Women on Ascent in Offshore Racing

A record-sized fleet, at present standing at 372 boats (up from 335 in 2013), is in the final stages of preparation for the world’s largest offshore yacht race, the Royal Ocean Racing Club’s Rolex Fastnet Race. Starting Sunday (Aug 16) from the Royal Yacht Squadron line in Cowes, among the reasons for the growth is due to an ascent of women’s participation.

Annie O’Sullivan’s Girls For Sail racing Hot Stuff, a Beneteau 40.7. Caroline Emmott, Anke Ludwig, Ali Millman, Jemma Ingham, Kate Stoddard, Jo Bayles and skipper Sophie O’Neill.

This year’s race will feature seven all-female crews and at least 10 more yachts with female skippers. The former group includes the Beneteau 40.7 Hot Stuff from the women’s sailing school Girls For Sail led by Annie O’Sullivan, while a Tall Ships Youth Trust Challenger 72, skippered by Elizabeth Terrell, will have a crew of girl guides ranging in age from 20 to 57 years.

Challenger 3, a yacht belonging to the Tall Ships Youth Trust will be raced by the ‘Fastnet Divas’, nine of members of Girlguiding

But the highest profile will certainly be Team SCA. Barely missing a beat from the end of their lap of the planet, the all-women’s Volvo Ocean Race entry will be back competing on Sunday with a similar crew, including British solo round the world sailor Dee Caffari, but this time led by Dutch Olympian Carolijn Brouwer. In fact to continue progress with their training they will have two men on board – both former Volvo Ocean Race competitors in Aksel Magdahl and Martin Stromberg – as coaches.

Meanwhile the team’s VOR skipper Sam Davies has temporarily jumped ship and will be competing in the Fastnet Race, but in the IMOCA 60 class, sailing two handed with fellow Vendée Globe skipper, France’s Tanguy de Lamotte on his Initiatives Coeur.

VOR skipper Sam Davies will be competing in the IMOCA Ocean Masters class, sailing two handed with fellow Vendée Globe skipper, France’s Tanguy de Lamotte on his Initiatives Coeur © Rick Tomlinson

Currently Davies is supposed to be ‘on holiday’, recovering from the round the world race and resuming her maternal duties. But the lure of the Rolex Fastnet Race, she says, has been too great: “It is a race that means a lot to me, because I am British – I love that coast, mainly because I raced there so much in the Figaro.”

For Sam this race also represents a first opportunity to get in some training time with de LaMotte, with whom she will be racing two handed in this autumn’s Transat Jacques Vabre. “Tanguy will be doing everything and will be telling me what to do! After three years of sailing in the Volvo where you have two people to do everything, it will be a bit of a shock to get back into doublehanded, but this will be a perfect way to switch.”

Initiatives Coeur will of course be up against Team SCA and Sam says she is keeping her fingers crossed for reaching/downwind conditions so that she might have a chance of beating her team mates. In the 2013 Rolex Fastnet Race, the IMOCA 60 leaders finished at the same time as the VO70s, including Team SCA.

As to whether Team SCA has been responsible for getting more women into sailing, and possibly for there being more women competing in this year’s Rolex Fastnet Race, it is hard to quantify, but Sam says that she believes their Volvo Ocean Race campaign, and all the positive media it generated, must certainly have had a beneficial effect.

Event details – Entry list

Report by James Boyd.

Background: The 603nm Rolex Fastnet Race is organised by the Royal Ocean Racing Club (RORC), with the 46th edition of the biennial race to start off the Royal Yacht Squadron line, Cowes, Isle of Wight on Sunday 16th August 2015. It is the largest offshore race in the world and attracts the most diverse fleet of yachts.