No Fear

Lisa McDonald and the rest of the girls on Amer Sports Too seem unfazed by the terror of the Southern Ocean, writes Andy Rice

A windless night time approach for Amer Sports Too

Whilst the team on News Corp seemed genuinely shell-shocked from their torrid time in the Southern Ocean, the girls on Amer Sports Too appear to have emerged from the south without too much mental scarring. What skipper Lisa McDonald found harder, if anything, was the last agonising drift through the finish line.

"It was torture. We are happy to be here. It was a bit frustrating, but to be honest, not unexpected. We had obviously been watching all the other boats finishing and suspected that the breeze would drop out somewhere near the shore. We were actually quite lucky to have the breeze that we did, right up to the entrance to the harbour. The only unfortunate thing was that once we got inside the harbour, and lost the wind, we had a nasty current taking us backwards quite fast and we didn’t have any breeze."

Stark contrast to the Southern Ocean. McDonald and four of her crew had been down there before when EF Education broke her mast on the equivalent leg of the Whitbread four years ago. But as far as she was concerned this was her first ‘proper’ foray into the wilds of the south. "It was the first time for all thirteen of us that we did that leg properly. Last time, those of us who were onboard EF Education, we broke our mast before we go into the deep south and so we didn’t really experience the deep south. We haven’t got the anything to compare it with. I think what we saw was awesome in it’s own right and definitely has a place of its own, down in the depths of the Southern Ocean."

Whilst other crews were unashamed to admit that they would never go back down there, this was not a sentiment the girls seemed to share. Anxiety was there, certainly, but not fear, according to McDonald: "I wouldn’t say that I was ever really scared, but I was certainly a bit stressed. I think I can speak for both Miranda and myself when I say that three days, 24-hour radar watch was a bit stressful. That’s only natural. There was a lot of responsibility on each one of us watching the radar to keep eyes out for the crew and spot things they couldn’t see in the fog, or in the sleet or snow."

Now that most of the big, bad stuff is over for this race, the girls may have a chance to show if they can compete on equal terms. There were moments on the first leg that suggest they may be capable of doing that, and with the tactical options becoming more complex in the second half of this race, the aim for Amer Sports Too should be to beat one of the men’s teams on sailing merit, rather than through another boat’s misfortune. They have earned everyone’s respect for their courage and never-say-die mentality. Now they need to earn respect as a group of world class sailors.

See the following pages for more top photos from Carlo Borlenghi...