From her first experiences sailing small dinghies on the Irish East Coast to the starting line of the Route du Rhum - Destination Guadeloupe, her journey is that of a dream built step by step. From Wicklow to Sydney, then from the pontoons of the Figaro circuit to the Class40s, she gained a wealth of experience before creating her own structure, Ripple Racing, and launching the #EmpowHer project with DFDS.
A few weeks before the big departure, Pamela Lee looks back on this off-the-beaten-path journey, her physical and mental preparation, her ambitions for this first Route du Rhum - Destination Guadeloupe and the message she wants to convey through her adventure: believe in your potential and dare to forge your own path.
1. For those who are just discovering you, could you introduce yourself and retrace your journey, from your beginnings in Ireland to your arrival in offshore racing?
I'm Irish, and I grew up in County Wicklow on the east coast. Sailing has been in my life from the very start — it's my dad's passion and my mum's, and it's actually how they met.
But Ireland has no real offshore racing scene, so sailing for me meant messing about in small dinghies: Optimists, Mirrors, 420s. When I was growing up there wasn't even an established Olympic pathway like there is in France. It was casual. I never had a fibreglass boat, never had an asymmetric spinnaker, never sailed anything that ran on apparent wind. The sailing schools I see here in France, with the equipment they have, would have blown my mind as a kid.
We did race, though, and we raced hard — I did European and World Championships in the Mirror fleet. So the competitive instinct was always there. What was missing was the ocean.
That came when I moved to Sydney. I saw there was this race called the Sydney Hobart and thought: that looks incredible. The idea of heading offshore, out to sea, completely fascinated me. But I couldn't afford my own boat in Sydney Harbour — not even a Laser. So I walked the docks and asked people if I could sail with them. Bit by bit I built up my offshore miles, starting on the bow as number one, across various teams, doing the Sydney Hobart and the Blue Water Point Score.
A few years later I got my Yachtmaster and came back to Europe to work. I spent years between the Mediterranean and the Caribbean on IRC racing yachts, running yard periods, crossing the Atlantic back and forth. I was racing a lot — but never quite as much as I wanted, and always as one part of a big IRC crew. I wasn't getting the chance to navigate or to drive.
Then the Volvo Ocean Race boats came to Galway. I fell in love with them. The idea of sending it on a powerful machine across an ocean really caught hold of me. I just had no idea how to get there.
The door opened when I came to France to train on the Figaro, double-handed. Here were the big racing machines I'd been dreaming about — and, more importantly, the teams were built completely differently from what I'd known. Where I'd come from, it was all private ownership. In France the sport is professional, it's built on sponsorship, and teams are built around skill and hard work. Which meant that if I worked hard enough and learned French, I might genuinely have a shot at racing these boats. And maybe, if I could find sponsorship, one day I'd race one on my own.
So that became the plan. I started in the Figaro as a preparateur and double-handed sailor, which gave me a real grounding in how the French system works — and my French improved enormously from working alongside the other preparateurs. I had no sponsor of my own, so I took whatever came. One of those things was an offer from Marcus Hutchinson, who lent me his Figaro to take back to Ireland and attempt the record for the fastest sail around Ireland with my friend Cat Hunt. We got it.
That was the first project I'd ever run myself, and it gave me a real taste for it. It showed me what a project can do when there's a message behind it, and it showed me what it feels like to achieve something you genuinely doubted you could. That stayed with me.
From there I moved through the Class40 and Ocean Fifty fleets, working with and for different skippers, all the while still looking for the sponsorship that would let me build my own team. The dream, always, was the Route du Rhum.
It came piece by piece. In 2023 I launched the Ripple Racing Ltd with my business partner Maxime Grimard, we applied for and won a the Cap Pour Elles award to help us compete in the the Transat Jacques Vabre, I became the first Irish skipper to compete in that race. Then a full Ocean Fifty season with Koesio, where I learned an enormous amount. And in 2025 we signed DFDS as founding sponsor of our project, #EmpowHer, which finally put a Class40 in the water in May 2025 and I raced my second Transat Café L'Or with Jay Thompson as co-skipper.
Everything since has been built around one goal: the Route du Rhum, which will make me the first Irish sailor ever to race it.
From messing about in a dinghy in Wicklow to the start line of the Route du Rhum is a fairly big jump. Which is rather the point — I hope it shows that almost anything is possible.
