As far as passions go, Andrew Fennell’s love of sailing goes well beyond your typical hobby.
Dentistry can be an intense career and interests outside of work can be a great way to relieve stress and create balance. For Andrew Fennell, these interests are a little more serious than most. His love of sailing has grown well beyond your typical hobby.
Andrew, who has been a full-time implant dentist and clinical lead at Winning Smiles since 2000, took line honours in the 2,000-mile Round Britain and Ireland Race this year and not only was his team the winning one, they did it on a new trimaran he project-managed himself and had designed to his spec.
How does a dentist become a race-winning sailor? Andrew’s career started at sea. He left school at 16 and became an engineer on a transatlantic merchant ship.
When he was 22, he suffered an accident that forced him to leave his job and reassess; he applied to dental school and began training. This significant career shift didn’t put an end to his love of the sea.
Dentistry was already part of the family – Andrew’s father, Michael, founded Winning Smiles in 1995.
Purest form
‘Once I qualified, I got back into sailing, which I much preferred to working in the engine room,’ he says.
He soon acquired his first boat – a small trimaran: ‘To me, the trimaran is the purest form of sailing vessel, because it sails more on the water than in the water,’ he says.
‘The fastest boats on the planet – all the race winning, record winning, round-the-world boats are trimarans, because that design has been proven to be the most easily driven offshore.’
As his experience grew, Andrew became acutely aware of his trimaran’s limitations and started to formulate a plan to build his own. Over 18 months he worked with a world-renowned yacht designer to finalise the plans, then travelled to the Philippines in 2016 to start a business that would build the boat.
Two years later the trimaran – named the Morpheus – was complete. It made its way to the UK in containers, with its assembly taking place in Essex in 2018.
At this point The Round Britain and Ireland Race had just taken place, so Andrew set his sights on the next one in 2022. Alongside his crew, they started prepping:
‘We started optimising the boat – breaking as much as possible then fixing it ready for the 2,000+ miles of endurance-racing and race training with the crew doing shorter offshore races like the 700-mile Fastnet Race,’ he explains.
Proved a challenge
A race of this magnitude requires significant personal training, which initially proved a challenge alongside the commitments of work but became easier once Winning Smiles joined Dentex in 2021.
With Dentex looking after the administrative side of the business, which had previously infringed on his personal time, Andrew reclaimed the day a week he’d previously dedicated to practice HR, finances, and general management, and used it for planning training for the race.
The move to Dentex also brought a ‘qualitative change’ to Andrew’s personal life. ‘I’ve always made time for myself, but my whole being is calmer now. I’m less stressed – Dentex takes a lot of my stress away,’ he says.
‘Not having the financials to worry about, not having HR to worry about. For me, it was those areas that were the biggest stress – clinical dentistry I enjoy.’
Dentex was also on board, figuratively, when Andrew embarked on The Round Britain and Ireland Race, offering his team sponsorship for the race, which they won.
With such a fantastic achievement under his belt Andrew is now gearing up for his next challenge – the Fastnet race in 2023.
For more information visit www.winning-smiles.co.uk/ and www.dentexhealth.co.uk/
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