Erika Lush, who hails from Jamestown, Rhode Island originally, is a professional sailor and has been an accomplished racer since she was in her teens. She has tens of thousands of sea miles under her belt and comes from solo sailing stock. Her father Tony Lush was a highly regarded transoceanic solo racer in his day.
She is now one only a few American sailors to take part in the professional solo sailing regatta season in France this spring. This is sailing against some of the best solo sailors in the world, male and female.
She has just completed the Solo Guy Cotton Regatta and is ramping up for the big one, the 2026 La Solitaire en Figaro, the regatta that is a proving ground for skippers in bigger races like the Vendee Globe Around the World Race and the Route de Rhum transatlantic race. These guys are seasoned pros.
Erika first cut her teeth at this level last year in the Solo Guy Cotton and came back this year more experienced and with building confidence. She has learned a lot and is rapidly getting ready for the Figaro.
To make this all work, she has chartered a Figaro 3 sloop and spent the last month getting to know it. The boats in the Figaro are one-designs which makes the racing level and they are high performance foiling designs capable of sailing at sustained speed of over 20 knots. Even small mistakes at that speed can be devastating.
Erika’s quest is a boot-strap endeavor but she has been adept at building a program based on her desire to introduce more American sailors to solo racing and to give back to the sailing community.
She just published her account of the Guy Cotton regatta on her website, and it gives a good feel of the challenges she is facing and the kind of campaign she is running.
