They have only been together for nine days but Tilakkhana II has just won the Maxi class at the Sandberg PalmaVela. This impressive Wally Cento, the former Magic Carpet Cubed, is led by French female owner Pascale Decaux and has eight women on board, certainly an unusual sight for these big boats. With Britain’s World Record sailor Dee Caffari as her right-hand woman, we spoke to both of them to find out more about this new project that is changing the narrative when it comes to Maxi boats.
Palma, 4 May 2025
New boat, well-known faces but also new ones, and a good bunch of women onboard, what’s your goal with this campaign?
Pascale Decaux: Firstly, I wanted a boat for both racing and cruising, That’s was very important for me, not just racing. Then, my idea was to bring some women into this type of races. I was lucky enough to meet Dee and together we thought we would like to introduce more and more women because most of the time in this type of racing women are not favoured. We’ve got eight women on board and we’re hoping to bring on more. Especially we want to have new talents as well. So Dee is going to help me to give a chance to young women to go sailing at this level. And we try to demonstrate that we’re women who can do well.
Dee Caffari: Pascale has a mission and a vision of what she wants to see, and she wants to change the narrative of sailing. This is an opportunity that we all jumped at, and it’s a great chance. We have a lot of familiar faces, but also a lot of new people with experience coming from different areas that have all come together.
Tell us more about them, who are they?
Dee Caffari: We’ve got a whole mixture. Léna Le Meillour manages everything for the boat and organizes everything for us. At the front of the boat we have Bex Gmuer from New Zealand, and she is on the bow with the boys, really owning that area. And then in the trimming role, all the trimmers, the boat speed, comes from the girls. Annemieke Bes, Marie Riou and Sophie de Turckheim are in the trimming team. Emily Nagel is doing our data analysis, so making sure we’re improving our performance all the time. Pascale is the boss, and she’s driving us fast and getting faster every day. And I look after the runners, so I have to keep the mast in the air! And also coach Pascale when she’s driving, I’m the backup driver when she wants a break. But so far so good, she’s got the bit between her teeth and is really competitive, so it’s great fun to sail with her. So all the speed is actually really coming from the girls already!
Dee, you have a huge experience in big boats, but what’s feeling of sailing this kind of boat?
When you sail a Wally 100, I think the biggest transition for me is coordinating a crew of 25 people. It’s a lot of people, and nobody can do their job without a lot of other people in the chain making it work. So coming together as a team has been a really big job for us, especially with all new people on a new boat. But every day, we’re improving, and I think it’s going to be a really good season!
Talking about the season, what’s next Pascale?
Pascale Decaux: Our next regatta is Sorrento, so we will do the offshore race there and we’re very excited about it. And then it’s an inshore, few inshore coastal races, really nice. Then we will do cruising for about two months around the Balearic Islands, here in Palma, Ibiza, Formentera, Majorca… And then quickly, in August, we’re going to Porto Cervo to do the Maxi Rolex Cup, and just after, we’re going to Les Voiles de Saint Tropez at end of September. So, we have a busy programme!
Female crew on Tilakkhana II
Pascale Decaux (FRA)
Dee Caffari (GBR)
Annemieke Bes (NED)
Sophie de Turckheim (FRA)
Rebecca Gmuer (NZL)
Léna Le Meillour (FRA)
Emily Nagel (BER)
Marie Riou (FRA)
Prensa Sandberg PalmaVela 2025
www.palmavela.com
@rcnpalma
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