Sam Davies' Diary - Part II

Sam is trying to play down her billing as the next Ellen MacArthur

As I write, it is about 36 hours until the start of my first-ever solo race. I am feeling understandably nervous. Although I have sailed 1000 miles solo (for my qualification for the Mini Transat entry) this was not racing. Most of all, there were not 69 other boats on the start line, which is the main reason for my apprehension.

There have been some Chinese whispers coming back from the dock gossip that Sam is the next Ellen McArthur and other talk that Simon (Curwen) and I are the "Glaoush" to beat. This is because we have both had good results in the last two races, but both races were in the Mediterranean and were double-handed. Now we are in Brittany, facing the best of the Mini racers in their own territory.

I am feeling slightly intimidated already by the Froggies and I would much rather be an anonymous Mini that no one has any expectations of. However, I know that the French are out to beat me, and on Saturday, when my competitive instinct comes alive, I know for sure that this will be a help to my performance on the race course.

I hope that I can sail Aberdeen Asset Management to as near 100 per cent as possible and let her perform to her massive potential as much as possible during this race.

This race, the Select 6.5, is the final milestone in my route to qualifying for the Mini Transat race. When I have finished this race, I will have completed 2000 miles of qualifying sailing. Hence, it is vitally important that I complete the course - more important than getting a good result. This means that I will have to sail with a conservative strategy, especially at the start, where there will be 69 other boats, single-handed, a high proportion of which will be sailing their first-ever solo race (like me) and therefore the risk of collision will be high.

I want to avoid any risk of avoidable damage. I thought initially that the best strategy would be to sail slow and very cautious, but Aberdeen is a very quick boat, and the fastest route out of the melee at the start will probably be to go for it and get ahead of the bunch. A tricky call, but with the competitive instinct I think that there will be no option.

Apart from race planning, this week has been taken up with little jobs on the boat, hindered by the persistent rain. I have found myself tinkering inside the cabin a lot (I have been wondering how I can spend so much time in such a small space. I fixed my head torch - one of the most useful items on a Mini. This torch went around the world with me on Royal & Sun Alliance - it has had the most attention any torch has ever had and now it is working better than ever.

I put some glow-in-the-dark stars up inside as apparently they give enough light just to see what you are doing inside at night. I put them in the formations of Leo and Virgo - my two star signs. I have spliced lots of lines - my guys, foreguy, a strop for my jib reef point, a babystay strop. My rig has never had a babystay, but recently I have reduced the prebend to try and give more power in the main, and the straighter mast will be more easily inverted when I have two or three reefs, so I have made a "safety" babystay from the first spreaders to prevent any "pumping" inside out. There are so many things to constantly think about and change.

Another question for this race is whether to take a generator or not. The generator weighs around 15kg so is a lot of extra weight, but if you do not have enough power then the autopilot does not work and you have to hand-steer constantly. We have solar panels, but so far this week, the North Atlantic coast has provided us with approximately two hours of sunshine - which would only fuel us 4 Amp-hours. I do not yet know exactly how much power Aberdeen consumes - another thing that I must learn quickly. So it is a little bit of guess work. I think I should be OK with no generator.

And one more worry - the safety check. I have always passed the safety check, but the French are rumoured to be extremely thorough which is no bad thing at all. I have gone over the list with my Franglais translation and I believe I have everything, but my mind is never at rest until I have the official all-clear.

Then, a final check with my waypoints and nav / tide work, race sails on, loading the water (the Mini rules state that we must have three litres per 100 miles) and food (not much as it is only a 300 mile race) and finding out how we are to get to the start - is it a tow, or do we have to sail; whatever, I am sure that there will be a bit of congestion on the way out.

Most of all, this week has given me a huge desire just to get out and go sailing. This Mini Transat campaign is teaching me that there is so much more to a sailing project than sailing, in fact at the moment (having driven all over Europe in order to complete qualification) the sailing seems like the easy part. It is certainly why I am here, and sailing Aberdeen for just one hour makes all the hard work worthwhile. I can't wait 'til Saturday...