Lisa's crew announced

EF Education veterans return for a second stab

Marie-Claude Heys (nee Kieffer), a close friend of Lisa McDonald's in Hamble, has spoken with her new skipper at great length about the Volvo over the last months, but says she never expected to get 'the phone call'. But to read Marie-Claude's sailing CV it seems that getting her on board was a shrewd move.
In the Whitbread, as we have mentioned, she was part of Dawn Riley's Heineken team which picked up the pieces of Nance Frank's ill-fated campaign eight years ago. She also sailed on EF Education "on the leg they lost the mast" (the Southern Ocean leg en route to Cape Horn). In a life previous to this, Marie-Claude was an active participant on the French singlehanded circuit and took part in the Solitaire du Figaro four times. Currently she runs the UK J-Boat dealership with husband Paul Heys.

Looking back at previous women's campaigns Marie-Claude says the differences between the Nautor Challenge and Heineken are vast. "On Heineken we were playing catch-up on an old boat. A few of the girls knew each other, but not many. All the sails kept blowing out, because they were all secondhand from Yamaha. There was total inexperience. Very few had been around the world and most were learning how to sail big boats."

In comparison the women's Nautor Challenge boat will stand a much better chance. "I think this is the best-ever girl's crew. Given that it was got together at such short notice it is a very good crew. Most of us know each other very well," she says. "If it wasn't like this I wouldn't go. To be honest I thought I'd retired from it (round the world racing)!"

Marie-Claude says that they are trying to allay fears that the girls will be fobbed off with the second best boat and equipment: "I can assure you that Lisa is working hard to make sure it doesn't work like EF. There will always be differences between our teams, but for Grant it is one team not two teams. Lisa is working really hard to make sure we don't get second best."

As someone known for her frankness, Marie-Claude feels that their chances of winning are slight, although they will do their utmost to make it happen. "I've been trying all my life to prove that girls can do as well as boys. There's a lot of America's Cup and match racing experience on board. But it will be hard to tell until we've sailed against the other boats."