HARD CHOICES

IN AN EXCLUSIVE EXTRACT FROM HER NEW BOOK, PIP HARE REVEALS WHAT DROVE HER ON WHILE RACING THROUGH THE SOUTHERN OCEAN IN THE 2020 VENDÉE GLOBE.

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There were many reasons to fear my passage through the Southern Ocean, and how it might once and for all expose me as not quite the individual I aspired to be.

The vastness of the ocean hangs heavy on the human mind. I'd managed my first month of progress down the Atlantic by breaking my journey into phases related to weather transitions. Each phase of the Atlantic had taken five or six days, and after completing one I'd move quickly on to the next.

The Southern Ocean would be different, I knew that. It would be six or seven weeks of the toughest sailing of my life, accompanied by the kind of oppressive grey cloud cover that hangs heavy over even the brightest of temperaments, so consistent and opaque that it was impossible to tell what time of day it was. There would be week-long stretches where I would never see the sun.

On those days the damp and cold worked its way through every item of clothing into the core of my body, making it feel like I would never be warm again. Working on deck was the greatest physical and mental challenge.