams of 11th Hour Racing and Malizia to prepare the boat for the Transat Café de l’Or.
I joined them in Lorient, where the boat had just returned from the Ocean Race Europe. The first week was intense — long days filled with work to get everything back in order and ready for another Atlantic crossing.
On the first day, I arrived twenty minutes early. I spotted a tall man wearing a Malizia hoodie walking into the hangar and slipped in behind him. He turned out to be Olivier, the team’s rigger — someone who’s been working on IMOCA boats for thirty years. After a coffee and a short chat, he took me under his wing for the following days. From there, it was six full-on days working alongside him and Oakley, the team’s in-house rigger: we disassembled travelers, boom fittings, and blocks, replaced ropes, and checked every single sail — a meticulous job that really got me into the technical heart of the boat.
Midweek, Lou Clayton joined us — she’s also a mentee of Francesca Clapcich through the Magenta x IMOCA Female Leadership Development Programme. We immediately clicked, sharing that same mix of feeling out of our comfort zone and being eager to learn and understand everything as quickly as possible — with the humble goal of not looking completely lost on what truly feels like a “spaceship.”
When we finally went out sailing for the tests, all the hard work of the previous days paid off. There were six of us on board — a bit crowded — but the conditions were perfect: 10–14 knots and flat sea. It took us an hour to hoist the mainsail, unfurl the J2, and leave the Lorient channel — just enough time for a solid shoulder workout on the coffee grinder and to start recognizing all the halyards and sheets. When the boat started planing, my heart didn’t jump as I thought it would. I looked at the instruments, then lifted my head — for a moment, it felt like being inside a video game. Then we swapped roles, and I went forward to handle sail changes: sheets, tack, halyard... In the end, it’s still a boat — not a spaceship.
For the 400-mile delivery from Lorient to Le Havre, I wasn’t on board. Instead, I helped the rest of the team prepare everything to bring to Normandy and drove one of the vans for five hours through the beautiful French countryside.
The boat arrived in Le Havre at 6:30 a.m., and I was on the dock to catch the lines. That’s when the Transat Café de l’Or Race Village began. Fortunately, there was no damage during the delivery, so the following days were spent doing small jobs and cleaning — inside and out. And, of course, we couldn’t miss the “dock sail”: a kind of mainsail printed with Francesca Clapcich’s face, to be hoisted only under 12 knots — so yes, we used it maybe three times.
The Race Village in Le Havre was incredible — you could feel the emotions running along the docks among the giant ULTIMs, the dozens of Class40s, and the Ocean50s. It was an extremely inspiring environment and a great opportunity to meet people who share my same passion and work on the boats I’ve dreamed about for years.
I’m deeply grateful for this experience — especially to Francesca Clapcich, who made it possible through our connection with The Magenta Project. And a huge thank you to the entire 11th Hour Racing team, both technical and communications, for making me feel at home, even if only for a short while.