In My Element

The truth is that my job does scare me. But as my career has developed, I have realised that just the right amount of fear is an incredibly powerful tool which demonstrates that I understand the risks I am taking and am therefore in a good position to manage them. It goes hand in hand with risk-taking, never settling for what I know, but forging into the unknown in order to keep improving and learning. Fear, you could say, is a step on the path to growth. Pip Hare is the CEO of Britain’s leading Ocean Race team, the 8th woman in history to finish the Vendée Globe Yacht Race, a world record. Pip exemplifies passion, sheer determination and focus – all of which have driven her not just to compete but to change the status quo in the low-sponsorship world of women’s sport. Growing up in land-locked Cambridgeshire, Pip had neither the role models nor the contacts to make a career in yacht racing. She realised that to succeed she had to create her own opportunities. ‘If someone said I couldn’t do it, I simply walked around them and found my own solution.’ Now she runs an international racing team attracting sponsorship contracts valued in the millions. This, her first book, is both a gripping record of one of her toughest races ever and an inspiring account of the mental and physical strategies that have allowed her to discover, as a middle-aged woman, a life that allows her to live ‘in flow’ and achieve success. The Vendée Globe is the non-stop, round-the-world solo yacht race that takes competitors around the fringes of Antarctica, tackling sometimes terrifying conditions in the Southern Ocean before rounding Cape Horn. It is possibly the hardest single-handed feat of endurance ever created. Up against better-equipped competitors, the book follows Pip as she races alone for 95 days, managing on less than 40 mins sleep at a time. She is rarely dry, often freezing, scared and lonely, sometimes tackling waves the height of a three-storey building in her 60-foot yacht. But for Pip, the hard work isn’t confined to wrangling her boat on a grey ocean, grappling with a 120kg sail on a deck deluged by towering waves. It is having to punch through the glass ceiling in a sport dominated by men, a sport with no performance pathway to guide new competitors up the ranks, a world where you have to fundraise, build your own programmes and sponsor-hunt day after day until you’re ready to drop. And it’s also about practising her sailing routines on dry land, where more often than not she has to fight against feeling like a middle aged woman being told what to do. This is a story about the highs and the lows involved in setting yourself a difficult challenge, where you have to learn new and difficult skills, stretch yourself to grow, and push yourself hard to get what you want, even when doors slam in your face. But above all, it’s about being in your element – finding that occupation or endeavour that makes your heart sing, and the power of authenticity in a world where you are told you don’t belong. Pip’s account of this around the world solo race - which only ten women on the planet have ever achieved – includes enduring life lessons/strategies that can be applied to any challenging situation. It will appeal to those looking for inspiration in whatever sphere they find a pull towards and to fans of endurance and sailing stories. Already a household name for sailing enthusiasts, the 2024 Vendee Globe race in November 24 will bring Pip Hare’s name to an even wider market and her team have ambitious media plans for raising her profile further.