Interview with Ostar skipper OSCAR MEAD

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Oscar Mead is one of the UK's top up and coming solo and shorthanded sailors, despite the fact that he isnt yet 19 years old! Already officially confirmed as the youngest entrant in the 2009 OSTAR, Oscar has a long term goal to be a race winning contender on the start line of the race all singlehanders want to compete in, the Vendee Globe round the World Race. Oscars target is 2016!

I met him at the Solo Racing Festival organised by Petit Bateau at the Royal Southampton on saturday 28th February and I was impressed with his calmness and balanced attitute. Oscar is clearly a natural, he spent most of his time chatting away with Mike Golding, Brian Thompson and Dee Caffari, he seemed to belong equally with yacht designers, sailmakers, jurnalists and other very experience sailors like Alex Bennett. I really wish Oscar all the best, he has the talent and the determination to do well. He is also looking for sponsorship and equipment to support his campaign so if you want get involved with such a promising young sailor contact him at oscarmead2004 [at ] yahoo.co.uk

Oscar is currently in second place after Barry Hurley in our poll for the favourite monohull up to 35ft to take line honourse in Newport. You can vote for him at this link

Below is what Oscar had to tell us about his preparations for the OSTAR. If you prefer to listen to the interview itself scroll to the bottom and click on Download Audio, which will take you to the media player.

Marco Nannini, blogSTAR: Oscar, can you tell us a little bit about your preparations for the OSTAR?

Oscar Mead Certainly, the boat came out of the shed last Monday, which is a big relief frankly, we'be been concerning about it all winter, so the rig goes back on thursday and we should be having our first test sail the following week, worst the week after, once we've had re-rigging and things. We've got a couple of new sails to try out, we've got a code zero which we think will boost our light air performance, because we're a bit sticky in the light, that's our one really weak point of sail, light airs upwind so we're going to try boost it with that. For off the various stuff we've added a jib top so we havent affected our rating and we're still 1.014 which is a big relief, hopefully we should take the water and we should be doing some training soon, it's pretty good.

blogSTAR: You are clearly the youngest entrant ever in Ostar, how do you feel about this?

Oscar Mead It's exciting, and daunting at the same time, you know, obviously we are keen to get on and crack on but at the same I dont want do anything stupid or look like a fool for saying that I want to do the Vendee Globe and then try to take too many big steps too fast. I think currently it's trying to do a step by step process, tick all the boxes, achieve everything, hopefully get a sponsor lined up, get involved and if we go from there... people have been really helpful, David Southwood has been fantastic and obviously the Petit Bateau guys have all chipped in and any noise they can have, bits and bobs to perfect the boat although we have relatively little experience it's kinda like you're feeling you're moving everybody's experience to one place and then pushing the whole project forward in a positive manner, it's very exciting.

blogSTAR: And do you feel pressure putting together a project that is clearly very ambitious at your age and at the same time relying on so many people to help you and the fear of disappointment?

Oscar Mead It is ambitious and there is certainly a slight fear and a bit of pressure that I now have to pull it off, and that's fine because I really want to do that. There's lot's of different aspects of the whole project, obviously also at university big pressure on one side because I have to pass my year, my first year and then the OSTAR, my own personal pressure because I want to do well and I dont want to let anybody down. I think there is a lot of pressure but it's a pressure contained in excitement, you bounce the pressure off the excitement because you know it's going to be brilliant and it's just a question of dealing with one thing at a time until we can break down the aspects that we have to get through until we make the start.

blogSTAR: What is your biggest fear with this race? There are many dangers in this course, it is a long course, there will be shipping, fogs, potentially icebergs, collisions, what is it that is really something in the back of your head as something that will scare you?

Oscar Mead shipping and collisions is the one thing, we dont carry radar on the J105, we have looked at it but we dont have the budget to meet that requirement so we're running with the Sea-me, the radar reflector and also AIS which will make a huge difference.

blogSTAR: Transponder or receiver only?

