Resilience and Sailing – Ashurst & Gentoo Sailing team

Karen Davies:

Hello and welcome to Business Agenda. I'm Karen Davies, a partner and global chair here at Ashurst. I have the great pleasure in being joined today by Yachtsman James Harayda. James is the skipper at the Gentoo Sailing Team. And we at Ashurst are delighted to have partnered with the Gentoo Sailing team whose innovative vision and sustainability ambitions reflect our own.

By way of background, James has been sailing all his life and has some significant credentials to his name, including being twice British double-handed offshore sailing championship and having competed in several long distance ocean races to date. James will be one of up to 40 competitors in November 2024, lining up from the start from Brittany and France for the Vendée Globe race, and he's likely to be the youngest competitor in the race. James and the other competitors will have very little sleep, usually obtaining snatches of 40 to 90 minutes and contact with the outside world will be by way of text, email, and radio exchanges from time to time.

It is most noticeable that the closest people to the competitors at times will be astronauts on the International Space Station as they will be several thousand miles from the nearest land at times. Mental and physical resilience is absolutely critical and in the first of this race 50 years ago, one of the competitors, a chap called Donald Crowhurst effectively went mad and threw himself off the boat never to be seen again. Therefore, resilience is particularly important for every competitor. Thank you for joining me today. James, and I look forward to this conversation.

So welcome James. Today's podcast is about resilience, but before we go into that, it'd be great to hear from you, James about the expedition and essentially what you're doing.

James Harayda:

Perfect. Well, thank you so much for having me. And yeah, extremely proud to be partnering with Ashurst and really looking forward to developing our relationship going forward through to the Vendée Globe. And the Vendée Globe, for those who don't know, is basically a solo nonstop and unassisted race around the world. It takes place every four years, so it follows the Olympic cycle, and the race will last anywhere from 75 to a hundred days depending on the ability of the sailor on board, the situations that you encounter while you're racing, if the boat breaks or you have to sail slowly for whatever reason. And this is going to be my first Vendée Globe, so this is my first cycle and it's a combination of a series called the IMOCA Globe series, which is a circuit of offshore or ocean races that lead up and qualify you for the Vendée Globe.

The Vendée Globe for me is particularly special because it's not just a sporting or competitive event. There's also the element of human endeavour, which goes hand in hand with resilience, this subject, and something that I'm particularly passionate about is the physical and also mental side of that and the preparation that goes into a race like this, which is very different from my sailing in the past. I previously was focusing purely on the Olympics, which was a hyper-competitive environment, and now I'm moving into discipline of sailing, which is hyper-competitive, but also includes the human endeavour and the adventure side I guess as well. So it's exciting and every day is a school day, definitely.

Karen:

Fantastic. And just to be clear, it's like 75 days of constant racing and you're going to go around the Cape Horn and the Cape of Good Hope. So there's very dangerous seas, icebergs, all sorts of conditions.

James:

We spend most of our time actually in the Southern Ocean, the water temperature is four degrees, so you've got the possibility of icebergs. The air temperature is similar. So it's really challenging conditions, not just for the human body but also for boats. And you need to be able to maintain that level of intensity and I guess composure as well for an extended period of time. Which is difficult and takes a huge amount of preparation by all of the skippers and teams to ensure that I can compete, probably exceed expectations and also get safely to the finish line. Most of the time racing the closest people to me are not actually the people on earth, but actually the astronauts in the space station. So it's definitely a lonely sport.

Karen:

Wow. So we've got some good questions here for you from various people just to kind of cover our topic of resilience today. And so the first question is, resilience covers everything from the physical to the mental side. How do you prepare for long offshore races when you have no one to rely upon and no one nearby?

