4 days ago
Hare relishing chance to be part of The Ocean Race Europe
The 51-year-old, who grew up in Huntington and now calls Poole home, has been sailing for three decades completing legendary races like the Vendée Globe and the Route du Rhum over that time.
The Ocean Race Europe 2025 poses a very different challenge though, with the Hare joining Canada Ocean Racing - Be Water Positive for the 4,500-nautical mile multi-stage offshore race from Kiel to Boka Bay in Montenegro.
And while she admits there was some nerves about relinquishing some of the control to which she has grown accustomed as a single-handed yachtsperson, the freedom of working in a team has been a joy.
She explained: 'I'm used to racing these boats solo, racing with a crew is a different dynamic, there is a lot more intensity, you tend to get more focused on the details than you do alone on the boat and I'm loving that change.
'It's a brilliant opportunity personally as an athlete to learn from my peers which you don't get in solo racing. The course itself is absolutely fantastic, it's a really cool concept to link the west and the east of Europe via the sea, it's going to be very fast-paced, it's incredibly challenging with different weather systems and navigation and the stopovers are short.
'That has been the real happy revelation for me because I was a little bit trepidatious about how I would integrate into a full team.
(Image: Lloyd Images / The Ocean Race Europe 2025) 'Naturally as a solo sailor you are used to doing everything and being in control of everything. So sometimes it's a little difficult to give that up but our team is fantastic.
'It's so collaborative and the most wonderful thing is the first time you realise you can totally and utterly trust someone it just feels incredibly liberating.'
Hare has been integral to putting the team together, working under skipper Scott Shawyer. But she acknowledges that Canada Ocean Racing - Be Water Positive are a little way behind some of their rivals in terms of preparation time, having spent much less time together to gear up for the race.
She added: 'We're still quite a new team, we've only had the boat for three months and it's a very technical piece of equipment. Learning the boat takes a long time and we've just been time poor through the whole campaign.
'Trying to have the balance of the technical preparation, all the necessary maintenance and upgrades, and pulling a team together from places around Europe to actually have solid training sessions together, we've really been juggling our schedules.
'Out of all the teams, we're one of the ones that has had the least practice probably. We have to go in with realistic objectives. We've got a fantastic boat with an incredible pedigree, but we are a new team.
'These boats are not plug and play, they take a while to learn. We are racing against teams with boats of a similar calibre, but they have had their boats for three or four years, so they know every tiny detail, they know exactly when to change sails, how to drive the boat.'
Seven international teams, seven stopovers, 4,500 nautical miles, racing for the ocean. The Ocean Race Europe comes to Portsmouth 14 - 17 August - the city where the race first began in 1973 as the Whitbread Round the World Race.
