Sam the superb

Having just rounded Cape Horn we talk to Roxy skipper Sam Davies about how she is in fourth place

We are struggling at the moment in a toss up between whether Sam Davies or Toe in the Water skipper Steve White is the bigger hero among the remaining Brit sailors left in the Vendee Globe. Placing a pre-race bet on Sam Davies and her eight year old steed Roxy holding fourth in a field of 20 brand new boats would have come with some extremely attractive odds and yet on Sunday Davies navigated her pink and white IMOCA 60 back into the Atlantic in this position.

Sam points out, in her modest way, that in fact if this situation remains, then it is likely she will finished sixth overall. This is because Marc Guillemot on Safran is only a day behind her but has two days of redress more than she has for standing by Yann Elies prior to his rescue. Then there is the on-going issue the jury have over whether Vincent Riou will be reinstated as he was effectively dismasted while attempting the rescue of Jean le Cam off Cape Horn.

“I hope Vincent will get reinstated,” says Sam. “And seeing as he has never been behind me in the race there is no way he should be reinstated behind me in the results when he gets his redress. I think it will happen, but it is really hard, and I’m not sure they can make a decision now. If they gave him the place he was in [fourth] and then the three boats in front don’t make it to the finish, then it would be really weird for the race to have a winner who stopped sailing at Cape Horn. That would be very hard for the public to understand, although he would deserve to win it if that was the case. So I guess they are waiting to work it out in terms of communication and what to do.”

Riou receiving suitable redress will be important for many reasons - for himself and his sponsor, effectively sacrificing his Vendee Globe to go to the rescue of le Cam. Plus there is quite reasonable prize money at stake too this year.




Once we get past these issues, Sam admits she finds it amazing that she is in fourth place. “I am really proud because I am in the place that I imagined I would be in in four years time, when I am doing the Vendee Globe in my new boat to win it. I would be happy to be in fourth place if I had been a favourite to win. So it is a bit weird. I was 18th or something in thedailysail form guide which is where I would have imagined myself to be, so it is a bit weird to be fourth when you think in real terms that you should have been 18th.”

However the carnage that has gone on in the race so far that has seen getting on for two thirds of the original 30 starters forced to pull out has left its mark on her. “I am totally happy on my boat and sending it and loving, but because of what has happened in this race, I am just slightly on the edge the whole time worrying - it is like I HAVE to get to the finish, there is no option. And it is the first time I have ever worried about not making it - not for any reason, there is nothing suspicious at all on the boat, everything is holding up perfectly, my sails are almost as if they were new - but it is just one of those things. It is amazing to be in fourth place, but it would just be terrible if I wasn’t to make it now. So my fingers and toes are being crossed.”

Given that there were 20 new IMOCA Open 60s built in the last four year cycle, seeing Sam in her 2000 generation boat, some skippers must be wondering why they bothered going to all the trouble of building new.

For Sam reaching Cape Horn has also be symbolic as it was this landmark that she and the crew of Tracy Edwards’ maxi catamaran Royal&SunAlliance failed to make when they dismasted mid-Pacific back in 1997 on their Jules Verne Trophy attempt.




When we spoke to Sam yesterday having rounded the Horn she admitted to being exhausted. “The last 48 hours were pretty full on with a building wind all the way into Cape Horn. And going over the Continental Shelf, when you go from having 4000m of water [under you] to less than 100m and there’s 40 knots of wind and huge waves – the waves were hideous there, some nice big breakers. It was the first time I knew we probably would get knocked over at some point, so I wasn’t surprised when we did. I tied everything down on the boat and shut the door. It was the first time I’ve sailed with the door shut as well, because I knew I’d fill the cockpit up with water.

