Bruno Garcia - To the heart of two passions

by Barcelona World Race on 27 Dec 2010 Barcelona World Race - Bruno Garcia, the Catalan co-skipper who partners Jean Le Cam on Président is one of two strictly amateur sailors, that is to say those who are taking time out from their day jobs, their full time careers, to compete in the Barcelona World Race.

Garcia’s twin passions are sailing and medicine. He has loved both since he was a youngster, but, as he notes wryly, there are not many options to practice medicine as a hobby. Resourceful, intelligent and talented, Bruno and his brother Willy formed the vanguard of a Catalan push into the Figaro fleet and that is when they met up for the first time with the best of the French sailors of their time, Michel Desjoyeaux, Roland Jourdain and, of course Le Cam who won the Solitaire du Figaro three times.

Now Garcia is on a six months sabbatical from his job as an interventionist cardiologist to compete on the Barcelona World RACE:

So this is the peak of your sailing career so far, but where and how did this journey start?
'I started at six or seven in an Optimist on the Costa Brava. Afterwards my father, who was actually born in the centre of Spain and had no interest or connection to sailing, but bought an eight metres boat and three months after buying it we sailed to Minorca. He was the real adventurer not me.'

' We were not scared because we did not know any better, but he discovered, but we are two sisters and one brother and we started family sailing and we sailed the whole Mediterranean, the Balearics, Sardinia, Croatia, Turkey, Greece, we sailed all the time as a family.'

' Then we did some races here in Catalunya, and in Palma de Mallorca, the Copa del Rey, on things like the old One and Two Tonners, then in 1988 we did the Route Discovery. After that we thought about doing some races with my bother Willy. We did three Transatlantics, then we went to France and bought a Figaro 1, we shared a Figaro and together we did the Transat AG2R.'

'We were working. I was a doctor and he was working as a diamond dealer. I am five years older than him and normally you would expect me to have ore money than him, but he was working in diamonds. But we paid strictly half of everything.'

And what were these days like?
' So that is where we met the Figaro people of that time, so Bilou, Michel, Jean and they told us to do the Figaro as it is the best race you can do with a sailing boat, and I can see now that they are certainly right.'

'So I have probably known of Jean and his skills for more than 16 years.'

'As we only had one boat between my brother and I one year I sailed and he was shore team and the next year we swapped.'

So was it ever up to you to make a choice between sailing and medicine?

'I have always had the passion to be a doctor and it is difficult to do medicine as a hobby! It is better to do it as work. I have always wanted to be a doctor, but there are no links in the family to the medical profession. But it is a vocation I have always had.

'I have always liked technical things and the heart is quite technical. I am an interventionist cardiologist, between a surgeon and a cardiologist, so I work though the arteries, with a catheter. '

Is there a crossover between the approach you have to your daily work, and racing IMOCA Open 60’s round the world?
'Normally, yes I have to be calm and serene, and deal with the stress doing the day to day job. I am sure that my job helps with the stressful times on the boat, it is the same approach you have to keep calm and be good with the team so that they don’t see you are stressed.'

And this is the culimination of a dream?
'I have always wanted to sail around the world, but it was not a big, focussed idea. It has always been at the back of my mind. It was like a dream that most human beings have thinking about the world being round. What not go round?'

<>You sailed the Mini a bit too?
'We had to sell the Figaro when the Figaro 2 came in. So we built three Mini sisterships, we did the 2003 Mini Transat. The Mini is quite a demanding boat by comparison, you need a lot of time to sail it and to repair it. We still came one to do the Med races, or the Mini Fastnet.'

'In fact we did the Mini Transat, we shared the first Mini Transat with Alex Pella and Jaume Mumbru and here we all are doing the Barcelona World Race. It is incredible. I might have expected it more for Alex, because he is a professional sailor, but not for Jaume and me, he is a lawyer and I am a doctor. We are amateurs.'

And what is it like to be waiting in your home city ready to start this magical race?
'We are very proud. And the attention we get just now is lovely. It is not easy with time, but with passion you can do anything. And we have so much passion. And time is for spending, you only have it once.'

<>What is it like sailing with Jean, give us an insight?
'With Jean it is easier than expected. He is very relaxed and he is very logical and does not do things without thinking two or three times. I think that also helps, but teaches me. I don’t want to say it is easy, because these are not easy boats.

'The work we do together and it comes very naturally. He does everything better than me of course, but I am learning. Well, we share almost everything. Up until now we have shared almost everything. If when we are racing he wants to take the more protagonist role, then that is fine.

'I think he expects that I will have a good empathy with him, and always pushing forward with him, whatever he wants to do. I have never been to the Southern Ocean and it is an issue you have at the back of your mind. And some big squalls or gusts, but I am sure it will be great with Jean.'

Have you been able to take time off OK from your job?
'It has been very difficult to get time off, not only at the start but even later. I don’t think they realise how long you need to prepare. I have six months.'

What do your family think of this, and is it not true to say that if you weren’t doing this you would likely be off doing something else ‘interesting’?
'My kids at the start they say they don’t want me to do it because its dangerous, then next day they say they want me to do it, because it is a great adventure and can see I am prepared. My wife always complains about my behaviour and the things I do, but I know she is supporting me!'

'In fact my own aspiration is to finish it, and to have a good result would be nice. But I want to really push to make sure Jean gets the result he wants. For him that is important. I have done nothing physically, but preparing the boat is very physical and I believe, like Michel Desjoyeaux and Jean, that sailing is the best form of preparation. You just need to sail. Jean has a special talent not to make too much effort, you look at them and it looks easy.'

'If I was not doing this I would be thinking about doing an adventure in the Pyrenees with my brother skiing. We like off piste touring, a few years ago we were in a team of acrobatic skiers.'

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