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Conrad Colman What the ‘Crazy Kiwi’ did next

IMOCA
24 October 2025 - 10h13
Not for nothing is he known as ‘the Crazy Kiwi’. It is a nickname Conrad Colman coined for himself in the early days of his ocean racing career but over two Vendée Globe race and two double handed round the world races Colman has long since proven himself anything but crazy. He has consistently shown himself as a strong, smart competitor, able to punch above his weight in terms of the size of his budget and the potential of his IMOCA. And the French based 41 year old who has dual US/New Zealand nationalities remains hugely ambitious.

But this time Colman may have regressed into the minor realms of madness, certainly as he prepares to set off on his second TRANSAT CAFÉ L’OR double handed race from Le Havre to Martinique he is worried he might have bitten off more than he can chew. He is racing MSIG Europe with 37 year old Mathieu Blanchard, one of France’s top ultra trail mountain runners. Among his dozens of honours and adventuares, Blanchard has two consecutive podiums on the UTMB Mont Blanc for starters but until he sailed first with Conrad a couple of months ago had never been on a yacht. 

Colman says he wants to learn from his counterpart’s world, both from a scientific and mental tenacity approach, seeing how the two world’s collide. And of course the two different audiences can enjoy what promises to be a fascinating human challenge.

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“It’s all different. This is my second Transat Café L’Or but this one sticks out as being completely different to everything I have done up until now.” Colman says with is usual unshakeable enthusiasm “ I was open to the idea of doing something different in the post Vendée Globe year, one that has a bit more flexibility in it. It is a year of transition from my last campaign and the new campaign I am putting together for the future. So it was very much a case of ‘if not now never’ because hopefully I will be moving forwards to a different boat and focusing on performance and so it would be a long time before opening your doors to the outside world again.”

New Audiences,

He explains, “It is a cool opportunity to get someone on board who has an entirely different perspective and entirely different sporting career and indeed an audience which is entirely different to our normal sailing audience.” But Colman says this is more than a stunt, “Yes, his audience is bigger than ours, but this is not just a media play, it is an opportunity for me to learn from him and him to learn from me. It is a chance for me to fall in love with my own sport again by looking at it through the eyes of someone else, someone new. It not just a tag line, it is something which is important to me. And so this is a new experience to share offshore sailing with a complete novice. It is exciting, it is scary. He had not been on a yacht at all before meeting me and so had not been offshore before…. at all. So with the hundreds of ropes on board, with the complex manoeuvres we are doing, it is a huge, huge mountain to climb.”

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A bigger challenge than he thought….

Conrad says frankly, “I really underestimated the challenge. I have always sailed with sailors who were more or less good, who at least knew the basics. I had forgotten what I used to not know. And so now to be asked ‘is this the way the wind works’ ‘or is this noise when the boat drops off a wave, is that normal?’ So for sure it is a huge challenge. I hope that it will work for both of us and we will have a great time with each other.
Time and limited opportunities mean the duo have had to fast track Blanchard’s learning to a safe level.

Colman explains, “There are three layers of getting him integrated into the boat. There is a foundation level for him to be good on board the boat, to be able to move around without hurting himself, to be able to eat and sleep and go to the toilet, to live on board. Already that has been a huge challenge. And he has a leg up on most novices because he is an extreme outdoors athlete who in February ran 600kms through the frozen Yukon. He is very adept at looking after himself, at eating freeze dried food and nutrition and so on.”

He continues, “And then there is the second level which is maintaining the security of the boat, standing watch, looking for ships, understanding AIS, radar etc and so that level is still under way. We got caught up in some English fishing boats on the way here and that was a good eye opener for us. It was a realisation this does require a lot more experience, explanation what the lights are, what boats are up to, do they all have their AIS on. What do you do if they don’t? It is a bit like playing a video game of froggo going across the Channel and having it all play out on AIS, but the reality is we need a high level of security, we need to keeo eyes out of the boat at times. And so that level is still under way.”

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The learning should of course continue and accelerate as they sail down the course, “The third level is performance, trimming and so on of the boat. That one is a long way off. But in the few times I do go to sleep I give Matthieu strict parameters on this is what should be going on, this is the heel we need to be going fast, easing and grinding on on the mainsheet within these parameters so that the boat is singing happily. And call me if anything happens. So the challenge is big.”

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Of course one might consider that having a second person is preferable and easier than being solo?
But the Kiwi replies, “It is more stressful than being solo, way more so. That is because solo sailing, or double handed or crewed it is binary. It is on or off. So, something in the middle is a challenge. I don’t know how much responsibility I can delegate to him. And I know that when I am sleeping the boat is going slowly and so yes, the project is beyond not just making the boat go fast, it is about telling the story and bringing in a new audience. But also I am a competitor I want to make the boat go fast and the result is important to be in the respect of looking myself in the mirror in the morning. And also showing that the boat we built up over the last three years is still a good one.”

In search of a better athlete-sailor,

But the Transat is only one part of the story. Colman will explore his own limits with an extended run in Martinique, “I have a background in ultra endurance sport, in cycling, so we can speak in relevant terms and so he is bringing his knowledge on sports nutrition and is helping me a bit with that and then once we get to Martinique we will go for a run. The goal for him is to create a kind of idiot’s guide to ultra trail running. The concept was originally to go and do a segment of the Transmartinique. The challenge is that I hurt my knee in the Vendée Globe and ruined the meniscus and so that has really slowed me down and put me through a lot of pain and so that has limited my ambitions but the aim is to go out and run up and down some mountains and really just find my limits and learn from him. The goal is he should make me suffer as much as he suffers on the Transat. But it is all about opening up new experiences and challenge myself and try and create a better version of myself as a sailor in the end.”

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