“So that was pretty full on and then I had to gybe into Cape Horn and gybing [singlehanded] in 40 knots of wind is…pretty interesting! The first gybe I did, I had two reefs in and the staysail, in a bit less wind, about 35 knots. To gybe I would never gybe with two reefs, because its too scary pinning the main the middle, for breaking battens and putting too much load in the rig. So I go down to three reefs and then it is really easy to gybe, because the staysail is bigger than three reefs. But [on this occasion] I was too lazy, and it was ‘I don’t want to have to take a reef and then shake it out again, I’m just going to try and granny tack.’ So trying to granny tack in 6m waves - I’m sure it is possible, but because I don’t normally do it… And I had stacked everything on the new side already, and the reason I didn’t go round was that I released too much keel into the middle. So you wind the main in when you are going downwind so that you have enough pivot off the mainsail to try and get around without fighting against the waves. I wound the main in, I got the new runner almost on and then I did the big turn…When you don’t make it round, you find yourself with everything pinned in, with everything to leeward and side on to 6m waves! And you don’t look very flash any more. So I didn’t make it round and it was ‘oh no!’ So you are right over on your side, going ‘God, I hope everything is tied down and there is nothing left up to windward, because it is going to go flying.’ The boat is right over on its side and so you have to let everything back out again and try and get the runner forward, so that it doesn’t poke behind the leech of the main, before you can let the main out and then do the big bear away with everything to leeward. So I did one of those ones where you are really glad you are right out in the middle of nowhere and not on a training day in Port la Foret!”

Having learned her lesson Sam put in a third reef, gybed without incident and threw out the reef. According to Sam the aspect of any manoeuvre that takes longest is stacking. “Stacking everything - and especially when the boat is moving around, and our legs are quite weak now - it is worth taking a bit of time over and doing it carefully and not falling over. Like moving the anchor and chain from side to side - each knot of chain weighs about 20kg and so when you are moving around with that (and that changes your balance quite a lot anyway) and the boat lurches and you go flying with 20kg of chain attached to the end of your arm, then the landing is generally quite painful.”

Then there is the motivation/courage. “Quite often, I’ll go ‘yeah, I’m going to gybe’ and then I’ll go up on deck and see the waves and it is ‘oh my God - I can’t do this!’ And then I have to tell myself ‘you have to, you have to - you’ll be fine, you’d done this before and you’ll be proud once this is done and anyway, what can go wrong with three reefs in?’ And I know it doesn’t load my rig up and it is really safe. The hard thing, gybing with three reefs, is loading the boom up because your reef points are a long way further forward from your mainsheet point, so you put a bending moment into the boom which isn’t very good. But I have a way of gybing, where I have the mainsheet in my hand and I let the windward runner off before I gybe and pull it right forward, so that as soon as I go through the wind, I let the mainsheet go out really quickly so there is no load in the boom. So it is one of those things - there is nothing really to go wrong, but it is just so intimidating when you see the size of the waves. And every time you do it and the wind has dropped down to 35 knots, as soon as I wind the main in, it is 42-43… and it is ‘oh, no!’”

Like dinghy sailing, she also says that using the waves can help with manoeuvring. “My autopilot is so good that you can get the boat surfing and as long as you can keep the staysail flying when the main is pinned in, you have got some speed, then the big waves help, and you surf down them and it is actually a lot less scary than in the flat water gybes I’ve done off the Glenans in Port la Foret.”

So back to Cape Horn. After the gybe/wipe out and recovery Sam then was in the vicinity of the upturned hull of VM Materiaux. “I went quite close to its last known position and downwind of it as well. So I spent two hours on deck, with my eyes glued in front of me, because I figured I would only see it at the last minute and if I did see I figured I would have to just grab the helm and swerve. So two hours out in the freezing cold added to it….

“And then another couple more gybes. I wanted to go quite close to see Cape Horn and the last gybe in on the layline when I went to gybe there was a 50 knot squall going through, so it was like ‘well, that’s just a little bit too much, I’m not going to push my luck…’ so I waited until the wind dropped back down to 40 before I gybed. I did see Cape Horn but it was seven miles away and a bit murky.”

While some disappointing roundings of Cape Horn typically take place in flat water and brilliant sunshine, Sam doesn’t feel she was shortchanged. “It was grey and nasty and I had 40 knots and once we’d got over the continental shelf, the sea flattened out quite a lot so it was a bit calmer. But if you go around the point of Cape Horn, I did notice that the waves got quite big. So it is pretty full on, but afterwards it calms down so quickly, or for me it calmed and within a couple of hours I had 20 knots.”