James:

So I think sailing in general is an experience based sport. So I think the more that I compete and the more that I put myself in situations that I'll face in a race like the Vendée Globe the better prepared that I will be and the better my performance will be. I think the physical side is really important, so I spend a lot of time working on that element. Obviously the physical side compliments the mental side, but also if you're not physically ready for an event like the Vendée Globe, you also risk things like injury and being out on a 60-foot boat that's going at 70 kilometres an hour if you have an injury, there's no one that can help you. So you are very much to your own means. So it's careful that you look after yourself from that side, but also the mental side is really important.

I guess the only other time that you would find someone in this sort of situation would be in complete isolation in a prison almost, but thankfully they don't need to put up with freezing cold conditions or the challenge of actually competing at the same time. So for me personally, my preparation, particularly on the mental side, is coming up with different techniques and different ways of thinking about situations while I'm on the water. So there are a handful of ways that I can manage my fear, anxiety, the stress levels, they all go hand in hand. When I'm stressed it's often because it's a situation that's scary. And I personally also get quite anxious with the racing and the competitive side. I'm very competitive and so I want to be doing well, and when it isn't going well, I find it quite difficult to come back from it and erase my mind.

So I spend quite a lot of time actually figuring out how I can manage where my mind takes me. And all of this is compounded as well by the fact that for those 80, 90, one hundred days you are sleep-deprived. My sleep pattern is sort of 30 minutes sleeps and then several hours of being awake and then another 30 minutes sleep. This also allows your brain, unfortunately, to go into quite negative places where you need to cope with fear. So one of my favourite techniques for dealing with this is, sounds a little bit crazy, but it's actually to name and address fears while you're out there. So if I'm nervous when the boat is going at 70 kilometres an hour and there are waves taller than buildings, the noise on board it's really loud, you start to think about whether you're going to hit something or the boat is going to break.

I have a quick chat with Terry, my imaginary friend who is the name that I've put to fear and just tell him that I'm in control and he's welcome to stay on board for the ride and to enjoy himself. But I'm calling the shots, I'm sailing the boat and Terry's very much the passenger. So there's a bunch of techniques like that which work for different people. For me that's a great one. It also makes me feel like there's someone else on the boat that I can speak to. So it kind of hits two birds with one stone. But yeah, there's a huge amount of preparation that goes into that side.

Karen:

In terms of the mental preparation, is that something that you learned through being on the British Olympic team? Did they help with that kind of training?

James:

A lot of it is actually through speaking with other skippers that have done this type of racing before. Particularly the psychology behind this is really, it's very difficult to actually find people who can help with an event like this. It's very easy to find people who can help in a Olympic environment because it's a very well-trodden path. There's sort of an ingredients list of an individual that's needed in order to win a gold medal for a country.

With this, it's very different. And so a lot of these I've also kind of figured out myself along the way. There's also, I often take a helicopter view, so I remove myself from the boat when I'm stressed or anxious and I focus on what is relevant right now and remove all of the distractions out of the way. And so if the boat is going quickly and it is in scary conditions or if there's land nearby, by removing myself from the boat and picturing the boat moving along through the water, I can contextualise the situation and reassure myself, if you will, that everything is okay, there's nothing too scary going on, the boat's in good condition, I'm in good condition and that allows me to keep performing basically.

Karen:

Yeah. Thank you James. So what do you think makes you well suited for offshore sailing? Has anything in your past made you particularly adept at coping with stress and isolation?

James:

I think probably a couple of loose screws here and there. But no, I think I've found, completely subconsciously, but I've found that over the years in my career of sailing, if you had asked me whether I wanted to do the Vendée Globe 10 years ago or 15 years ago, I probably would've thought that is completely nuts. Why would anyone ever, ever want to put themselves in a situation on this type of boat, which is so physical and demanding inside these awful conditions where it's cold, wet and just silly. And I think what I've found is that as I progressed through my sailing, I've tried to seek greater and greater challenges.

