Series 4 - Ep8 - Alex Thomson Part 2

Shirley Robertson's Sailing Podcast continues with Part 2  of the fascinating chat with one of offshore sailing's most active campaigners,  a sailor who's career spans two decades at the highest level of the sport and includes a record equaling five Vendee Globe starts.  Alex Thomson, widely known for his Vendee campaigns sailing a series of iconic Hugo Boss IMOCA, has done much to raise awareness of offshore sailing and with his team, has been responsible for some of the most innovative developments the monohull  IMOCA Class has ever seen.

Part 1 of  of Thomson's discussion with Robertson takes in Thomson's remarkable career path, time spent sailing with Sir Robin Knox Johnston and his early Vendee Globe campaigns.

In this edition, Thomson talks all about the progression in design and build of the IMOCA Class, the now foiling monohull class that he and his team have been key protagonists in developing over the past twenty years of racing.  The duo also cover Thomson's remaining attempts to win the Vendee Globe, and of course discuss the series of sailing stunts that have netted Thomson millions of views on YouTube, taking in the evolution of the idea, the execution of the stunts themselves and Thomson's desire to bring new audiences to his offshore campaigns are all talked through in this revealing chat...:

"Hugo Boss had done a trick shot video with Martin Kymer, the German golfer, and put it on the internet and they told us they had fifty thousand views....and I went back to the team and said 'we've got to come up with an idea, put it on the internet and get more than fifty thousand views'...so we got a couple of suits...shot it....and we put it on the internet and...a million views in a week!."

This is a fascinating insight into the career of a man that has spent over two decades chasing a dream to win one of offshore sailing's biggest accolades, he's gone against convention, pushed boundaries of design, and suffered some well publicised failures, but most interestingly in this chat with Robertson, Alex Thomson also suggests that when it comes to trying to win the Vendee Globe, he's not quite done yet.

This edition of the podcast is in two parts and is available to listen to via the podcast page of Shirley’s own website - www.shirleyrobertson.com/podcast or via most popular podcast outlets, including Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcast and aCast. The podcast is produced and written by Tim Butt - for further enquires, please contact [email protected].  Support the show