Events | 2009.06.04
Vendée Globe sailors target record
Dee Caffari and Sam Davies will have to cope with changeable weather and busy shipping lanes as they attempt to set new standard
Three months ago, they were completing arguably the most gruelling sporting challenge of all – the Vendée Globe solo round-the-world yachting race.
Today, refreshed and raring to go, Dee Caffari and Sam Davies were preparing for a new challenge: trying to break the record for sailing around Britain and Ireland in the quickest time.
This one, to reverse the old sporting cliche, is a sprint rather than a marathon, but it throws up different problems.
The women will have to cope with the UK\'s changeable weather, make sure they do not hug the rocky coastline too closely and dodge oil rigs, pleasure cruisers and container ships.
Davies, who finished fourth in the Vendée, said she could not wait to take part in a competitive event again.
"Obviously this is different to the Vendée," she added. "It\'s a week rather than three months. Mentally, that is easier in some ways – but we also have to be sure we stay competitive."
Davies joked that she also needed to be tidier. During the Vendée, she was able to leave her possessions sprawled around her boat, Roxy, without being worried that she would be annoying anyone else.
This time, with five others around, it will be important to keep everything in its place. "You have to be tidy or you\'ll end up putting someone else\'s boots on or not being able to find something important," she said.
Davies is also looking forward to racing with Caffari who, when she finished the Vendée in sixth after 99 days at sea, became the first woman to sail solo and non-stop both ways around the world.
"It feels like we have been through so much together, shared so much, even though we were competitors," Davies said.
Most people would be resting on their laurels after the Vendée, but Caffari admits she already has "itchy feet". She added: "There\'s a real buzz about this. I can\'t wait to start."
She said that, in some ways, it was hard sharing her boat, Aviva , with other people but she was also pleased it would be pushed harder than when she sailed it alone.
She added that although the team was close, she was very much the skipper.
Caffari explained that the most thrilling parts of the race for her would be the "corners" – when, for example, the crew turns south after rounding the tip of Scotland.
Finding the quickest route through the oil rigs in the North Sea would be "quite interesting", and keeping clear of giant container ships in the crowded lanes of the Channel would, clearly, be crucial.
The current outright record for sailing around Britain and Ireland in a monohull yacht stands at seven days and four hours and was set in May 2004.
The record for an all-female crew stands at 10 days and 16 hours and was set by Davies and her crew on Roxy in June 2007.
The route is 2,500 nautical miles, although the crew can go either clockwise or anticlockwise (turning left or right out of Portsmouth, in basic terms), depending on which they judge will be the quickest.
Caffari and her crew want to break the outright record, not the all-women one. But the vagaries of the tides and the unpredictable weather close to the coast make the challenge a particularly technical one.
That challenge may have been launched today, but the actual racing did not begin.
Pleasant sunshine is not what the women need. They judged that although they would get a decent start, the high pressure lingering off the north-west coast could halt them in their tracks in the next few days.
So the women will wait until more favourable weather turns up. "Then it will be a real race against the clock, with every move important," Caffari said.
For more information, please visit
http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2009/jun/03/dee-caffari-sam-davies