And so I think it's been quite a slow process in getting to the point where I am. And it's very much like a controlled challenge, if you will. And I think these challenges become more and more reasonable and achievable the further along you get. I'm also someone who really likes to set a goal in the future or something difficult to try and aspire to or to be. And I think the Vendée Globe is a perfect match for me in many ways. So to answer your question, in short, I don't think there's a specific event or something specific in my life that has created who I am. It's been a evolving process, which kind of scares me because who knows where I'll be in 15 years' time at this rate.

Karen:

And you think what's next? So I always had visions of when people do these around the world yacht expeditions that they have this massive lifeboat following them all the way. And if there's any problem they can just say, "Right, please, can I come aboard?" But actually you are on your own. What support is available to you though from your team whilst you're sailing?

James:

It's a really good point. The discipline of sailing that I'm doing, it is a solo sport, so I'm by myself when I'm actually out on the water racing. However, it does take a really strong team to get me there and for me to work with before the racing and even during the racing. Strictly, I'm not able to get any advice or help that will improve the performance of the boat. So I can't ask a professional navigator where they think I should go from where I am now. I'm also not allowed to get any physical assistance so no one can step foot on the boat, no one can touch the boat, I can't touch land, I can't get any supplies or spare parts while I'm racing. You're immediately disqualified. But before I start, we basically try and map out what support I can get, what I can't get, and then we make plans based on that.

I'm able to speak to the team unlimited amount of times during the day. So we use WhatsApp, which is something that I don't think many people think that we have out in the middle of the ocean, but we can use WhatsApp. And I also use that communication channel as a really nice way to take my mind off of the racing for a little bit. It's impossible to expect anyone to be able to maintain that level of intensity and focus for 80 days straight because the racing is 24/7. It's not like we race for six hours a day and then when the sun sets, we drop our anchors and rest overnight.

And I find, I don't know whether this is an age thing, but I find that I get wrapped up in the racing very easily and my adrenaline is really high and I can't focus on anything other than the racing and trying to make the boat go as quickly as possible. So what I've realised is that between listening to music and messaging, friends at home or family, I'm able to relax my brain to a point where I am now able to not focus on the sailing for, it might just be five minutes or 10 minutes, but it brings me back to a state of relaxation a little bit. And then it allows me to focus more on the competitive side when I wake up from that distraction, if you will.

Karen:

Interesting. And as part of your training, I think it's interesting to hear that it's not only your physical and mental side, you've got to obviously learn to use all the navigation tools and read the weather situation so that you can adapt to that and be able to fix your boat yourself really.

James:

Yeah, absolutely. It's quite a broad range of skills that I need to develop before the start of the Vendée Globe because again, it isn't just can you sail the boat as quickly as possible? It's, can you fix the problems that are going to occur during an 80-day race? Because I don't think there's ever been a boat in the history of the race that's been able to get from the start to the finish of the race without a single problem. So I need to be prepared for that and I need to be able to fix that. So I do need to become an expert in hydraulics and sail repair, marine electronics in addition to the more traditional sailing skills.

Karen:

So we talked about your friend Terry, but what other tools do you use to manage stress, fear, and pressure?

James:

I try not to think about the scary stuff. So I wipe all of the thought of colliding with a container out of my mind. I remove the thought that the boat is only a couple millimetres thick, so you're that far separated from basically three kilometres or more of nothingness below you. And I try to remove all of the weaknesses out of the picture and reassure myself that the preparation that we've done is as much as we could do and that I'm in a position where I don't need help from outside. And I mentioned this in the adaptability podcast as well, is that the goal for me is actually to start the race with the mindset that I don't need anyone else on the boat and I don't need any advice from anyone. If I do get myself into a position where I do, then I pick up my WhatsApp and I can call someone, but hopefully I don't need to do that.

The other technique that I use, because it is quite an emotional rollercoaster, when you're out there you experience extreme highs and very extreme lows as well. So when times are good, the boat is performing, I'm in a good position relative to the other boats, I've maybe just eaten a meal and so I'm feeling naturally quite happy and life is good, then it's very easy to feel comfortable and potentially overlook future situations and relax a little bit too much. So in order to bring yourself back to that level of intensity and focus, I try to relate that feeling of comfort to a near car crash or a near major incident, which very quickly can flick a switch. And it can take years to train to learn how to do this, but it flicks a switch and it allows me to position my mind back into a level of focus, I guess.