But most incredible was the change of scenery as she crossed the gateway between Pacific back into the Atlantic. “I went past Cape Horn in such strong conditions and then a few hours later, you see this blue sky and the wind dropped, and you have to shake out every reef, which is hard. And you look in front of you and there’s the Atlantic and the sky is blue and its sunny and there’s nice fluffy colds over the island and you look behind you and there is this black, grey mirky cold – it is amazing. I guess it is not always like that, but it is typical of how I imagined Cape Horn to be.”

Unlike Michel Desjoyeaux and Roland Jourdain, Sam opted not to pass through the Strait of LeMaire and also has left the Falkland Islands to port rather than starboard.

“I didn’t go through the Sraits of Le Maire because it is not recommended when the synoptic wind is north of west, because generally the wind funnels down that strait and in fact there was no wind there anyway. And I don’t have much local knowledge around here! So it looked like the best way to stay in the breeze was to be offshore and in fact I had northeasterly winds and I ended up tacking for a couple of hours to the south of Estados island until I found the right winds - there must be loads of eddies and strange phenomenon going on down there…”

One of the issues bugging Sam and certainly all of the IMOCA fleet and followers of the Vendee Globe is – why has there been so much carnage this race? The most commonly held theory is that with the last two races having been comparatively light ones boats have got lighter and lighter to the extent that they no longer man enough for the job.

This is particularly resonant for Sam who is now talking openly about returning for the next Vendee Globe in 2012-3 with a new boat.

“After this race, everyone is going to think twice about how to build and prepare an Open 60 for the next Vendee Globe. I know Mich [Michel Desjoyeaux] is Le Professeur and he sails with a magic wand and he is totally amazing and it is not luck, but I have to say it just seems that there is a bit of luck that there are a few boats that haven’t broken, rather that it has been bad luck that a few boats have broken, if you see what I mean. So it is going to make everyone think about what to do, because obviously the boats are great for sailing across the Atlantic and the rest of the program, but then for the Vendee Globe they do need to be a bit stronger, or it seems that way anyway. When I was thinking about Jojo [Sebastien Josse] - it is not unusual to be knocked down by a wave, and the fact that the structure of his boat is all cracked, it makes we wonder if generally the boats are too light. And then it really hard, because I just want to do this race in four years time and I don’t really care about the races in between - that’s more just work up and build up, but it would be hard because it would be frustrating to sail against boats that have been built for the transat, because you are not going to be in the same category.”

So you build yourself a bulletproof boat for 2012-3 and then there is always the possibility that the weather is clement in the Southern Ocean and Atlantic that year. “You could be very lucky, but can you afford to take that risk with everything that everyone puts into a race - not just the sponsor and the money, but the team, the years of your life you put in to prepare it - is it worth taking the risks?

With Sam, but equally this is a story that could also be true of several other boats that have been less fortunate, a lot of this is down to preparation, both of herself and her boat. She has been solo sailing now for the best part of a decade and has done the hard yards, the Mini, four years in the Figaro and is still the only person from the UK to have done this degree of preparation. Then there is her boat, the former PRB that won the race for Michel Desjoyeaux and then Vincent Riou in the last two races and pretty much knowns the way around the race track on its own.

“I think it is down to all the work I did before that is paying off - if you take all the racing that I have done and the fact that as soon as I got this boat I took it out to Newfoundland. Some of the conditions I did on that first trip were some of the worst stuff I’ve seen in this boat and you get used to your boat and you trust it and you trust your autopilot. Because I did all that sailing, on that first trip I broke so many things and I had so many things to repair - because of that it really helped with preparing the boat for this trip, so that I didn’t break them again or I have got spares for those things I can’t prevent breaking at some point. So because of all of that, if the boat stays in one piece and you trust your boat and you trust your pilot or even if there are things that break but you know that they are going to break so you can watch for it to happen and have the replacement ready – all those things take a load off your mind. When I see some of the others here who have done less miles on their boats and I can just see me here a year and a half ago in the same situation. So it means I can just enjoy the sailing.”

