Whitecap: The Canadian Sailing Podcast

In partnership with Sail Canada, David Cripton hosts a podcast series focusing on Canadian sailing called Whitecap, with this episode highlighting Rolex Sailor of the Year Melodie Schaffer who raced her boat Whiskey Jack in the Globe40, a 35,000-mile, eight-leg, doublehanded around the world race in in Class 40s.

Seven teams took part in the 175-day event which started in Morocco and ended in France.

Overall, Melodie and her co-skippers (Gary Jacques, Mikael Ryking, Jeronimo Santos, Robert Phillips, Paul Stratfold and Tom Pierce) took 5th place, and set the overall speed record for the race with an average speed of 14.3kn, for a distance of 347 miles in 24 hours.

Through the race, she also faced storms and countless broaches, over a dozen sail repairs, a spinnaker wrap that took 36 hours to clear in 25 knots and 5m waves, had a damaged rudder and two incidents of smoke in the cabin.

This wide ranging discussion covers her early days dinghy racing, getting the offshore bug later in life, and a terrifying story of a run-in with a modern day pirate ship.