{"id":115480,"date":"2018-07-13T13:39:29","date_gmt":"2018-07-13T12:39:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.yachtingworld.com\/?p=115480"},"modified":"2018-07-13T13:44:35","modified_gmt":"2018-07-13T12:44:35","slug":"woman-mission-meet-dee-caffari","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.yachtingworld.com\/uncategorized\/woman-mission-meet-dee-caffari-115480","title":{"rendered":"Woman on a mission: what drives Dee Caffari? How the pioneering sailor went from PE teacher to Volvo skipper"},"content":"Dee Caffari puts most of us to shame. She turned up in the cliquey world of offshore racing in her mid-twenties without a reputation built on years of Figaro or Mini Transat racing, no childhood spent dinghy sailing, no private backer, no technical advantage. No leg-up at all, in fact. And yet she was the only skipper in this year's Volvo Ocean Race who has also completed a Vend\u00e9e Globe. She has achieved so much.\r\n\r\nDee is a big believer that anybody can do the same. That can be a little confronting, leaving those of us who haven\u2019t realised such dreams feeling a bit like a failure. For the pros who spent a lifetime racing off Brittany or the IJsselmeer it must be disconcerting to have someone who did a fast-track Yachtmaster course line up next to you on the skipper\u2019s rostrum.\r\n\r\nPerhaps because of that the armchair critics have not always been kind. Some questioned her lack of podium results, but in offshore racing a huge achievement lies in getting to the start \u2013 and an even greater one in getting to the finish. And that is what Caffari does \u2013 she gets around (the Volvo Ocean Race was her sixth lap of the planet).\u00a0<\/span>\r\n\r\nActually, looking back at her 2008 Vend\u00e9e Globe<\/a> what stands out is how she finished just five hours after Brian Thompson (who, with a Jules Verne title, nobody could accuse of not being performance driven).\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_115484\" align=\"alignnone\" width=\"600\"]\"\" Leg 8 from Itajai to Newport, day 9 on board Turn the Tide on Plastic. 30 April, 2018. Skipper Dee Caffari.[\/caption]\r\n\r\nShe has just completed the Volvo Ocean Race skippering Turn the Tide on Plastic<\/i>. It is the second time she has led a crew around the world, and it is, in many ways, the perfect job for Caffari. It is also not a role many others would have taken on. But this is a woman who set off on her solo round the world record attempt in 2005, against the prevailing winds and currents, having never actually sailed single-handed before. Caffari is not easily daunted.\r\n\r\nHow did she work her way from being a newbie Yachtmaster to having one of the most complete and accomplished CVs of any offshore sailor?\r\n\r\n\u201cI\u2019m stubborn and bloody-minded, and wasn\u2019t going to take no for an answer,\u201d she muses. \u201cIt\u2019s about building connections and networks, and taking opportunities as they arise, and I\u2019ve been very fortunate to be in the right place to do that. I\u2019ve also had to be a bit more resilient than most.\u201d\u00a0<\/span>\r\n\r\n\u201cShe makes smart decisions, and she\u2019s prepared to put a lot of blood, sweat and tears into making it happen,\u201d observes Brian Thompson, who also raced with Caffari in the 2009 Transat Jacques Vabre, and navigated on Turn the Tide on Plastic<\/i>. \u201cShe\u2019s not afraid to have a big goal and work really hard to get to it.\u201d\r\n\r\nShe may have come into the sport late, but her first job gave her a rich seam of connections. Starting out at Mike Golding Ocean Racing as a nipper on his corporate sailing programme, she joined a team that included Graham \u2018Gringo\u2019 Tourell, who was boat captain for Dongfeng<\/i>, Jonny Malbon, as well as Golding himself. For a rookie it was the perfect teaching ground.\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_115489\" align=\"alignnone\" width=\"223\"]\"\" Dee (Denise) Caffari aged 6 in 1979 aboard her father's motor yacht the Jolly Rotter en route to Holland.[\/caption]\r\n\r\nAllie Smith, who recruited Caffari straight from her UKSA Yachtmaster course, recalls: \u201cEvery step of the way she learnt from the best. So she learnt how to sail a Challenge 67 yacht from Mike [Golding]. And then when she got her Open 60, who did she turn to to tune the boat up and learn from? Mike again.\u201d\r\n\r\nDee\u2019s approach was to learn, and work, and then learn some more. \u201cDee would always ask questions,\u201d says Smith. \u201c\u2018Why are you doing that?\u2019, \u2018Why are you doing it that way?\u2019\u201d\r\n\r\nGolding recalls: \u201cWhen she was made skipper of the 67 she literally spent three days just parking the boat in Ocean Village, going into all the horrible difficult spaces.