Having spent the last few years racing on fully crewed boats, naturally we thought the next logical step was to remove most of the crew and make life considerably harder for ourselves.
We’ve both been crewing in the JOG and RORC fleets on and off since just after Covid, although we got into sailing from fairly different directions. Emily started out as a dinghy sailor, while Alice grew up cruising, so we’ve ended up with a collection of sailing experience between us.
The majority of 2026 has been spent getting some proper double handed training in, figuring out how to sail a boat together, and learning an awful lot along the way. We’d planned to enter our first double handed race towards the end of the year, giving us something to work towards, and plenty of time to back out. Thankfully, we made it to both the start and finish line of Cherbourg 2026. It was considerably harder than we’d perhaps hoped, but apparently one race wasn’t enough to put us off, and we’re now looking forward to carrying on into 2027 with more racing to come.
A big part of making this possible has been the support from Unity Sailing, which has helped us get into racing and, more recently, double handed training on their 3200. We’ve been able to work through a customised training programme, with dedicated support throughout, which has given us the opportunity to work towards set goals and properly develop how we sail together. Sponsorship has also made a huge difference, making the training and racing much more accessible and allowing us to get involved without it becoming quite such an expensive hobby.
We’re really grateful to everyone who has helped get Project Chaos off the ground. We’re not entirely sure where it’s going to end up, but at this point we’re probably committed enough to find out.
