by Sofie Österlund, SB23

I’ve interviewed my mother, Pia L’obry. She has had a passion for sailing her entire life and managed to make her hobby a career. In her life she has had a lot of dangerous and unique sailing experiences. This interview is about three of those and the challenges they entailed.

Österlund: How did your interest in sailing start?

L’obry: My dad always says it started when I was six months old. I was raised in a family that had a boat and sailed in the archipelago every summer. My interest just kept growing after that. 

Österlund: What was your first longer race? 

L’obry: The first more adventurous race I sailed was a 24-hour race with my father. It was a race where you started in Stockholm and had to sail as far as possible and then came back within 24 hours. It was the first time I sailed at night which was exciting. We sailed this race a few times together with different people. The trust he gave me was probably the thing that made me want to do more and more challenging things.

Österlund: Twenty years ago you sailed in a competition called Mini Transat. What is that?

L’obry: It was a competition where you sail from la Rochelle in France to Lanzarote and then all the way to Salvador de Bahia in Brazil. It’s 4500 nautical miles and takes between 30 and 40 days. There were 70 people competing. What’s unique about this competition is that you sail it alone on a 6.5 meter boat, which really isn’t very big. It’s probably the coolest thing I’ve done.

Österlund: How was sailing alone? Had you done that a lot before?

L’obry: No, I actually had never been in less than a crew of two on a boat before. But I figured it couldn’t be that much harder, I knew how all parts of the boat worked. The hard part is that at some point you have to sleep, and someone needs to be in control of the boat. I had an autopilot that could take over steering, but according to international maritime law you’re not allowed to be away from lookout for more than twenty minutes. You have to be able to see if there are other boats coming. This meant I could never sleep for more than twenty minutes at a time. That was definitely a challenge. 

Österlund: Can anyone join that race?

L’obry: No, we had to do qualifying races beforehand. It’s dangerous and they want to avoid casualties. 

Österlund: What was the biggest challenge?

L’obry: To get sponsors. It takes a lot of time and is expensive. And right when I started looking 9/11 happened in New York and nobody wanted to invest in a completely unknown sailor who wanted to participate in an –– at least in Sweden –– unknown race, one which is also extremely dangerous. Historically there’s been a one-in-eighty chance of dying, which are not great odds. Of course I didn’t tell my parents that.  (She laughs.)

Österlund: What was the biggest challenge while on the water?

L’obry: Handling all your thoughts, getting sleep, remaining calm, and the loneliness. And again it was still a race, it can be hard to find the motivation to always sail the boat the best.

Österlund: And how did you do in the race?

L’obry: I was the first woman to finish the first stage, the fifth overall, it took me nine days. On the second stage my boat broke and I had to fix it. The mast was still loose and I had to sail more carefully. But I still came 14th in the race, out of 70, still the best woman. I was the first Swede to ever finish the race, and no one else has done it yet.

Österlund: You’ve also sailed to Greenland, can you tell me about that?

L’obry: In 2001 I sailed my friend Ola Skinnarmo to Greenland. He is an adventurer who was going to ski over Greenland in Nansen’s footsteps. It was at a time when I decided I wanted to do more things like it, and see how good I could get. We didn’t have a purpose for it, I did it on my vacation. It’s honestly kind of weird that I did this since I don’t like the cold. There were eight people on the boat. It was a big boat, 47 feet (14.3 meters).

Österlund: What was the most fun about it?

L’obry: Probably to visit all the different islands. Like the Faroe Islands and Iceland. Those are otherwise pretty odd islands to sail to. The waters are pretty extreme. Not many people have been to Greenland. What would you ever want to do there? It’s just all icebergs. On the way home we saw a lot of humpback whales that were hunting right by our boat.

Österlund: How did you get invited without much similar experience?

L’obry: I had arranged a competition from Malmö to Stockholm non stop with six boats which Ola was in. He only got to Blekinge, but I continued all the way. I guess he figured I knew how to sail, and I got the job. 

Österlund: You’ve also sailed to Antarctica, how did that happen?

L’obry: After I decided to do the Mini Transat I wanted to visit the start in la Rochelle to look at the boats and meet the participants. So I called the only person I knew who had done that race, and who also happened to live in la Rochelle. Her name is Isabelle Autissier and she’s a famous French sailor. She let me live with her while I was there. One day she told me she was going to have dinner with a group of ladies she was going to Antarctica with and asked if I wanted to come to the dinner. Since I had just been to Greenland I thought that maybe I could give them some advice about sailing in ice. At the end of the dinner Isabelle asked me if I wanted to come along. I said no, because I had to go home and work and look for sponsors. And then two weeks later I changed my mind and I called Isabelle and asked if I could still come. The spot was taken but right before the start one of the ladies broke her leg skiing and I got the spot. This was in early 2002, six months after Greenland.

Österlund: Who were the other women?

L’obry: Other than me there was one from Canada, three were French, and one  English, who was the owner of the boat. I had never met any of them before, and we went to one of the most extreme places on earth on a boat only one of us had sailed before.

Österlund: What places did you stop at?

L’obry: We visited Deception Island. It’s like a cave with only one opening, and on the inside there’s an active volcano so the sand is warm. We also stopped at the South Shetland Islands. And Antarctica itself of course. 

Österlund: In what ways have you made sailing your job?

L’obry: I started by working as a sailing instructor in Vancouver when I lived there in the early 1990s. I’ve also worked as a harbor master for Kryssarklubben (The Swedish Cruising Association) in the Stockholm archipelago. When I worked there we bought a Hobie Cat, which is a small but fast catamaran that we could sail on our lunches. Later on I got an offer to become the reseller for those boats in Sweden, when the previous guy wanted to quit, and that’s what I’ve been doing ever since. At the start I mostly sold parts, but after Mini Transat I became sort of famous in the sailing community and I expanded the company and sold more boats and also sailing vacations.

Österlund: Is there anything left you still want to do?

L’obry: Lots! I still want to sail the Atlantic more, but this time with other people. I’ve actually never sailed in the West Indies so I’d like to do that too. There’s also a race from the US West Coast to Hawaii, the Transpac, that would be fun to do.

Österlund: Do you prefer sailing in competitions or just sailing for fun?

L’obry: I really like the exploration part of it. Races are stressful and I also don’t have the need to prove myself to anyone else. I always just want to be better for myself.