37-year-old Francesca “Frankie” Clapcich of Hideout is a seasoned sailor, two-time Olympian, Park City Mountain ski instructor and former Italian airman.
Her latest challenge is a far cry from the Jordanelle Reservoir she sails back home.
KPCW caught up with Clapich, who was born in Trieste, Italy, over the phone while she was preparing for an historic, 4,000-nautical-mile race.
“The start will be on Sunday from Le Havre, Normandy,” Clapcich said. “We're going head out of the English Channel, then pointing south all the way to the Canary Islands, where we finally point west again, crossing the Atlantic Ocean and getting into the Caribbean and Martinique.”
Known as the Transat Cafe L’Or, the race is named for, and follows, the old coffee shipping route between the French colonies and Europe.
Clapcich expects it to take her and her teammate, Will Harris of Britain, 12 to 14 days depending on the weather. Their boat, christened “11th Hour Racing” after their title sponsor, is 60 feet long and made of carbon fiber.
The race to Martinique will pit Clapcich and Harris against 17 other vessels and require what she called “micro sleeping.”
“Between the two of us on board — especially when the conditions are really, really hard, there is a lot of wind, a lot of big waves — we get really short naps of 15, 20 minutes,” Clapcich said. “When we get more into the more stable and easy trade winds in the middle of the Atlantic, then we go more into, like, two hours on, two hours off.”
Transat Cafe L’Or is entirely unassisted, meaning Clapcich and Harris will be alone on the water and must pack their own food, make their own repairs.
They have a GPS tracker and can call search and rescue if needed.
Land lubbers will be able to follow their progress on the race website.