2. With just a few weeks to go before the big start, how are you feeling and how are you approaching this new transatlantic race?
With only weeks to go, I'm starting to feel genuinely excited.
Right now, though, my focus is on getting everything done — being as prepared as possible, and as prepared as necessary, before we head into the race village and into the locks at Saint-Malo. That matters to me for a specific reason. I want my team and I to actually be able to enjoy being there, to enjoy all the work we've put in to get to that start line. And I want to have good energy for the crowds and for my sponsors when they come to see us. If the boat is ready, we get to be present for all of that. So that's the moment I think it will really sink in — the excitement and the joy of where we've got to.
For now, it's head down. There's technical preparation, performance work, logistics, and training, and there's a lot still to do before we go up to Saint-Malo. But we're making real progress, and I've got a great team around me who are giving it absolutely everything.
The boat's in good shape. I'm in good shape. Focused is the word.
3. Practically speaking, how did your physical and mental preparation go to get ready for this Route du Rhum?
Honestly, the true test will be how I feel ten days into the race, and how I feel at the finish.
But I've taken both sides of it very seriously. Being as physically fit as possible is a fundamental part of being an athlete and a professional sailor. Offshore sailing is a mechanical sport — you don't need to be the strongest sailor to win, you need to know how to get the best from your boat and put it in the right place. But being as strong as you can be for yourself is essential. The fitter you are, the less fatigued you get, and the better your mind works. And when things get hard, when you're exhausted, that extra bit of fitness and muscle is what keeps you going. It protects you from injury, too.
I'm under no illusions about how physically violent a Class40 can be. I want to give myself the best possible chance of staying in good shape right through the race, so I can finish it and do my actual job, which is racing the boat.
The mental side is the same, and it's the newer territory. I've done relatively little solo sailing — my first solo race was last year, then two more this year, so three in total, the longest of them seven days. Crossing an Atlantic alone is a completely different proposition, and I'm not underestimating the mental strain of it. So I'm working with mental coaches alongside my physical coaches, and I'm approaching it with curiosity rather than dread. I've been learning a huge amount about myself, which has been genuinely fascinating.
Part of that is about delivering for my sponsors and my team — that's my job. But part of it is making sure I actually enjoy the experience. The stronger I am, in both senses, the better my chances of doing both.
Practically, the physical side has been three weight sessions and three cardio sessions a week — a mix of swimming, rowing, running, and heavy lifting. I love it anyway. I'm usually up at six to get the gym done before heading down for training or technical work on the boat.
The mental work has been a slower process, deliberately so. I do some work before and after each race, take what I've learned, and carry it into the next one. And now into the Rhum.
The Route du Rhum has been a battle from the start, and it's still a battle today just to get to the start line in genuinely good shape.
But that start line is where everything opens up. You can't win a race you don't finish — so my number one goal is straightforward: complete the Route du Rhum, and get myself and my boat safely to the other side.
And in doing it, I want to give a story and an experience to my sponsors, my partners, and everyone following along, so they share the crossing with me. That's really what all of this is for.
Secondly, I want to do it competitively. I'd love a top ten. That means racing hard from start to finish, making smart decisions, and arriving with a race I can look back on and be proud of — proud of how the boat held up, proud of the preparation we put in, proud of how I sailed as a skipper, and proud of how I made my team and my sponsors feel. That I delivered for them out there.
4. Do you have a final message to share with those who follow you and support your project?
My final message would be about the power of sport itself.
Sport is an extraordinary communicator. I've seen that in the work I've done with my partners and sponsors, and it's the foundation of everything I'm building with #EmpowHer. Yes, sport is about competition and winning — we're all here to do that, and to do it as well as we possibly can. But it's also about emotion, storytelling, and human connection. Those things are genuinely powerful, and I don't think we should forget the reach we have through our sport, or fail to use it.
The growth of women's sport has been hugely positive, and the ripple effect of that goes well beyond the results: gender equality, and young girls believing in what they're capable of. I want to keep using sport that way.
So I hope my story does something useful — a girl from Ireland becoming the first Irish sailor to race the Route du Rhum, and one of very few women on that start line. I hope it encourages people to think outside the box, to look past what seems possible for them, and to believe they can do extraordinary things if they choose to. That they can build their own path.
Anything is possible.