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cWhenever she was given a task, with each successive job, she was thrown straight into it in the deep end. And each time she rose to the challenge and did it really well.\u201d\r\n\r\nBut going straight from the classroom to a top-level campaign meant she had to hold her own.\r\n\r\n\u201cI used to be able to get her into tears pretty easily,\u201d recalls Golding. \u201cI think she was quite highly strung then. Not intentionally, but neither was I going to let things go by just because she was a girl.\u201d\r\n\r\nEmotions run high<\/b>\r\n\r\nWhen Caffari later announced she was going to skipper a team in the Global Challenge (the pay-to-sail, westbound round the world race sailed by crews of 18 amateur sailors with a professional skipper), Golding was concerned that Caffari was too sensitive. \u201cMy fear was that Challenge crew can wither you! They are very intelligent people who\u2019ve made money and time to do the race, they\u2019re used to being the boss, and they can cut you to ribbons.\r\n\r\n\u201cSo I said: I fear you\u2019re going to have to harden up. And she obviously did, because she had to.\u201d\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_115486\" align=\"alignnone\" width=\"601\"]\"\" Briefing her Global Challenge team[\/caption]\r\n\r\nWhen she skippered Imagine it. Done<\/i> in the 2004 Global Challenge Caffari not only survived some challenging crew politics, but gained respect for how she handled a potentially life-threatening situation on board when one of her crew developed severe internal injuries.\u00a0<\/span>\r\n\r\nGolding said he noticed a huge change in her on her return. \u201cI think that emotional side had gone for her, she had a confidence that wasn\u2019t there prior to the Challenge.\u201d\r\n\r\nBut the ebullient Caffari we are used to wasn\u2019t always so positive. After the Challenge, she rolled straight into a solo west-about round the world record, an experience she describes as \u2018an emotional rollercoaster\u2019. So, in preparation for the Vend\u00e9e Globe two years later she worked with a sports psychologist.\r\n\r\n\u201cThat was probably the biggest growth in my sailing I ever had, learning how to manage me,\u201d she says.\r\n\r\n\u201cI used to easily say what I didn\u2019t want to happen: I didn\u2019t want to let people down, I didn\u2019t want to come last. But I would struggle to say what I did want to happen.\u00a0<\/span>\r\n\r\n\u201cI learnt that I had to practice positive language, and completely turn that on its head.\r\n\r\n\u201cEven now, my default setting when I\u2019m stressed is I can feel myself going back to the negative. I have to have a word with myself and change my language again. And as a result I\u2019m much more positive.\u201d\u00a0<\/span>\r\n\r\nTiming is everything<\/b>\r\n\r\nThat positivity has been thoroughly tested in the Volvo Ocean Race. The Turn the Tide on Plastic<\/i> team was a late entry put together by Volvo, the UN Clean Seas campaign and Mirpuri Foundation<\/a>. It has been stunningly timely \u2013 as the race ramped up the plastic oceans issue became a hot topic globally, giving Caffari the kind of platform that commercially backed teams could only dream of.\u00a0<\/span>\r\n\r\nIt was also timely for Caffari, who told me in Alicante how before Tide<\/i> came her way she had been throwing herself \u2013 unsuccessfully \u2013 at other teams trying to get a trial for this edition of the race.\u00a0<\/span>\r\n\r\nThe opportunity to skipper a campaign<\/a> was huge, but daunting. The project came with unique challenges \u2013 stipulations that six crew should be under-30, at least one Portuguese. The budget and timeframe meant there was little warm up, sailors needed to be fit and ready to go, but many of the youngsters had almost zero ocean racing experience before they set off.\u00a0<\/span>\r\n\r\n\"\"\r\n\r\nPerformance analysis was rudimentary compared to some teams. In Cape Town we chatted about how teams had been analysing the onboard footage during the Atlantic leg and she was intrigued that some had allocated resources purely to that. \u201cWe\u2019re still going \u201c\u2019Oh, that\u2019s a nice picture!\u2019 We are just so not on that level,\u201d she joked.\u00a0<\/span>\r\n\r\nSo it has been a surprise to many just how close Turn the Tide<\/i> has run some of their competitors. For much of the first Lisbon to Alicante leg they were neck and neck with Brunel<\/i> \u2013 so when Brunel<\/i> complained of rudder issues Turn the Tide <\/i>watch captain Liz Wardley forthrightly told me she felt it was patronising, and suggested that Tide<\/i>\u2019s performance out of the blocks had rattled some of the Volvo stalwarts.\r\n\r\nThe team continued improving: on the final approach into Auckland Turn the Tide on Plastic<\/i> was in front. They clung to the top three until the final 20 miles, when Mapfre<\/i> and Dongfeng<\/i> relentlessly hunted them down the North Island\u2019s coast. Turn the Tide<\/i> eventually finished 5th and even Dee seemed lost for words.