In some senses navigating a course from Olympic 49erFX silver medallist to solo ocean racer has been as tough off the water as it has been on the Figaro Beneteau race courses, but as she sets up to start her third La Solitaire du Figaro Paprec, Germany’s Sanni Beucke (This Race is Female) is hoping to complete her best race yet by keeping everything simple and concentrating on doing the basics well.
Beucke, 33, won Olympic silver in Tokyo in 2021 with helm Tina Lutz and almost immediately set off to transition to solo offshore racing, taking the first real steps in her quest to become the first German woman to complete the Vendée Globe. The 2028 race is still her target and whilst she is fully engaged in finding funding, everything goes on hold now for La Solitaire du Figaro Paprec.
She spent the early spring season training again with the Lorient Grand Large programme and since then has mixed racing with essential sponsor and media work at home in Germany including promoting her book which has just been published. Sanni works tirelessly to promote sailing for women, driving for equality – hence the name This Race is Female.
Her targets on this race, after a 30th and 27th, are quite modest, set perhaps in the belief that it’s better to set an achievable goal and exceed it than be disappointed by pitching for something unrealistic.
Beucke is now looking to stick by what she has learned from her first two races, “I have learned that you have to keep it all simple. I think before it was so hard for me to get from being an Olympic sailor to an offshore sailor. There is a lot of things you have to do differently as an offshore sailor than as an Olympic sailor. You have to slow your thinking down and keep things so much simpler. I think coming from that Olympic background I was setting the same standards that I imposed on myself going into the Olympics which becomes hard as a one person (offshore )team to accept the same level of perfectionism. It is not possible to achieve the same level of perfectionism. I had to evolve to keep it all way more simple to do the necessary things well.”
She feels this early season’s training has been more productive, “I have been training a lot at Lorient Grand Large until March which has been good, not least as there was a new group starting out and they were a bit more at my level. That has been good. It is great to learn from the best but it good to have people around you to compare with, like people coming in from Mini 650s for example, it was really helpful to start again with them from scratch. Before I was kind of thrown into a situation where there were a lot of experienced sailors already and I jumped in at the deep end, international, not speaking much French having no idea of what is happening. At least now we are at the same level.”
And with so much more experience on the boat and racing alone, her confidence has grown infinitely but with looking back she confesses how scared she was on her first races solo,
“To start with I was so scared. When I think of what i was thrown into I should have been even more scared than I was. The first year I had started offshore sailing only four months before La Solitaire because someone thought I could do it. It was a really windy one and I was shitting myself constantly….. constantly.”
This time will be different, not least coming into this race on the back of a solid block of crewed racing on her boat in the Tour Voile. The transition from skiff crew to helm is also ongoing and long periods of time steering help, “The Tour Voile helped a lot, 17 days of sailing and a lot of steering so I could improve my steering and my trim of the boat. Now I am just looking forwards to the simplicity of life on board, not having comfort or contact, and I also hope to keep everything simple.”
Big job Having recently lost her two major sponsors she has a big job ahead after this race, “This will likely be my last La Solitaire du Figaro which is a pity. So I will be focussing on enjoying it, appreciating I am still here with a campaign. I’d love to find new sponsors as it looks a bit dark at the moment. But right now I have to focus on La Solitaire du Figaro Paprec and put all my efforts into this. Keeping sponsors is hard work but finding new ones is even harder. So for the next month I am just a sailor going racing.”
Her dream remains intact and she continues to take steps along the way, “I would still love to do the Vendée Globe as there has never been an German woman finish it. Losing two sponsors has not helped but I am doing all I can to get there. I have been improving my sailing, improving my profile, my French keeps improving, my strength and fitness. I am looking for long term sponsors. “