Oscar Mead currently just receiver but we're looking to upgrade to a transponder which I think will make a big difference. But even in my limited offshore experience you see the fishing vessels and they are everywhere and they won't get out of the way and that's just the way it is so I think when you're really tired off sort of Newfoundland which is reknowned for having shipping and poor visibility and all these aspects that are really not conducive for single-handed sailing, I think that's going to be the really worrying time try to keep everything in play, keep all the risks minimised but still be productive and competitive so I think that's my main concern I' trying balance... obviously ice is also another concern, my strategy to the ice will change the closer that I get to it.

blogSTAR: [laughing] as the fear will mount...

Oscar Mead exactly! As the fear will mount I will probably maybe get further south but as for now it's quite a long away so I'm gonna say yeah let's be gutsy and go through the ice, through the limit of known ice, push it a bit and obviosly but not stupidly, we want to push it to be competitive at the same time you dont want to push it so far that you scare yourself.

blogSTAR: You sound really excited and this is great, we really hope that it is going to be a great reace for you... any other thoughts on this race? It's now less that three months to go, 83 days today, and pressure is mounting but you're going to go and sail over easter for quite long?

Oscar Mead We're doing another seven or eight miles which I think is about the limit we can fit in the Easter holidays, I won't get any work done for University during it, but if I can fit 800 we'll do 800, if i can fit more than 800 we keep going, the plan is to just keep going as far as we can until we reach sort of middle of the week or whatever and then turn around and head for home as fast as we can...

blogSTAR: Starting from Plymouth?

Oscar Mead Yes, we though Plymouth was the best just in terms of getting away from the shipping to an extent but aslo having to traverse the initial parts, so we'll probably start from Plymouth go out via the Eddystone Lighthouse just like the start of the race and just see how it feels to be pushed off and go off and try and do a decent length

blogSTAR: It sounds like an excellent plan, it wouln't take off the pressure of not knowing what the first three days are because you would just be re-playing that a few weeks later.

Oscar Mead Yes, exactly and I think as well as taking a huge amount of pressure off the boat and myself, there is a huge amount of preparation that's been done this winter so there is quite a lot of new kit on board the boat and it'll be nice to see that kit do 700 or 800 miles and to know that it's good, it's reliable, I can trust it and if something goes wrong in the race I know where that kit is because it's been there for the last 700 miles and I can go and get that and I can use it. Again it's just reinforcing my own navigational ability, my own sea keeping ability, and the fact that even when I'm tired I can make intelligent decisions that aren't gonna geopardise my own safety.

blogSTAR: Very often they say that one of the difficult part in OSTAR for the younger skippers that they can tend to burn too quickly at the beginning, are you thinking about this? Are you thinking about trying to pace yourself at the beginning?

Oscar Mead Yes, certainly, I think our first couple of weeks strategy is going to be quite conservative, we're looking at obviously pushing and being on pace with everybody else but I dont think we're going to be gunning it... I mean I gunned it really hard in the last inshore series last year and actually that cost me the series, I threw up the spinnaker and it jumped the sheave and I was full it out and I was going at 8 knots towards Portsmouth and couldnt get the spinnaker down and certainly there wont be any of that, chucking up stupidly big sails just trying to gain a bit of an advantage, it's going to be think it through, think through the sails process, because we've done quite a lot of work with North changing sails crossovers trying to work out the best time to change. I think it'll be keeping within the limits, it's a long race, it's three weeks, anything can happen, if I'm dismasted on day for it's dream over. So I think at least till we get to half way three quarters of the way across we need to start thinking, you know, it's endurance, endurance, and then thre quarters of the way across you can go right, ok, still endurance but we need to step it up with we're x far from the finish or we're in x position. Obviously we're looking for the IRC result, not the overall on water result, I dont think I'll beat a Class40, as much as I would like to dream to think so, at the end we're working with the IRC and just with that attitude we can try to keep it though working through our sails wardrobe in an intelligent way and keep the boat moving.

blogSTAR:Excellent, thank you very much and all the best for your preparations.

Oscar Mead sails the J105 Juneau.

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