\u00a0<\/span>\r\n\r\nOn the northward Atlantic leg Turn the Tide<\/i> sailed near-faultlessly, in the front half of the pack for the entire leg and enjoying several days in pole position. Two days away from the finish they again seemed set for a podium finish, but it would be a three-way fight.\u00a0<\/span>\r\n\r\nAn onboard video shows Caffari explaining the situation on deck; she\u2019s met with nervous silence. \u201cCome on, yes Dee!\u201d she rallies them. Clearly the crew wanted to believe the podium is still in grasp, but had been denied it too many times. They were denied it again, as the light winds and fog of Newport rolled Turn the Tide<\/i> back to sixth.\r\n\r\nShe commented in a post-leg interview. \u201cYet again I\u2019m stood here saying for the fourth leg running, \u2018They didn\u2019t get the result they deserve\u2019. So I\u2019m kind of stuck as a skipper on how to pick them up and get going for the next leg, but that\u2019s what I\u2019ve got to do.\u201d\r\n\r\nRallying the troops is something Caffari is good at, and she\u2019s often praised for her people management skills \u2013 even if at the beginning of the race she wasn\u2019t entirely confident in her, abilities. \u201cI [do enjoy it] although I think I\u2019m not very good at it,\u201d she told me before the start in Alicante. \u201cI get stressed by it. I don\u2019t want to get it wrong.\u201d\r\n\r\nShe talks about her crew with more of a sense of responsibility than the other Volvo skippers; part mother hen, part enthusiastic school sports coach. Her management style is based on nurturing strengths.\r\n\r\n\u201cI\u2019m not very much a dictator,\u201d she observes. \u201cI don\u2019t tell them all what to do. I go OK, this area is yours. Are you OK? Do you need any help?\u201d\u00a0<\/span>\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_115488\" align=\"alignnone\" width=\"600\"]\"\" Leg 10 from Cardiff to Gothenburg.[\/caption]\r\n\r\nSo good at empowering her team is Caffari, that she revealed in Cape Town she felt almost redundant at times. \u201cI kind of feel like I\u2019m second to [the navigator] and then I go on deck and Martin [Str\u00f8mberg] is running his watch and Liz is running her watch and I don\u2019t really fit in there, so you end up being quite isolated. And as a leader you generally are. It\u2019s lonely at the top.\u201d\r\n\r\nThompson explained they later restructured so Caffari also ran a watch, a move Caffari said she hoped \u201cmight restore my confidence a bit!\u201d\r\n\r\nDespite the billboards plastered around Volvo Race villages with her name and face on, Caffari is instinctively modest. She admits that for much of her racing career she compared herself to sailors with entirely different backgrounds. \u201cEven now, when you\u2019re in an environment where you have Olympians or America\u2019s Cup sailors, you\u2019re like \u2018Oh, what have I done?\u2019 And actually, there\u2019s a bit of a reality check, that in fact I\u2019ve done quite a lot.\u201d\r\n\r\nBut as the race was drawing towards a close, Caffari was taking stock. \u201cI think if I was honest with this campaign, there isn\u2019t another skipper that could do what I\u2019ve done with the team I\u2019ve had and the timescale and budget I\u2019ve got.\u00a0<\/span>\r\n\r\n\u201cBut I want to show how close the racing\u2019s been with a result as well. I do believe what we\u2019re doing is right, but my concern is if you look at the scoreboard we look no different to Team SCA, yet how we\u2019re racing and how this campaign is going is so much better.\r\n\r\n\u201cThe team deserve it, and I think we\u2019re probably the one team where every other team would be happy if we got that result.\u201d\u00a0<\/span>\r\n\r\nShe\u2019s right \u2013 after the Auckland and Newport finishes, rival skippers like Charles Caudrelier commented on how cruel the result had been for Turn the Tid<\/i>e. It says a lot about the respect and goodwill Dee and her team have earned. With three legs to go, Caffari remained as determined as ever.\r\n\r\n\u201cI don\u2019t want the sympathy vote, I want to justify it on the water.\u201d\r\n\r\nPostscript: After this article was published in the July issue of Yachting World magazine, Turn the Tide on Plastic finished Legs 10 and 11 of the Volvo\u00a0Ocean Race in 5th place, their best results of the race. This left the team tied in 6th place overall with Team Sun Hung Kai Scallywag. <\/i>\r\n\r\nIn order to break the tie, Caffari's team had to beat Scallywag in the in-port series, which meant not only\u00a0finishing ahead of the Hong Kong team in the final in-port race in The Hague, but finishing with at least one boat in\u00a0between them to give them a two point advantage. In the final in-port race Turn the Tide on Plastic were 4th, ahead of MAPFRE and Vestas 11th Hour Racing, with Scallywag in 7th. This gave Caffari and team 6th overall in the in-port series and overall Volvo Ocean Race.