Giancarlo Pedote: “The aim is to feel at one with the boat again as quickly as possible”

Giancarlo Pedote: “The aim is to feel at one with the boat again as quickly as possible”

Immediately going in for refit in mid-December after returning from the Transat Jacques Vabre Normandie – Le Havre, some routine maintenance followed, which saw every part of Giancarlo Pedote’s IMOCA in the colours of Prysmian undergo a thorough check with all the necessary replacements being made prior to the boat being relaunched on 21 March. Now, Giancarlo is preparing to hit the racetrack again in the season opener that forms part of the build-up to the year’s main event, none other than the Vendée Globe. As such, for the upcoming season every hour and every mile on the water will be a precious asset going forward. Indeed, it will be a chance to test the machine and continue to make her as reliable as possible, as well as enabling the skipper to qualify for the round the world and then set sail on the big race itself in the best possible conditions. With this in mind, the 15th edition of The Transat CIC, which is due to kick off this Sunday 28 April at 15:45 hours local time offshore of Lorient with a total of 3,500 miles to cover en route to New York against the prevailing winds and currents, is shaping up to be the perfect way to put this plan into action!

Though there has been a slew of 60-foot IMOCAs being relaunched over the past few weeks, Giancarlo Pedote was among the first to complete a refresh of the boat and hit the water again. “The refit we carried out this winter was fairly short but also intense. The team has really clocked up the hours. It has done a fantastic job, which has enabled us to get out sailing fairly early and validate a fair few things, even though we haven’t actually made many modifications to the boats,” explains the Italian sailor. In fact, the work over recent months has not seen any special developments on Prysmian, rather it has involved doing a thorough check-up. “We’ve updated the electronics, added some solar panels, switched antennae,  replaced the lines and then dismantled and reassembled all the parts,” explains the sailor from Florence, who has scheduled the next major change to his boat for this summer, when he replaces the two current rudders with two new appendages. “The first sessions on the water enabled us to test everything and we had some fairly meaty conditions for that,” says Giancarlo, who managed to get out sailing on multiple occasions in around twenty knots of breeze, peaking at 35 or even 40 knots at times, as well as enjoy a 36-hour session offshore. “I feel fully reassured by the whole thing. Certain elements became dysfunctional so it was better to tackle these elements early on rather than at a later date out on the racetrack. These included a slight problem with watertightness, which led to a few complications before being resolved. Our machines are so complex that you can’t afford to let anything slide or there is a risk that the most insignificant issue can quickly turn into a big deal. Ultimately, we have made good use of the time we’ve had,” assures the sailor.

Getting your bearings back and getting used to being offshore again
So is he ready? With a degree in philosophy, the Italian has his own unique way of responding to this question. “Ready is an important word you know. It’s almost a little exuberant to my mind. The aim this year is the Vendée Globe. As such, you have to be realistic and continue to move forward step by step. The goal in this edition of The Transat CIC is to push reasonably hard on the boat and debug any issues. In short, it is about doing things in the right order and not getting ahead of yourself,” stresses the skipper of Prysmian, who is obviously staying focused on his primary objective and also knows all too well that there will be a great many parameters to deal with during such a full-on transatlantic passage between Lorient and New York: multiple passages through low pressure systems and the Gulf Stream, breaking seas, drifting ice, thick fog and a cetacean zone… “The Transat is a race renowned for being testing. On the back of that, there will be the return trip. As such, the boat will have to endure two back-to-back transatlantic passages very early on in the season without previously having had the opportunity to gently get into the swing of things in a shorter race like the Bermudes 1000 Race. The same is true for the skipper. As a result, it will be important to accept that not everything will play out the way it would when you already have five months of sailing under your belt. It will be key to get back into the rhythm of sailing offshore. We’ll have to get used to sleeping in a bed that moves every which way again and all that jazz. We are still landlubbers essentially who undergo a transition every year. The objective will be to ensure I feel at one with the boat again as quickly as possible,” concludes Giancarlo Pedote, who inevitably already has his sights on the Vendée Globe, which is due to set sail on 10 November 2024