Stepping back into the cockpit after a 20-year break from sailing, Sharon Foulston commissioned the new-build Contest 42CS Sophie for the clarity and consolation that time spent at sea can bring, specifically when your focus is on sailing solo, and with distant destinations in mind.
If a documentary series, the Discovery Channel might billboard this story as ‘Season 1 – I’m back’, ‘Season 2 – North Sea’, ‘Season 3 – Baltic Sea’. Back in reality, this is the striking programme Sharon Foulston has followed in just three seasons’ sailing of her newly built Contest 42CS Sophie.
Year one, 2021, was all about reacquainting and confidence building after a full 20 years away from sailing. In this first new year, Sharon cruised the UK’s south coast both ways then turned to the North Sea, ending in Newcastle high up the east coast, set for a 2022 crossing to the fjords of Norway and back down to Contest HQ in Medemblik.
Then, for 2023 just gone, a Baltic adventure sailing a full1000 miles east to Helsinki. Remarkably, apart from having help aboard in parts of that first season, all these miles were sailed alone. That is quite something to document!
Although Sharon doesn’t see this as quite so remarkable, she does say, “I do challenge myself with what I do”. And challenge she would. With a family background at the forefront of motor racing in the UK, and a father who instilled in his two daughters that “anyone can do anything”, Sharon has always pushed hard. In this return to sailing, she feels empowered and undeterred.
Sharon is no stranger to Contest, just absent for a couple of decades!
In her early thirties, Sharon had bought a Contest 55CS to fulfil along-held dream of crossing the Atlantic and did so. “This was not alone! This was done with friends and a professional skipper who taught me a lot,” says Sharon. “It was magical, mystical. I loved it, being away from the land. It was a big undertaking owning a boat that size and at that age. Then I had my daughter and gave up sailing to focus on family.”
Four years ago, coming out of what Sharon talks of as clearly difficult life situations, thoughts turned to sailing again. “I was full of emotional pain and my mental health had suffered. I got back to sailing because, basically, I wanted to go back to the water to heal myself.”
And with what has happened since, Sharon describes this as life-changing. “It’s physical. It’s spiritual. You’re at one with nature … and it’s a bit edgy! I can be scared but it helps me face the fear and then I feel like I’ve cleared some emotional blockage. I feel more alive. I feel empowered. And I feel better.”
meant to be
It was a visit to the Southampton boat show that led Sharon inevitably to the Contest stand. “I am loyal to Contest, you know, my father, he died when I was very young, had a thing about Dutch quality and said always to buy a Dutch boat. I’d had the 55 those years back and now sitting on the 42 at the show it just felt like home, like it was meant to be.”
And so it all kicked off. “Saying I wanted to try solo this time, everything was set up so I could sail and do everything from the cockpit. I hadn’t done much single-handing before, but when I was a kid I sailed a Laser dinghy so I had that in my DNA.”
Then with a laughing fondness, Sharon recalls how this was endorsed: “Contest’s own skipper Ben, who came out with me at first, on seeing how nervous I was after 20 years, said straight out, ‘Remember how you sailed your Laser, well, just sail this like that!’” And so she did!
With Sophie delivered back home to Southampton, confidence was then extended.“I found some local girls to come on board with me as well, as a bit of support at the beginning, then just took baby steps further and further outside my comfort zone, you know, making each passage longer, and then took her down to the West Country and did a night passage in calm conditions. I’ve always been very picky about the weather.
“Down there in the west you do get big seas so I experimented and tried stuff down there – really, it is just persistence. And then I took the boat back round, and all up the east coast to Newcastle in November where I left her for the winter, so she was positioned well for Norway. That had been my primary focus.”
Sections of that trip to Newcastle were in really foul weather with 30-knot winds but Sharon did need to test both boat and self in such conditions. She came through this pleased, now assured the boat will always cope, as she would, too. Good to know… and good to go.
“Norway had been on my agenda right from the start,” Sharon says, “I thought it would be a very beautiful healing experience to be in all that nature, the fjords and everything, and on a sailing boat. I thought yes, for my mental health I really want to see Norway like that.”
For the crossing of the North Sea, company had been planned, but then as Sharon says, “I just realised that actually I could do it myself. It was a couple of days on my own and was fine, awesome really, just great to be so far from land – the sense of isolation thrilled me!
confounding conditions
The trickiest seas encountered, though, came much closer to home and shore inside the Netherlands’ Frisian Islands on the way back to Medemblik with big winds against a strong tide. “The biggest waves I’ve ever seen!”
Sharon says reliving the experience which itself came straight after a confusing encounter with fishing boats just nights before in conditions almost as bad.
“I did have some rough stuff crossing the continental shelf close to Stavanger; that was the only scary bit yet it was also really exciting. That whole area, I was terrified … and knew that I had to face it again the next year when heading out from Medemblik on to Helsinki.”
Fortunately, when the time came next June that first stretch out to Cruxhaven proved peaceful. “I think someone was looking over me after the previous experience and they gave me a beautiful night’s crossing,” Sharon says. “Plus, there were a lot of other boats going at the same time. It was just after the heatwave, and it was then all very pleasant up the Elbe, the Kiel Canal. All so pretty, just so rural and beautiful!”