And then it's the same with when times aren't so good, it's how do you bring your mind back to a state of being positive and be productive as well. And this could be anything from breaking the journey down. So in the Vendée Globe, we pass several of the capes along the Southern Ocean. So let's say I've just rounded Cape Leeuwin off of Australia. Then the next big landmark for me would be Cape Horn. So you actually break down what is a 25,000-mile race into much smaller sections. It might be two thousand miles or five thousand miles, and that's what you're looking forward to. And this doesn't even need to be geographically broken down. It could also be things like if I'm having a really rough day or I'm not happy with how the boat's performing, I'm not happy how I'm performing, then break down your tasks for the day on board into really small ones.

So for example, I start with eat something, which sounds really silly, but get some food. Once you've ticked that job off, then you're ready to then encounter your next task, which might be do a full check through the boat, make sure the structure of the boat is okay, there's no water inside. Once you've done that, you're ready for the next task, which might be a slightly bigger one. So do a sail change, then it's actively trim for an hour. And so you progress your day in smaller tasks and ideally ones that grow a little bit every time, and that means that at the end of the day you have a sense of achievement.

Unfortunately, our day is not really broken up, it's a 24/7 period, but there's a very famous quote about how you should always make your bed in the morning. And if you do make your bed, then it allows you to focus on the next task. And if you do have a really crap day, then at least you come home to a made bed. And that's something that I live by a little bit when I'm offshore.

Karen:

Indeed. How do you think some of these tools could be relevant to Ashurst staff when working under pressure themselves?

James:

I think going back to my point about breaking the journey down, now the journey doesn't need to be a 90-day race. It could be finishing a legal document, for example. And so breaking down those tasks, I'm very aware that sometimes a lot of the work does not finish at 5:30 or 6:00 PM, it will go through until the early hours of the morning sometimes. And so how do you break down those tasks? How do you know when it's time for you to take a step back or distract yourself for five minutes, whether it's with music or by messaging friends? And I think it's so important as well to realise that managing yourself right now through preparation will also lead to better long-term results. So an example of this for me would be if I'm aware that I need to be in 10 hours time, I will likely need to be up for 30 hours because we're short tacking next to a coastline or there's lots of boats involved in the racing just there, then I need to rest right now.

And I think that's a mindset that can be brought into everyday life, but particularly working at a very top and high level company is when do you know to rest and manage yourself? Because the burnout is something that I think is faced by a lot of people, particularly now, and we live in such a competitive world, and I get the exact same thing when I'm sailing as well. And it's where do you draw the line of, right, I need to take a break for five minutes, 10 minutes or an hour so that I can get back and actually perform at the best of my ability.

Karen:

Yeah, I mean honestly a hundred percent I agree with you on that and that's one of the things I've learned to get better at is managing your energy levels. When you know what you've got coming up, can you realise, okay, I've got to deliver five solid days and work perhaps 20 hour days. And then you've got to work through how you can manage your energy levels just to get there. I think that's one of the things that I've learned and it's important to realise when you do need that extra sleep so that you can perform at your very best.

James:

It's probably worth also mentioning that stress releases something called cortisol in your brain, which raises your heart rate up, it increases the adrenaline and it often will cloud your thinking even without you being aware of that. And so it's how do you operate within that window of you want enough stress where you are working productively and you are meeting deadlines and you're working quickly and efficiently, but you don't want to get to the point where that stress actually begins to impact the quality of the work or even long-term, the quality of mental health.

