Francesca Clapcich // The 1st Italian to Win The Ocean Race
On the Wind Sailing
Andy Schell
4.8 • 593 Ratings
🗓️ 3 March 2026
⏱️ 71 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Francesca Clapcich is an Olympian, a world champion, and in 2023 became the first Italian to win The Ocean Race. She most recently skippered UpWind by MerConcept, an all-female Ocean Fifty trimaran campaign — and now, she's set her sights on the 2028 Vendée Globe with her title sponsor, 11th Hour Racing. We caught up back in July, while she was enjoying a few final weeks at home in Utah with her wife and daughter where she lives, before heading off to co-skipper four of the five legs of The Ocean Race Europe with Team Malizia. We spoke about starting new chapters, redefining success, and her mission to do more than just sail.
--
Support the podcast & become a member of The Quarterdeck, where Andy, August & Mia dive deep on the art of seam'nship. Nerd out with us on our members-only forum and talk boats, gear, safety-at-sea, meet like-minded sailors, find crew, and more. Check it out on quarterdeck.59-north.com. See you there!
--
This season of ON THE WIND is supported by our friends at Offshore Passage Opportunities and Rutgerson Marin. Support the show by supporting our sponsors!
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Yeah, it's a career. I don't think it's really considered only a job. And I think it's both a |
| 0:08.0 | special side of it. And at the same time, it's also really, really heavy for the people around you. |
| 0:16.0 | On the win is presented this season by two old friends of the podcast. First up is Rutgersen Marine, a Swedish |
| 0:22.7 | sailing hardware company, and OPO Offshore Passage Opportunities run by our good friend |
| 0:28.7 | Hank Schmidt. OPO is a fantastic resource if you want to build offshore experience. You |
| 0:34.2 | join Hague's mailing list and get access to delivery opportunities all over the |
| 0:38.8 | world, often sailing for free as crew. We'd obviously love to have you sailing with us at 59 North, |
| 0:45.6 | but if you don't have the time or budget for that, OPO is a great alternative. And if you're a |
| 0:51.8 | boat odor looking for crew, you can sign up for free. Check it out |
| 0:55.8 | at saleopo.com. Rockerson Marine makes some of the best sailing hardware out there, and we have |
| 1:02.7 | been using them for a long time. ESPN is full of Rutgers and stuff, and it's just such |
| 1:08.3 | great quality. We recently replaced the mainsail on ESPN and the |
| 1:13.3 | batten receptacles from the old mainsail. After 80,000 nautical miles looked so great that I took |
| 1:20.9 | them all off and kept them as spares. We also have blocks and pads and low friction rings and all sorts of great stuff from them. |
| 1:30.0 | You can find them at Rutgerson.se or at your local chandlery. |
| 1:35.5 | Again, that's saleopo.com and Rutgerson.s e. |
| 1:40.0 | Thanks to both for sponsoring this episode of the podcast. |
| 1:44.1 | Ahoy, shipmates. |
| 1:45.6 | I'm August. |
| 1:46.4 | This is On the Wind. |
| 1:47.5 | Welcome back. |
| 1:48.4 | Hope you are all doing great. |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Andy Schell, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Andy Schell and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.