Who is the best driver on board? A fascinating observation by Jeremie Lecaudey on board Dongfeng.
There’s no moon tonight. After 10 minutes your eyes finally adapt to the darkness and you can see the shadows of the sailors.
Standing behind the driver is always a cool sensation, you can feel his concentration, you can see what the boat is going to do next just by looking at the wheel and you can be surprised by the speed we get. You look at all the numbers, the bearing he’s trying to follow, the speed he’s achieving, true wind angle, true wind speed…
The one I like to watch is the polar percentage. The team analyses all the data received from the boat and they get a percentage on how the boat is performing depending on the wind, the conditions, the bearing, etc…Most of the time this number is close to 100, meaning the boat is performing well.
It took me a while to understand that Pascal was driving with his body against the stack of sails, one of these stylish positions that some drivers end up having. Stu puts one of his hands upside down on the wheel, Charles drives like a cowboy on a big truck, Daryl looks like he’s driving his own car really. He’ll talk to you in 30 + knots of wind and still follow your conversation as if nothing was happening when you’re shit scared and every wave is stopping the boat from gliding perfectly on the ocean. Tonight, however, the boat smoothly follows the waves and gains speeds up to 20 knots in the gusts.
Daryl’s average when I look at the polar percentage is always around 105, surely one of the best but what the hell, Jeremie, Carolijn, Jack, they are all the best at it anyway…
Now Pascal is king of the charts. He is the man who will direct an orchestra of sailors on deck from his intercom microphone down below just by looking at numbers, analysing god knows what forecast files that came in (I even considered him being a vampire for never sleeping). When you see that man on the wheel, at night, with no moon, you have to wonder…He turns to me and says: “It’s nice at night isn’t it?”
Funny thing is, Pascal is the only one that I saw reached 110.
And he’s the navigator.
