Pip Hare renews partnership with Medallia

Pip Hare has renewed her partnership with Medallia for her next Vendée Globe campaign and has bought Bureau Vallee 2, the 2016 generation boat which Louis Burton sailed to third place in last year’s race.

“It’s an honour to have Medallia onboard as title sponsor for the 2024 Vendée Globe and already have an incredible foiling boat for the next race,” Hare says.

“Getting the next stage of my Vendée journey off the ground has meant more to me than anything else over the last three months. I felt so much potential had been created through the first race, I did not want to waste it and other people felt the same. I have had a clear vision of what my next campaign would look like. What I wanted to achieve, how I would do that, what we would build on, who would be involved, what we would do differently. I have not been alone working on that and the core team who supported me so incredibly during my race have been there to add to the vision.”

It’s been three months since Hare completed the Vendée Globe and finished what she describes as ‘undoubtedly the greatest achievement of my life’.

“Coming home after this has been difficult,” Hare says. “To step out of the ultimate freedom of sailing a boat solo around the world into a locked down Britain, where I was only allowed to leave the house for exercise and essential travel, was a shock to the system. I don’t really think I fully engaged with how much that affected me. I know, of course, that I have had it easy compared to the rest of the planet who endured a winter in lockdown mode. But nevertheless it was a hard adjustment to make. Like running at full pelt into a brick wall – one minute I was flying the next I was caged.”

She set herself goals after the race, knowing that a comedown was inevitable. She says she wanted to keep herself from falling into a black hole.

“The primary two aims were to get fit again; to try and get my body back into a shape I recognised and was comfortable with. I lost close to 10 kilos during the race and by the last two weeks afloat I could feel my body was becoming weak – I still felt fit, but managing the sails and lifting heavy weights was becoming progressively harder.

“When I got back onto the land I could not walk for longer than an hour without my legs and feet hurting. This is hugely frustrating to someone who loves running distance; running has been my go to sport to clear my head and put the world to rights if I can’t get on the water.

“My second goal was to get my next Vendée campaign off the ground. There was no hesitation in my mind. From the outset this would be at least a two-race campaign. My first race was about just making it happen – take whatever I could and bring a campaign into being. I knew it would be hard and that so many others have tried and failed. I decided that I wouldn’t restrict my own ambitions through only settling for a gold-plated version of my dream. Any starting point was better than none and I had to make the most of what I had.

“All the way around the world I knew I was where I wanted to be. The race tested me, improved me, allowed me to stretch in so many ways. I kept waiting for that feeling of ‘I hate this, I don’t want to be here’ to overwhelm me but it never came. So when I stepped off the boat at the end of the race I was determined to make Vendée 2024 happen.”

And that’s what she has been concentrating on, so successfully. Hare’s sponsorship news, and new boat, has been greeted with jubilation for her fanbase – which swelled enormously during the last Vendée as her no-holds-barred approach to her daily video updates allowed those at home to experience the true ups and downs of her experience.