Irish offshore sailor Pamela Lee will take on one of the strongest Class40 fleets ever assembled for the Round Ireland Yacht Race when the gun fires in Wicklow this Saturday.

The 704 nautical-mile circumnavigation of the island has always held a particular place in Irish sailing. It is a race that brings amateur and professional crews onto the same start line, then asks a simple but unforgiving question of all of them: Can you get all the way around?

For Lee, this year’s edition is more than a home race. It is the third competitive step in a season built around her ambition to become the first Irish sailor, male or female, to compete in the Route du Rhum, the legendary solo transatlantic race which starts from Saint-Malo on November 1st.

She will arrive in Wicklow on the back of a top ten finish in the double-handed CIC Normandy Channel Race, and will line up against a field that would not look out of place at any of the major offshore events on the international calendar.

Among those taking on the Round Ireland challenge will be multiple podium finisher Luca Rosetti aboard the new Musa 40 design Maccaferri Futura, one of the most competitive boats in the current Class40 fleet.

Robin Follin’s Agence Solano, another of the newest boats in the class, will also be on the line, alongside Spain’s Pep Costa, currently among the highest-ranked skippers in the Class40 championship standings.

Also in the fleet is Belgian-Spanish campaigner Djemila Tassin aboard Magenta. Though relatively new to the class, Tassin already holds the 24-hour Class40 World Distance record.

“This is exactly the test I need,” said Lee. “You don’t find out what you’re made of by racing against people you can beat.”

The Round Ireland is never only about the opposition. The course brings sailors through a full range of tidal gates, weather systems, tactical decisions and endurance tests. Depending on conditions, completing the race can take anything from three to six days, and in a race like this, finishing is always the first achievement.

Lee will skipper a team of four on her #EMPOWHER entry. She will be joined by French sailors Hubert Marachel and Estelle Grecke, along with Ripple Racing technical team member Cynthia Rodriguez, who will serve as onboard reporter. All four will rotate through the demands of keeping the boat moving at race pace.

The race forms part of Lee’s build-up towards the Route du Rhum, where she is aiming not simply to make the start line, but to arrive there with the preparation and backing needed to be competitive.

The campaign has secured sponsorship from Danish shipping company DFDS and Dublin-headquartered environmental company Ecocem, and is seeking an additional €200,000 in partnership investment.

The first priority is to get Lee to Saint-Malo. The second is to ensure that when she gets there, she does so ready to race on the best possible terms.

“I will be one of the seven per cent of women on that start line in Saint-Malo, and I will be the first Irish sailor, male or female, ever to get there,” said Lee. “But I want to arrive ready.”

That seven per cent figure from the last Route du Rhum field tells part of the story. Most of the women who made the start did so with older boats, smaller budgets and disadvantages that had little to do with ability, and much more to do with access.

Lee’s #EMPOWHER campaign is built around challenging that.

“The World Economic Forum tells us gender parity is still 123 years away,” she said. “Every time a woman competes on equal terms, in sport, in business, at sea, that number gets challenged. That is what #EMPOWHER is about: not just finishing the race but changing what people think is possible.”

Lee’s own route into professional offshore racing has not followed an easy or obvious path.

She learned to sail on Lough Derg during campervan summer holidays. A communications career by day was matched by offshore racing whenever the opportunity arose, including three Sydney to Hobart races and the achievement of a Yachtmaster qualification.

There were also repeated rejections from professional sailing teams. Her answer was to build her own seat.

In 2020, she broke the Irish speed record for a 40ft boat and under, and also established a new record for an all-female, double-handed crew.

She later set up Ripple Racing with business partner Maxime Grimard, who has a long track record in building and managing offshore racing programmes in Canada and Europe.

The founding vision was to use elite ocean racing to advance gender equality, one start line at a time.

This weekend’s Round Ireland Yacht Race will be another of those start lines. It will also be a rare opportunity for Irish audiences to see Lee taking on an international field in home waters, with the Atlantic waiting further down the season.

The Route du Rhum remains the big goal. Wicklow, and the long way around Ireland, is the next hard test on the road to getting there.

 

 

 

 

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