Sam is a naturally buoyant, ebullient character and one thing that has been most evident from the way she has been communicating the Vendee Globe is how much she is enjoying. There doesn’t seem to have been one thing so far that has made her ‘dark’. “It is naturally me. I am honestly totally loving this race. It is brilliant.

“I have set myself challenges to try and make myself better and improve. I work on this as well as racing, because I have no one to race against any more, there is no one near me. So you have to set other goals and it is not the last race of my life and I am already trying to improve so that the next ones I will improve and learn from this one. And all of this is just fun, and sailing this boat is fun! Having said that, I am just about to go upwind all the way up the Atlantic, so I’ll probably change my mind!”

One could imagine the story being markedly different if she had been in the same situation as Brian Thompson has been in on Bahrain Team Pindar, having to boatbuild his way around the world. Sam is still not convinced: “Speaking to Brian and although he is really suffering and he is firefighting his way around the world, I thiink he is really enjoying the race at the same time. He is obviously regretting not having the time I had to prepare himself.”

On board Roxy Sam has only had a few technical majors. On Friday for example we showed her with her broken rope vang. “I nearly did the human cannonball experiment, because about 10 minutes before that I was on the end of my boom! That was quite scary, because I’d been fixing a reef line that had chafed through. I was out at the end of the boom fixing the reef line and because the boat was going really quite fast and there were a couple of waves, you surfed down them and the boom ended up in the middle of the boat. So I put a preventer on so that I didn’t go too far if the boom tried to move, but I don’t think that would have had much effect against the vang breaking.”

The bigger single issue was a special titanium pin in the middle of her pop-up rudder system that broke coming down the Atlantic. “It holds the rudder centrally in its case when the rudder is down and slots into the case so that the rudder doesn’t twist. This pin also squeezes the case together so that the case doesn’t get forced open by the rudder twisting in the case.”

And yet Sam was able to fix it. “When that broke it was a bit of a worry because I wasn’t sure if I could keep the rudder solid in its case and keep things together. But luckily with this boat everything is overbuilt, so I made myself some threaded rod and I got some carbon fibre plate and made some really good washers and bolted all that back into place to replace the titanium one. It seems to be holding together. The only annoying thing is that when the rudder kicks up because it is all a bit of a DIY job, before I can get the rudder back down I have to unbolt the whole repair and then you have to go into the back of the boat and with your hands underwater you have to bolt it back together again, which is a bit annoying.”

Inevitably the two occasions in this race Roxy has suffered minor collisions, it is the damaged rudder that has been to leeward and struck. “Both times was when there was more than 30 knots and then you go into a full-on ‘yeehaa’. It is like when you are skiing off piste and you hit something and you lose the downhill ski!

Other than the vang, which she admits she should have replaced before the race (but had a replacement for on board) there have been a number of smaller issues, typically electrical. Having studied Engineering at Cambridge University is certainly paying off…

“It does help - not to be scared of problems and to get your head in there straight away. As soon as things have gone wrong, even if I have got a second system, or a spare or whatever I have always gone straight in to try and fix it with no delay so that nothing can get out of control if there is a second thing that breaks in the meantime. And because I have sailed the boat so much now and I have had so many problems in the training and all the sailing I have done over the last two years, pretty much everything I have fixed on the water, so I know everything on the boat already so there is no mystery. Most of the stuff I manage to fix before I call the team to let them know what the problem was. And quite often if something goes wrong, I’ll call up to let them know and by the time Erwan sends me the mail because he has contacted the technician for the thing that has gone wrong and he puts together a mail explaining how to fix it or what the problem is and normally when he sends that email he normally at the same time receives an email from me explaining how I fixed it and everything’s fine. So it is a bit of a challenge now between the two of us, to see who can get the mail out the fastest.

So an amazing Vendee Globe for Miss Davies, the leading Brit in this race. As she says – fingers and toes crossed that her passage up the Atlantic will be an uneventful one.