How do you talk to yourself when you’re sailing? What... you don’t actually have a conversation with yourself? Maybe it’s just me then. But actually I think all of us singlehanders have words with ourselves as we’re going around the race course, even if we’re not talking out loud. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that all of us talk to ourselves while racing, just that in doublehanders it’s our ‘other half’ that often has to bear the brunt of our internal monologue, which sometimes unwittingly goes external.  

Talking out loud to yourself while sailing a singlehander always looks like a sign of madness. I was reminded of this while racing my Musto Skiff at Stokes Bay recently, when one of the more recent recruits to our growing number was berating himself very vocally. It was so loud, I could barely hear myself think. My own internal monologue was being drowned out!  

We had a good laugh about it at the bar afterwards, and Steve Wright - for that is his name - has a lot to say at all times, on and off the water. If the Radio 2 DJ ever needs to rest his voice, there’s another equally garrulous and entertaining namesake ready to fill his headphones. Steve, who’s a better golfer than he is a Musto Skiff sailor - for the time being anyway - told of a time when he was playing in a pro-am tournament alongside a big-name professional. The pro’s gruff caddy pointed out to Steve in no uncertain terms that ‘he doesn’t like playing with loads of chit-chat going on.’ Undaunted by the professional warning, amateur Steve’s replied: ‘Well he’d better get used to it then!’ I fear any similar request I might make for a quieter start line at Stokes Bay would fall on similar stony ground, so I’d better get used to Steve’s loud words of self-encouragement, or self-flagellation.  

Not that I’m any paragon of calm self-talk. I like to think of myself as quiet and easy-going to sail with, but there will be people reading this who would be only too keen to point out otherwise. My self-image was shattered one evening many years ago when I switched on the answer machine to hear a reel of deleted expletives screaming through the loud speaker. Living in Ladbroke Grove in the days before it became the genteel, south-west London haven it has become today, I wondered if it was some kind of drug heist or local violence playing down the answer machine. A wrong phone number. Until at the very end of the recording came the unmistakable tone of TV man Andrew Preece, saying: ‘Like your style, Andy.’  

Yes, the sound of that violent West London heist was indeed the sound of my own voice barking orders in a violent and aggressive manner to my Laser 5000 crew Steve Kyffin as we were rounding a windy leeward mark at a regatta in the South of France. Andrew Preece had wired us for sound, but in the heat of battle I had long since forgotten I was on candid camera. Fortunately Steve was made of stern stuff, and my ranting was all water off a duck’s back for him. But it was a stark wake-up for me to realise that there was a monster lurking within me.  

Unfortunately it’s often the crew who bears the brunt of the helm’s rantings. I’m not sure why it’s normally that way round, except whenever most of us grab the stick and take command of the ship’s rudder we assume we have taken command of the ship in all senses. Having switched between both ends of the boat during my career, I’ve been on both the delivery and receiving end the captain’s monologue. Sometimes the information can indeed be useful, but at other times the chit-chat from the back of the boat might be utterly irrelevant to your job. So then comes the skill that my 5000 crew Steve displayed in being able to ignore the irrelevant rantings from the tyrant on the tiller.  

What does this mean for us singlehanded sailors and our own brand of self-talk? Again, I would recommend heeding your more encouraging self-advice and ignoring the negative self-talk. Tennis is a great game for watching how different athletes deal with their internal monologue. Roger Federer looks like he is on good terms with himself, Andy Murray frequently looks very grumpy with himself but seems to get on with himself better as he gets older (and as his results have improved - surely no coincidence). John McEnroe didn’t seem to have this problem of self-loathing, instead he projected that part of his self-talk on to the poor souls around him, his opponent, the ball boy, linesman or umpire for example.  

A sailor who has turned his ability to switch on different parts of his personality to devastating effect is Ben Ainslie. Mild-mannered off the water, but a beast as soon as the warning signal fires, even Ben has referred to himself as Jekyll and Hyde. Those of us who have sailed against him will probably have experienced both sides of his character at first hand. I was talking to a sailor who crewed for Ben during his brief time racing Extreme 40s at the end of 2011 and, when the warning signal fired he would observe Ben put his head down as he crouched down in a moment of thought at the back of the boat. When Ben looked up again 10 seconds later, the relaxed, calm demeanour had been replaced with a look of thunder and determination. Time for the Ainslie ‘game face’. As to whether he could keep his game face intact while in earshot of my entertaining friend Steve Wright, well I’d like to see if Ben can cope with the challenge.