Greystones Harbour's Pamela Lee is Racing Class 40 in Normandy Channel Race

5th June 2023

Irish Offshore sailor Pamela Lee

Twenty-four hours into the CIC Normandy Channel Race and Irish Offshore sailor Pamela Lee co-skippering the Class 40 yacht '154' is lying 23rd in the fleet.

The 1000-miler that started on Sunday sees Lee embark on a new journey with French co-skipper Tiphanie Ragueneau.

As Afloat reported previously, less than three months after being selected for the "Cap sur Elles" initiative - which provides support for a pair of young female sailors to take part in the Transat Jacques Vabre Normandie Le Havre double-handed race to Martinique – Lee and her French counterpart Ragueneau are now racing in their first big racing challenge together.

The route of the 2023 CIC Normandy Channel Race

The pair's objective is the Transat Jacques Vabre starting in October, and so the Normandy Channel is both a qualifier and an opportunity for the female crew push themselves against an extremely high-level and experienced fleet.

The course is exciting, technical and complicated, sending the fleet across the channel from France to the UK, inside the Isle of Wight and then around Tuskar Rock and the Fastnet Rock in Ireland, before returning to France.

Tracker here

Published in Class40, Transatlantic Jacques Vabre, Pamela Lee, Women in Sailing

Published in Class40

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Pamela Lee

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About Pamela Lee, Irish Offshore Sailor

Ireland has produced some of the world’s most dedicated offshore sailors, and Pamela Lee of Greystones is one of them. She has made a name for herself in the sailing world, having worked as a mate on a charter Super-yacht for two and a half years. After coming ashore, she has been fully committed to her offshore sailing ambitions since 2019.

Lee has raced in various craft, including Figaro 3s, Class 40, Tp 52s, and multihulls, and has eight transatlantic crossings under her belt. In partnership with Kenny Rumball, Lee supported Rumball’s La Solitaire du Figaro sailing campaign to secure the Irish berth in the proposed Mixed Offshore Keelboat event for the Paris 2024 Olympics.

One of Lee’s stated main aims is to promote female empowerment in sport, and she set out to establish a double-handed Round Ireland speed record with Englishwoman Cat Hunt in the winter of 2020. This campaign gained much publicity, and Lee expressed pride in bringing sailing and offshore sailing, in particular, into the conversation for 2020.

To further her offshore sailing career, Lee moved to France, where she has recently secured a place to skipper a yacht in the Transat Jacques Vabre Challenge in October 2023. Lee’s passion and dedication to offshore sailing are inspiring, and her achievements are a testament to her hard work and perseverance.