Sam Davies' Diary - Part 1

This girl has her eyes set on glory in the Mini Transat

I started sailing my Mini Aberdeen Asset Management last year, with Andrew Cape (Capey) - the designer and original skipper. Capey is unable to race the Mini Transat this year due to his Swiss America's Cup commitments and he generously handed the reins over to me towards the end of last summer.

Not only did I become the new skipper of a fast and well-designed Mini, I also was lucky enough to persuade Aberdeen Asset Management to continue their generous sponsorship of this Mini and support my campaign for the Mini Transat 2001. With Aberdeen Asset Management backing me, I am able to ensure that my boat is safe and up to speed in every race I sail. Their support also enables me to compete in races all over Europe to complete my qualification, and gain as much experience as possible.

I have also been lucky to have had the opportunity to sail with Capey. I learnt so much about the boat from its designer and someone who has sailed thousands of miles with her. This is so important with these individual, one-off ocean-going skiffs! Having said that, I certainly did not learn everything, and I don't think I will ever stop learning, even after sailing all the way to Brazil!

The 2001 Mini Transat starts on the 22 September this year. However, in order to qualify to start this race the Mini sailors have to complete 2000 miles of sailing, 1000 miles of which must be from races in the Mini Calendar. There are only 55 places in this race, so the first to finish the miles gets in, so it's a race to qualify for the race itself. There are only a certain number of qualifying races and the only way to ensure qualification is to go to the first ones available, wherever they are. This means that us Mini sailors have been charging around Europe to various qualifying events. It is a ridiculous fact that in order to get my 1000 miles racing in, I have actually driven about 4,500 miles! I am extremely grateful to Peter Morton who has generously leant me his Chevy this month to get to Italy and France.

Right now I am in Pornichet in Brittany. There are four days until my next race, which seems like a luxury after the last three weeks of manic rushed work in between driving around Europe with the Mini on a trailer behind me. Last week I raced the Roma x 2, with Miranda Merron as my co-skipper. It was a mad rush to get to Rome and in the water in time.

As always, I thought I had loads of time. Unfortunately, so did the boat builders, and they did not finish the work that had been scheduled for the winter until four days before I had to leave England. This meant that I had no chance to get in the water for a 'shake down' sail in the UK before I left. Lesson number one learnt - boat builders need close supervision and gentle persuasion in order to make progress in time.

So I arrived in Riva di Trainao in Italy and predictably encountered several problems that could have been easily ironed out with a shake down sail - my dagger boards did not fit and had to be sanded down and the inside of the cases had to be filed off. There were several other stupid problems like that, but luckily I had Nigel and Miranda helping me, plus Brian and Tanguy and other Mini sailors as they came past and by the start of the race, we were totally prepared and ready to go (even having had time to get a quick sail in to let Miranda get used to the boat.)