Why to Helsinki? “I have a friend there I wanted to meet up with and everyone has raved about the Baltic and that this boat was built for it. So, I thought I’d better go and check it out. I did find it quite challenging, though, so many countries with their different ways.
“Sweden is, of course, very popular and I like quieter places but after a month’s layover in Germany it worked out well for me being late in the season and I was getting into marinas that I wouldn’t normally with this size of boat because everyone had gone home.
“I’d left the Netherlands in June but restarted from Rostock, Germany at the beginning of August, then getting into Helsinki in mid-September, and I benefitted from this lateness with harbours and anchorages emptying all along the way. Mooring up can be a challenge at the best of times. On your own, you do have to think it through quite hard.”
going the distance
The same could be said of the general operation and handling of a 13-metre sailing yacht, but Sharon’s Sophie is so well set. Having opted for slab reefing in place of in-mast, as Sharon wanted maximum sail area for efficiency and light wind sailing, this has been simplified with the installation of the Dutchman sail flaking system that works like a blind using vertical control lines laced through cringles in the sail attaching to topping lift and base of sail. Further, halyards are led aft, all winches in the cockpit are electric, and a central plinth between the helm stations is home to single-point mainsheet and winch. Everything to hand and adding to confidence.
One of the highlights was the 100-mile sail from Rostock to Ystad in southern Sweden.
Beautiful, I had around 20 knots of breeze on the aft quarter the whole way, making speeds over eight knots. I really like this boat, it’s very fast, I can really do the distances in great time. It’s a 150-mile-a-day boat.”
In pursuit of more small fishing harbours and quieter spots, Sharon went on from Ystad to the delightful, tiny island of Hano and then crossed to Sweden’s east coast in gentle conditions, to Kalmar and Västervik where, “The changing landscape began reminding me of Norway, it was really beautiful, but because the wind was forecast to shift I desperately needed to get to the north, and I thought to make a night entry into the Stockholm Archipelago.”
In hindsight not the best idea. “I had been going since about midday and had the most beautiful sunset in peaceful calm. Then approaching land it started getting windier and much more on the bow, so it was a struggle to get into the archipelago.
“Eventually, I got into a tiny, unlit, empty anchorage at 2am with relief and totally alone. I felt a sense of achievement then! In the summer the days are long so you tend not to go into places at night. I just really had to trust the chart as there are lights and rocks everywhere.”
a privileged stay
Waking relaxed, Sharon moseyed on through the archipelago’s snake-like southern route into Stockholm via the Boo Nacka canal, an interesting cut-through, wide open in places, in others not so! “It was tight,” Sharon says with a capital ‘T’. “I had a metre under the keel but it was really narrow and there was a graveyard and chapel right there! It was thrilling, so beautiful, and then into Stockholm where it felt such a privilege to be moored right there in the centre of the city that I stayed five days. I had a fantastic berth. Lovely!”
Then it was time to get east to Finland and Sharon sailed on to the outer edge of Stockholm’s archipelago and another stunningly beautiful anchorage and again totally alone. “I thought this time I would make a night passage, leaving and arriving in daylight. I’m happier doing it that way. The wind looked good, quite strong but behind me all night. So, I decided, yes, to do that for the crossing to Finland, and that was fine, pretty uneventful, although very rolly, and I lovearriving when dawn is breaking.”
And how does sleep factor in these crossings? “If it’s only 12 hours I can keep myself awake but the longer voyages I struggle with. I’ve talked to others who do the napping system. I can rest like that, but I’ve never been able to go completely to sleep and wake. It requires more practice. But I have managed to figure out a way to, kind of, do a deep rest, because I do a lot of meditation.
“The whole experience is meditative anyway. So, I can rest myself in a way that I feel a bit more revived afterwards. Sleep deprivation is torture, particularly as in that first North Sea crossing, 40 hours. That was no joke when I arrived. But I never felt sleep deprived on this Baltic cruise because I was doing only 70, 100 miles a day, it’s not so bad when there’s always a stop!”
helsinki and next step
Making her arrival into Finland at Utö, a tiny isle among the 6,700 under the Åland Islands label, Sharon says, “Another Contest lady owner had suggested I go there, absolutely stunning. Really cool, with ever so friendly locals that I got to know as I stayed two nights, and the local pilot not only offered a sauna but recommended a couple of extra stops en route into Helsinki: Kasnas and Barösund, which were again stunning. Beautiful little harbours, idyllic, I felt a bit like I was in the Caribbean.”
Then next and final step, into the busier but still picture-postcard-perfect main harbour of Helsinki with a final fine berth and haul-out for winter storage before next adventures in the coming new season. The pull is to Norway again, and possibly even by road! By truck, it’s just a 16-hour haul instead of days and weeks rounding by sea. Yet, there is still so much more Baltic beauty to be seen under sail.
Sharon, alone, will decide. And how does Sharon feel?
“I was watching a programme about the old Cape Horners on their tall ships 100 years ago. They said something that resonated. ‘After you’ve done all this and after you’ve been out there with the sea and what you’ve been through, you feel you can do anything … and you come back to land.’ I now feel I can do anything.”