Alan Roberts: "The harder the challenge the more you take away from it"

A dinghy national and international champion in many different high-performance classes, as well as twice being Britain’s champion of champion, Alan Roberts was originally exposed to offshore sailing and ocean racing through his father who designed and fitted rigs for some of the highest profile projects of the time. But as a youngster something of a purist dinghy racer, he was never drawn to ‘yachting’ and the big boat scene in the UK which he associated with blazers and ‘posh’ yacht clubs. 

But as a student of naval architecture at Southampton Solent University Roberts was chosen to race yachts immediately successful as tactician and navigator in student yachting events. As a winner of the Student Yachting World Championships his negative ideas softened and his interest was piqued. 

But it was really his first overnight passage, delivering a fellow student’s Figaro class yacht back from the finish of La Solitaire du Figaro in 2013, sailing from Dieppe to Cowes, that lit the fire to pursue his own solo and short handed racingcareer. He would love to move on to emulate the successes of some of the legendary sailors he met as a kid:

Now, a dozen years later, after nine Solitaire du Figaro races and more than 10 years living in France, Roberts is a now a first choice co-skipper or crew, chosen to compete aboard top IMOCAs and Ultim multihulls. Competing right now on The Ocean Race Europe as a key player on the HOLCIM PRB team, he is loving the intense competition, but perhaps more so as a naval architect he is relishing the technical challenges, constantly searching for more speed from their IMOCA 60, drilling down into the data to find speed and handling gains. 

At 35 years old Robert has the next Vendée Globe in his sights and is looking towards the end of The Ocean Race Europe when he can step up work to find a sponsor.

After racing on Biotherm (with Paul Meilhat) on the last crewed race round the world and serving two years as co-skipper to Clarisse Crémer on L’Occitane en Provence, during which he shared and supported the French woman through a full range of emotional challenges, Roberts has front line experience on several IMOCAs from the last generation now and considers he built the skills and strengths to be a competitive contender in the Vendée Globe.

Working with the L’Occitaine campaign he was instrumental in finding solutions, big and small, and being Crémer’s support. He considers their times of adversity, and more recently the likes of the start of The Ocean Race Europe in Kiel when HOLCIM PRB was in a potentially race ending collision minutes after the start, not as crises but as great opportunities to learn and develop as a sailor.

He sees The Ocean Race Europe as a great platform to present himself and his Vendée Globe potential after a couple of years very much working in the shadows.