<\/i>","excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dee Caffari puts most of us to shame. She turned up in the cliquey world of offshore racing in her mid-twenties without a reputation built on years of Figaro or Mini Transat racing, no childhood spent dinghy sailing, no private backer, no technical advantage. No leg-up at all, in fact. And yet she was the only skipper in this year’s Volvo Ocean Race who has also completed a Vend\u00e9e Globe. She has achieved so much. Dee is a big believer that anybody can do the same. That can be a little confronting, leaving those of us who haven\u2019t realised such dreams feeling a bit like a failure. For the pros who spent a lifetime racing off Brittany or the IJsselmeer it must be disconcerting to have someone who did a fast-track Yachtmaster course line up next to you on the skipper\u2019s rostrum. Perhaps because of that the armchair critics have not always been kind. Some questioned her lack of podium results, but in offshore racing a huge achievement lies in getting to the start \u2013 and an even greater one in getting to the finish. And that is what Caffari does \u2013 she gets around (the Volvo Ocean Race was her sixth lap of the planet).\u00a0 Actually, looking back at her 2008 Vend\u00e9e Globe what stands out is how she finished just five hours after Brian Thompson (who, with a Jules Verne title, nobody could accuse of not being performance driven). She has just completed the Volvo Ocean Race skippering Turn the Tide on Plastic. It is the second time she has led a crew around the world, and it is, in many ways, the perfect job for Caffari. It is also not a role many others would have taken on. But this is a woman who set off on her solo round the world record attempt in 2005, against the prevailing winds and currents, having never actually sailed single-handed before. Caffari is not easily daunted. How did she work her way from being a newbie Yachtmaster to having one of the most complete and accomplished CVs of any offshore sailor? \u201cI\u2019m stubborn and bloody-minded, and wasn\u2019t going to take no for an answer,\u201d she muses. \u201cIt\u2019s about building connections and networks, and taking opportunities as they arise, and I\u2019ve been very fortunate to be in the right place to do that. I\u2019ve also had to be a bit more resilient than most.\u201d\u00a0 \u201cShe makes smart decisions, and she\u2019s prepared to put a lot of blood, sweat and tears into making it happen,\u201d observes Brian Thompson, who also raced with Caffari in the 2009 Transat Jacques Vabre, and navigated on Turn the Tide on Plastic. \u201cShe\u2019s not afraid to have a big goal and work really hard to get to it.\u201d She may have come into the sport late, but her first job gave her a rich seam of connections. Starting out at Mike Golding Ocean Racing as a nipper on his corporate sailing programme, she joined a team that …Continue reading »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1571,"featured_media":115483,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1039,207],"review_manufacturer":[],"acf":[],"introduction":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.yachtingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115480"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.yachtingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.yachtingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.yachtingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1571"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.yachtingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=115480"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.yachtingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115480\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":115494,"href":"https:\/\/www.yachtingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115480\/revisions\/115494"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.yachtingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/115483"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.yachtingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=115480"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.yachtingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=115480"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.yachtingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=115480"},{"taxonomy":"review_manufacturer","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.yachtingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review_manufacturer?post=115480"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}