La Petite Australienne

Former Amer Too bowgirl Liz Wardley tells madforsailing about her latest form of hell

She's small. She's Australian. She never wears shoes. Liz Wardley has had a busy time since Kiel where she stepped off Amer Sports Too, having spent the best part of a year dealing with the bow on the girls' Volvo Ocean Race boat. But Wardley says her post-Volvo busy-ness has been fortunate: "You're sort of left in the dark. You've just had nine months of being told when to be somewhere, what to do, what to say and suddenly it's 'alright it's over. See ya!' You get your own life back and you just don't know what to do with it. I just take it day by day at the moment."

But as we speak she is undertaking a no less hardcore challenge, as part of a two girl crew sailing in the Mini class' Demi Cle, with her newly acquired Swedish friend Pia L'Obry on board the Rolland designed Morph'Eau. In this ocean going 21 footer the duo scored an impressive second place overall on the first leg of the event from Lorient to Cork.

"Coming second was awesome," Wardley enthuses. "After the start we were mid-fleet and we just got in the groove and sailed past the fleet and got into second place on the first evening and it obviously just stayed that way. We didn't know we were coming second until we'd finished, because the radio scheds are all done on VHF and the following boats aren't normally around you, so we dind't know how we were going. We knew we were quite west of the fleet. The forecast was for it to go WSW, but we got stuck in a secondary depression right in the middle and had no wind for about 10 hours, so it was a bit frustrating not knowing whether the rest of the fleet was in already. And the wind came out in our favour and we had a really fast reach all the way to the finish."

Minis are essentially 21ft long ocean going skiffs with the sail plan of a 30 something footer and a huge bowsprit. They are as wet as it is possible to imagine. So how did the experience compare to Amer Too? "I was amazed how dry the boat is - it was awesome. Everyone was telling me that they're really wet and uncomfortable. I thought it was a treat!"

Aside from several thousand ocean miles notched up on the Volvo, Wardley has a serious background in Hobie cats before she graduated up to sailing offshore in 40footers. Despite her tender age of 23 she has skippered two boats in the Sydney-Hobart. "I've never done any skiff or dinghy sailing. And this is offshore sailing on a dinghy. It's excellent!" she says.

Prior to getting involved with the Volvo, Wardley was in the throws of getting her own Mini campaign together in New Zealand, but got the call from Lisa McDonald as her new boat was mid-construction. The opportunity to race the Demi Cle came purely by chance. "Pia emailed Katie Pettibone when we were in La Rochelle asking her to crew on the Archipelago Raid and Katie couldn't do it and she gave me her email. And I emailed and she said 'come and do the Raid' and while we were doing that she mentioned she needed a crew for the Mini. So I said, 'well, come on mate...'"

Unfortunately the number of crewed or two handed events in the Mini class dry up after this race as the competitors concentrate being first to get their singlehanded qualification passage in bag for the limited spots available in next year's Mini Transat. The story is the same on Giovanni Soldini's 60ft trimaran Fila on which she also occasionally sails. Aside from some records which the Around Alone winner may carry out, Soldini is also concentrating on solo sailing with his eye on November's Route du Rhum.

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Morph'Eau at the start