Script : Even if the quarantine concerns most of the French population at the end of 2020, a group of solo sailors are participating in the Vendée Globe. This non-stop, unassisted round-the-world race is probably one of the most intense and demanding competitions, both physically and psychologically.
This year, the University of Nantes is in collaboration with Armel Tripon, one of the thirty three sailors starting the ninth edition on November 8th. This multidisciplinary partnership, involves students and researchers, including in psychology.
The LS2N and MIP for Motricity, Interactions, Performance and Capacities laboratory are following Armel Tripon’s life course. There is little data available on the skipper’s experience, his daily life or his activity on board of a single-handed ocean race like the Vendée Globe. Collecting and analyzing such data would contribute to a better understanding of the skippers’ experience in these extreme conditions and identify the skills required in order to design tools for the training of skippers and the transmission of their experiences.
Weston and collaborators in 2009 investigated the different stressors faced by five solo sailors in conditions similar to those of the Vendée Globe and the associated coping strategies. Interviews conducted with the sailors were transcribed and they revealed organizational stressors (like environmental conditions, isolation, sleep deprivation) but also competitive stressors like lack of progress or boat-related problems), and personal stressors for example family-related issues. Strategies used to deal with these demands included problem centered strategie, sequential thinking, emotion regulation, rationalizing situation and approach-focused coping (e.g., the “what if” scenario planning).
Indeed, performance is played on a set of variables other than the mastery of navigation, weather or luck. Sleep management, which guarantees the lucidity of the skipper whose decision making must be as little as possible altered by fatigue, is one of the primordial psychological aspects. In order to better evaluate and prevent moments of vulnerability, physical and mental fatigue, a tool has recently been developed by the MIP.
This application called LuciEole designed as a performance assistance tool, which will operate during the Vendée Globe in complete autonomy and will provide indicators to the navigator on his state of lucidity, thus preventing and anticipating hallucinatory disorders.
Multi-day single-handed sailing races put exceptional strain on sailors, requiring high cognitive functioning and 24 h per day readiness to perform. Fatigue from sleep loss, circadian misalignment, workload and other factors is of significant concern, jeopardizing competitiveness as well as safety. Almost no research has been devoted to this, in part because collecting data on sleep and perfor-mance in solo sailors during races at sea is challenging. The study conducted by Hurdiel and collaborators in 2012 aimed to contribute valuable data on sleep–wake patterns and functional impairments in a total of 16 sailors. Each sailor recorded sleep periods and functional impairments. Sleep was indeed polyphasic ; which means that skippers sleep time was split into different naps at regular intervals over a 24-hour period. Self-reported sleep duration per day was 4.1 to 4.6 hours. Significant functional impairments were reported throughout the race including technical errors, mood changes and hallucinations. These impairments are consistent with the typical effects of substantial sleep loss and are likely to reduce the safety. The conclusion of the autors indicates that single-handed sailors could benefit from the development of innovative tools to help them to manage sleep and fatigue and thereby improve safety and effectiveness. This Vendée Globe would make it possible to validate the interest of an application like LuciEole for the well being of the competitors but maybe in the long term for sleep disorders.
So that’s the end I hope this podcast on the psychology of single-handed skippers interested you. Have a nice day !
References :
Weston, N. J. V., Thelwell, R. C., Bond, S., & Hutchings, N. V. (2009). Stress and Coping in Single-Handed Round-the-World Ocean Sailing. Journal of Applied Sport Psychology, 21(4), 460‑474. https://doi.org/10.1080/10413200903232607
Hurdiel, R., Monaca, C., Mauvieux, B., McCauley, P., Van Dongen, H. P. A., & Theunynck, D. (2012). Field study of sleep and functional impairments in solo sailing races. Sleep and Biological Rhythms, 10(4), 270‑277. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1479-8425.2012.00570.x