Karen:

One of the things I was really interested in is that obviously you have very little sleep and you have to manage yourself, as you say, for going for 30 hour stretches or even when you're in very dangerous seas, you can't be sleeping for too long. How do you manage that? How do you train for that so that you can have naps say 40, 90 minutes? I know sometimes when I'm very stressed, I find it hard to get to sleep, as you say, because you've got that adrenaline and cortisol running through your body. How do you train for that?

James:

I find it very difficult to sleep sometimes while I'm racing because of my adrenaline, my heart rate can be set at 95 without me actually doing any work. So I'll be sat down below looking at the computer, tracking the other boats, trying to get to sleep. I just can't. And so I need to find ways for me to relax into a sleep. So what I will try and do is, it's quite simple, but is remove myself from anywhere that I can see numbers or boats or any data on the boat. So I'll monitor how the performance of the boat is for the last 10 minutes. So the autopilot will be driving of course, and we always try to sail to a hundred percent of the boat's potential. So if the autopilot can drive and I've got everything set up in a way where the boat is at 95, 98%, then I'm quite happy to leave the boat to itself and either go and make some food or in fact go to sleep.

And I need to be able to remove myself from being nervous that the boat is slowing down. So I actually position my beanbag that I sleep on, we don't sleep on nice comfortable beds, so I move my beanbag into a place in the boat where I can't see anything. I might listen to music for five minutes before I try to go to bed just to remove my mind from the racing itself. And then that is a really nice way for me to relax into a place where I can sleep.

And then as soon as I wake up, then I can get straight back on it. Sleep is a luxury onboard, and I've gotten very used to this alarm that goes off every half hour or 20 minutes, 40 minutes. And my mum actually bought me, it's almost like a dog shock collar, but it's for your wrist and it's to wake me up because sometimes it is quite difficult as well to wake up and be able to focus it a hundred percent. So it's again, trying to find techniques for you to then snap back into the situation and be able to remain focused for as long as possible.

Karen:

Sure. And if you're on autopilot, is there some sort of alarm if you kind of hit a really dangerous system area or something goes wrong with the boat? So you will have knowledge and you can get up and sort it out?

James:

So we have alarms for almost everything on the boat, so I will tend to have most of them off while I'm awake. And then before I try and go to sleep, I'll turn them on. And this can be alarms for proximity to land or to other boats, or this can be alarms if there's water ingress into the boat or wind speed alarms. And we can set up all these parameters. And that's actually a really good point is you've got these alarms that if you don't hear them, then you can assume that the boat is performing well and you can relax and all is good. And I think that again, goes back to the point of having those, I guess borders a little bit for where you can relax and when you can relax as well.

Karen:

Yeah. Thanks James. So how do you dig yourself out of the low points during a race?

James:

It can be a little bit difficult. I mean, there's really simple ways to do it, like smiling. If you're having a really bad day, it is just to smile at something. I always find that that makes me happy, even if I shouldn't be happy. I've also got little quotes up inside the boat that I can look at. I've got a notes page on my phone with some jokes that I really love. I'm not sure I'm willing to share many of them on this podcast, but it's those little things that can just, I don't know, make you make you -

Karen:

Make you smile.

James:

Yeah, exactly. I also try to keep to a routine, which is really difficult to do in solo ocean racing because we don't have a day and a night. Again, it's a 24/7 event. So the one thing that does give me structure in the day or does give me routine is my mealtimes. So I will always have a breakfast at sunrise and I'll always have a dinner at sunset. I call them breakfast and dinner. They're not really a breakfast or a dinner but a meal at either of those two times. And that helps, I guess separate the days for me and it allows me to, if I had a really bad Monday, although it's not really separated by a long sleep or anything, and I wake up in the morning and okay, it's Tuesday now, thank God Monday is over. It does give me hurdles a little bit to be able to overcome and just keep looking forward a little bit.

Karen:

Thank you, James. What lessons do you think you can impart to our lawyers who often work long hours day after day on stressful transactions?

