Fresh challenge

Sam Davies describes her tentative first steps in the IMOCA class and her harrowing her first race as skipper

After three years campaigning in the Figaro class, Brittany-based English sailor Sam Davies has made the significant leap this season up to the IMOCA Open 60. At the end of last year she took over from Anne Liardet at the helm of the boat belonging to women's clothing company Roxy. This is one of the most successful Open 60s in existence being the former PRB, winner of the last two Vendee Globes first in the hands of Michel Desjoyeaux and then Vincent Riou. Sam plans to take it on a third singlehanded non-stop lap of the planet in next year's Vendee Globe.

So how has the move up been? "It is good. Better than I thought, because I have Roxy and it is not a new boat, so I have been able to go and sail - which is what I like doing as what I need to do is get miles in," she tells us.

If truth be told Sam is not a newbie in the Open 60 class. When they were both backed by Skandia, she previously sailed the Transat Jacques Vabre two handed with Nick Moloney.

Since taking over the Roxy 60 at the end of the Route du Rhum Sam has delivered the boat back from Guadeloupe with a crew. Over the winter the boat was given a new paintjob (replacing the stickers that use to peel off whenever the boat did more than 8 knots) and had her keel fin replaced.

Following the spate of fin-related disaster in the last Vendee Globe, the fin change was a significant decision and the ever prudent Sam says she took advice from most of the available experts such as Pascal Conq, one of the designers of the boat, former skipper Vincent Riou (both of whom said in theory it shouldn't need to be changed) and a French ultra-sound and X-ray expert who specialises in this type of work for the French racing fleet, who said it did. The previous foil had had a long and distinguished career and the new one is a replacement not an improvement.

"I wanted to change it as early as possible (but not right before the Vendee) to test it but not get too many miles on it at the same time," Sam says. The new keel is identical to the old one, expect that there has since been a rule change prohibiting diesel tanks from being fitted into the foil - so adding more tankage somewhere inside the boat will be on the job list this winter.



With the new foil fitted and having experienced some alarming noises from the ram supports during the delivery back from the Caribbean, Sam was keen this spring to put Roxy through her paces and so went off on a singlehanded 4,500 mile passage, as Open 60 sailors are prone. This passage was another prudent move - as part of the qualifications for the Vendee Globe skippers have to complete a singlehanded transatlantic race and Sam worries that if something happens that means she can neither finish the Defi Atlantique (solo return race from the end of this this year's Transat Jacques Vabre) or say dismasts in the Transat, then there is still the possibility of writing to the race committee to ask them if she can do a 4,500 mile passage as a qualifier. So if it came to this Sam can say she has already completed this passage. Girls and forward planning, you see.

Yesterday morning Roxy completed what will possibly go down in history as the most frustrating of all offshore yacht races, the 2007 Calais Round Britain race, an event that this year was dogged by headwinds or light winds on a highly complex and very tidal course. This fully crewed event Sam sailed with old Royal & SunAlliance buddies navigator Miranda Merron and Sharon Ferris as well as fellow Figaro sailor Jeanne Gregoire and Roxy's Mini sailor Alexia Barrier.

Aside from a 400 mile long upwind leg to round the top of the Shetland Isles (Miranda called the layline perfectly from 180 miles out, America's Cup followers should note), during the race Sam says they - along with a majority of the other Open 60s - ended up doing three 'circles', ie where there was no wind and they ended up going backwards on the tide. During the race these circles were usually accompanied by thick fog.



The most hair-raising 'circle' was off the Norfolk coast where in addition to no wind, no boat speed thick fog they were also trying to negotiate some of the many sand banks dotted along this part of the coast AND heavy shipping. "There were ships everywhere and we could only do 1.5 knots under genniker in one direction. We nearly got run down," recalls Sam. Eventually they wisely copped out. "I just said 'there is no way'. It was like that Nintendo game Frogga, where the frog has to cross the road without getting splat. We were walking across a motorway doing 1 knot, with ships coming across at 20. So we had to sacrifice a few miles. In the end we did a big circle but when we finished our circle, it was better to be positioned near the coast and the next morning we found we'd lost less miles than the boats around us."

The next circle was off Dover, a stone's throw from the two busiest shipping lanes in the world. "We anchored - I couldn’t believe it," recounts Sam. "I thought that now I’ve got an Open 60 all this getting stuck in a bay, anchoring, or boat on boat stuff - all that has gone. The Figaro has finished. And the first race I do in an Open 60, we anchor and get stuck in a bay with no wind..." During three years in the Figaro class constantly racing around the equally tidal Brittany coastline Sam says she only kedged once.




As they kedged off Dover the anchor hadn't deployed properly - Sam reckons a rock stopped the blades from opening properly - but they found that if they steered a bit it prevented the kedge from dragging. This episode had a curious effect on the normally chattery Sharon Ferris, who generally sails a Yngling at Olympic level and comes from New Zealand where the tides aren't so fierce. "She’s never had to anchor before and she suddenly went quiet," recalls Sam. Apparently Sharon thought her crewmates were winding her up when she was asked to helm, while at anchor doing zero knots.

Matters didn't dramatically improve when they were able to get underway again after a couple of hours in three knots of wind. At this point to lay the turning mark off Dover they found they made best progress under full main and Code Zero - goosewinged. Not often do you get to goosewing your code zero.

This week Sam had planned to carry out her qualifier for the Transat Jacques Vabre with Jeanne Gregoire but after this race and having spent Tuesday and Wednesday night effectively without sleep in the terrifying thick fog, no steerage in the vicinity of major shipping lanes scenario, the qualifier has been put on hold for a bit.

Roxy will be in the UK for Skandia Cowes Week and the Rolex Fastnet Race which the Open 60s will be sailing doublehanded. The main event of their year will be the doublehanded Transat Jacques Vabre in November.

Over this coming winter there will be more boat work and if budget allows some additional developments. Being a 2000 generation boat Roxy really needs larger daggerboards to improve her upwind performance. Sam says she'd also like to put the boat's old-style boom back on. Like the new PRB, Roxy has a giant semi-circular track around her cockpit, a MichDes feature used for both the mainsheet and the vang. The old boom has a track on its underside for the vang, rather than the less powerful but more forgiving line running along the underside of the boom that is cranked down upon.



Other than, this the boat having passed through MichDes and then Vincent Riou's hands is about as 'turboed' as it ever will be. "There are a few things you could do with the rig, but the new boats are so wide and we can’t make the boat wider," says Sam. "At the same time I am the person who has done the most miles this year and you have to sail to win and to win you have to finish and you have to sail at 100% of your potential for as long a time as possible. And I think the new boats are quite scary. I have a feeling the skippers [of the new boats] will be scared to push their boats. There will be certain conditions where the differencies will be huge and then there will be other conditions when it will be easier for me. Really light downwind we are still really fast and we have a HUGE spinnaker - that’s how Vincent won the Round Britain four years ago. It is just when it is reaching that the new boats will do a horizon job."

While Sam is sailing an older boat she is personnally happy with this arrangement. The boat is well developed and for the most part reliable considering her previous owners allowing her to concentrate on sailing as much as possible. The budget for the Roxy campaign is substantially less than those who have new boat programs but this keeps the team compact and make the whole deal less stressful and more enjoyable, both things Sam finds important. "One day I might have to get a new boat, but I can’t imagine doing the Vendee twice. I am not unhappy approaching the Vendee how I am doing it and Roxy are a really cool sponsor."

Come November 2008 and the start of the Vendee, we suspect there will be few skippers who are as 'at one' with their boat than Ms Davies.