Yachting World’s Pip Hare secures Vendée Globe race sponsorship
Out of the blue, only a few weeks after Googling ‘how do you go bankrupt?’, Pip Hare got a call from a tech company she had never heard of, saying they wanted to sponsor her for the Vendée Globe. The British solo sailor and Yachting World columnist has an entry in the solo round the world race but had been so short of funds that she didn’t know how she’d get her boat to the start line in November.
The sponsor is Medallia, a global company that collects and analyses customer and employee experiences, and within weeks of the initial conversation they had signed a contract with Hare and miraculously turned a teetering dream of competing in the race into certainty.
“It has turned everything round for me,” says Hare. “The CEO contacted me at the end of May with a one-line email and asked if there were any opportunities available to sponsor me. Two days later I had a letter of intent and three weeks later signed a contract.
“He knew all about me and had obviously read what I’ve written. He’s a sailor and Medallia have many clients sponsoring entries in the Vendée Globe.”
Hare’s boat, an older generation IMOCA 60, was out of the water at the time, and the sponsorship has allowed her to refit the boat to the level needed for the race. “This has come at exactly the right moment,” she says. “We still had the opportunity to make a big investment into the boat. We’ve been able to get a towing
‘This has come at exactly the right moment’
generator, new deck gear and sails, and upgrade comms and electronics. Luckily there’s always been a plan, just not the cash. I can also employ a team and go sailing, so I have the opportunity for the next four months to be the sailor
I always dreamed and wanted to be.”
“But this is still a tiny project by Vendée Globe standards,” she adds.
Hare will be competing in what is considered the more Corinthian section of the Vendée Globe, in a yacht that can’t compete on level terms with the latest generations of super-fast foil-assisted IMOCAS. But her determination and ability to communicate with an audience has won her a growing base of fans, including her new sponsors.
“They really liked the idea of supporting a female competitor and were attracted by way I’ve done this, created it out of nothing and worked hard to make it happen. They were impressed by what I managed to achieve last year. For me, that feels so good. So many times [these projects] are about the lucky break, but I feel this has come about because I worked so hard,” she says.
During the lockdown this spring, Hare kept busy doing lots of media work
“about dealing with difficult situations and what is like to be isolated”. She believes that the Vendée Globe, occurring in a year with so few big sporting events, is ripe for a huge following this winter.
“As much as I love this sailing, people looking from the outside struggle to see the technology and I’ve always been focussed on telling the human story.
Now I have a platform to really showcase everything that this race is.
“I have dreamed of doing this since I was 16,” she continues, “and at times in my life I thought it would never happen. It has cost me a lot and the last year-and-ahalf has been without a doubt the hardest in my life. But I honestly think my life has changed forever now.”