Seven-time round the world sailor teams up with Australia’s fastest woman on water

• NEWS
• 23 Dec, 2004 06:32:00 AM

Seven-time round the world sailor teams up with Australia’s fastest woman on water

Cahalan also has the honour of having completed the most Rolex Sydney Hobart Yacht Races for a woman – 13, including navigating Ludde Ingvall’s Nicorette to a line honours victory.

Luckily for round the world sailors Adrienne Cahalan and Jacques Vincent, their neighbours don’t mind collecting their mail, picking the ripe fruit and even doing the gardening.

French sailor Jacques Vincent, 42, has been sailing professionally since 1983 after quitting his ‘one and only desk job’ after 6 months.  He reckons being away from his house in the south of France for nine months or so every year makes him the perfect neighbour and he’s delighted that the raspberries, mushrooms and plums he grows in his garden don’t go to waste.

Jacques has done seven circumnavigations including three Whitbreads, one Volvo Ocean Race and three ‘big cat’ (catamarans) roundings.  This year, he was watch leader on Steve Fossett’s 125 foot catamaran Cheyenne when it broke the record for the fastest time around the world in any type of boat.  They did it in just 58 days 9 hours 35 minutes and 42 seconds.

Also on board was Australia’s best-known navigator, Adrienne Cahalan, who was declared the fastest woman on water in the world for this feat. At the time, she also held the outright 24 hour record and just over a month later, she won the prestigious Navigator’s trophy for winning the Newport – Bermuda Race on the Transpac 52 ‘Rosebud’.

It’s been a good year for Adrienne, and for her role as navigator on Cheyenne, she was nominated for the fourth time for the Rolex ISAF World Yachtswoman of the Year.

Cahalan also has the honour of having completed the most Rolex Sydney Hobart Yacht Races for a woman – 13, including navigating Ludde Ingvall’s Nicorette to a line honours victory in 2000. At just 40, she figures she has plenty of time to reach the 25 race milestone when yachties become legends at the home of the Rolex Sydney Hobart, the Cruising Yacht Club of Australia in Sydney.

Between these two international sailors, who you can’t imagine wearing anything but Sperry sandals and sailing shirts and shorts souvenired from one of the many regattas and ocean races they have competed in, they have sailed more than 500,000 nautical miles. That’s 22 circumnavigations of the globe.

Neither of them can imagine going back to a desk job though Cahalan, who has a law degree specialising in maritime law and a recently completed Masters of Science in Applied Meteorology, can see herself in charge of the legal side of an America’s Cup campaign.  But that’s only when she gets tired of chasing record

For Cahalan the downside to a life of jetting around the world hopping on and off boats is that it makes it very hard to hold down a relationship.  “People sense that you are about to leave,” says Cahalan. “They always ask where are you going next? You do spend a lot of time alone on aeroplanes.”

Jaques is not so sure it’s a problem.  “If you stay ashore too long you get bored and then you get married,” he shrugs with a smile.  At times he really does seem so very French.
      
Cahalan is currently writing an autobiography on her sailing exploits.  The first draft of the manuscript is due March 1, something which is causing her some anxiety. Not only because the thousands of sea miles have blurred somewhat, but also because she doesn’t like to big note her achievements too much. She is Australian after all.

Jacques and Cahalan will form part of the crew sailing aboard Andrew Short Marine (Andrew Short), the Volvo 60 which was djuice for the 2001-2002 Volvo Ocean Race, the last time Jacques was on board this boat.

Cahalan believes if it blows hard from the south, the five Volvo 60s competing this year have an “outside chance” of line honours as these boats are tried and tested in the tough southern ocean.

As you would expect, after so many ocean miles the two work well together.  It even runs to stand-up comedy, it seems.

According to the self sufficient Frenchman, land-based superstitions also ring true on board boats with a crew number of 13 and starting a race or a record breaking passage on a Friday supposedly unlucky.  And of course in the old windjammer days women on boats were deemed unlucky too.

He facetiously refers to the number on board Cheyenne for their record breaking run as “12 plus one girl”, referring to Adrienne.

Not one to be outdone by the boys, Adrienne is quick off the mark to refer to their Rolex Sydney Hobart crew number in the same way. “I’m going to Hobart with 11 crew and one Jacques,” she laughs.

He is in a league of his own after all. Then, again, so is she.