James:

So I think what I do, which is probably quite relevant, is to be able to have the mindset of doing what you can do with the tools and experience that you have as an individual. Some people are obviously going to be more talented in some areas or more experienced in some areas than yourself. And I find this not just with my abilities as a sailor, but also the boat itself. The boat has limitations that other boats might not have and Gentoo might have strengths that other boats don't have. So certain conditions will favour other boats. And I always think of focus on trying to just do everything I can to hang onto the position and then that's the phase where I'm trying to sail as smart as I can as opposed to try to make the boat go necessarily as quickly as I can.

So make the best use of the conditions that you are in and then be able to push really hard in the times when you do have the tools that can probably outperform others possibly. And I guess that also relates to what mindset or angle do you take? Is now a time where I need to sail the boat very tactically and make sure that, okay, I'm going to lose out in terms of distance to the finish line possibly, however, can I sail intelligently so that even though I'm missing out right now in six hours time or 10 hours time, I will be in a position where I can make the best use of a new pressure system coming in or a shift in the wind. And I think that a lot of that can then be put into the workplace and sort of the mindset around dealing with some of those challenges.

Karen:

I agree. And also I think it's very important, picking up the point that you raised earlier about managing your energy levels as well. I think when you know that you've got a long stretch ahead of you, it's important to manage your energy levels during that time. And as you say, I think stick to routine, stick to routine, make sure that even though you're busy, make sure you still have breakfast and dinner because it's very easy to sit at your desk and just ignore that and just carry on working. And I think also picking up on the other point that you raised I think is a really good point, is taking time for yourself. Even if you have a long day, you can still find, I think time for yourself to go off and listen to music or do a quick workout or something because I think that's really important so that you can get balance.

James:

Absolutely. And a word that gets thrown around a lot in ocean racing and particularly in our team, is stamina, which is basically the, well everyone knows, but the ability to sustain a prolonged physical and mental effort. And I think that's something that needs to be looked at, both from a psychological view but also physical.

And so I always tell myself that I need to enter the last day of the race or the last phase of the race in the same way that I entered the first day of the race. It's a little bit difficult to do that in reality because actually by the time I want to get to the dock, I want to be a completely broken man. But it's keeping that sort of mindset that actually you do need to be racing tomorrow. And not only do you need to be racing tomorrow, but you need to be racing and operating at a very high level tomorrow as well. So it's all about stamina.

Karen:

Indeed, thank you. As I understand it, you'll be one of the youngest competitors in this race, which is a fantastic achievement, I think, on his own. And there's a lot of talk at the moment about the younger generation being less resilient than previous generations, and that's a huge generalisation, but you do hear about it a lot. What do you think about that? What would you say to that?

James:

I think it can be true in certain cases. I think we live in a world now that is very sort of, I want, I get. Everything is literally on the end of your finger, on your iPad or on your laptop, and if we need answers to questions, we can find it in two seconds. So I do think that's made people's expectations probably become higher and higher in the immediate sense.

And so potentially the thought of working hard to find something or to deal with something or be resilient against something is potentially or has potentially been lost a little bit. I do think that we also live in a generation which is hyper-competitive, which can make it very difficult to be resilient. And it can also be quite daunting when you've got, I'm sure in a company like Ashurst, you've got so many extremely talented young individuals coming into the business and it is very competitive. And so how can they stay focused and compete against one another while still being part of a team and helping each other and supporting each other? And I think it's probably not down to the individuals and their fault, but it's probably more visible just given the environment that we are in today.

Karen:

Thank you for that. Honestly, it's been really interesting listening to you, and honestly, I hope to see you before next year anyway, but I wish you all the very best for this. I think it's a very exciting challenge and I think you're very brave to be taking it on. But wish you all the very best and we look forward to hearing some great news.

Thank you for joining me today, James, and to our listeners. To make sure you don't miss any of our future episodes, including additional episodes with James, subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. And while you're there, you can listen to any of our previous episodes and feel free to leave a rating or review. Thank you for listening, and goodbye for now.