Good luck to CYCA Member Rupert Henry as he takes on his first single-handed race in the 1000 nautical mile Drheam Cup.

We have been keeping in touch with Rupert on his global adventure, which began with the two-handed CIC Normandy Channel Race in May and will see him tackle the Route du Rhum in November.

You can watch Peter Shipway’s interview with Rupert following the Normandy Channel Race here.

Rupert’s boat Eora will be one of 37 Class 40 boats competing in the Drheam Cup, which begins on Sunday 17 July.

The Class 40 course takes the fleet from Cherbourg in the north-west of France, around Wolf Rock and Fastnet Rock, then south off the coast of Royan and to the finish line in La Trinite-sur-mer.

Rupert gave us his thoughts ahead of a milestone race for Eora.

—

This will be my first single-handed race, so of course I’m curious to see if I can keep up at all with the fleet of largely professional French sailors with long experience in this aspect of the sport.

Since the Normandy Channel Race in May, we have been very busy on different fronts.

Initially there were some repairs due to the big blow in the first half of that race, but mainly it has been about tweaking things in the hope of performance gains.

Amongst a long list, the bigger items have been fitting a new lighter mast, some re-cuts to the sail wardrobe and refinement of some on-board systems.

I’ve also tried to migrate the systems and ergonomics further into single-handed mode wherever possible. 

Of course, the boat was substantially down that path already, but with only half as many calories now available to manage the boat, I figure every little refinement that saves energy is a gain.

Probably more importantly than any of that, I also managed to carve out two blocks of days for extended offshore training since the last race and do feel that I have gotten to know Eora better, which I hope will help get me around the course. We will see.

—

Good luck, Rupert!