Why Team SCA is the progressive favorite in the Volvo Ocean Race


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Team SCA sailing past Castle Hill, nearing the finish of Leg Six of the 2014/15 Volvo Ocean Race

All the teams in the Volvo Ocean Race use identical boats, they sail over the same waters, and they bounce over the same waves.

However, there is something very different with one team in this year’s 38,739 nautical mile race. Team SCA is the only all-women team in the otherwise male-dominated around-the-world sailboat race currently stopped over in Newport.

If there is a team for progressives to root for, it has to be SCA.

They aren’t the first all-female team in ocean racing: Maiden (89-90) in the Whitbread Round the World Race, Heineken (93-94), E F Education (97-98), and American Sports Too (01-02). But women remain under represented in the sport.

Many of the SCA crew started ocean racing solo for lack of opportunity in the primarily male sport. “There’s no way they would take a female on the boats,” said Sophie Ciszek, one of the crew for Team SCA.

So, often women took to solo racing, many in the Mini Transatlantic, sailing alone 4000 miles in 21 ft. long boats to break into the ranks of professional sailing. Team SCA finished the 5,000 mile sixth leg of the Volvo Ocean Race in Newport this last week along with five competitors. Thousands of fans were at Ft. Adams in Newport to welcome Team SCA. The six Volvo boats are on display this week at Ft. Adams, and start the next leg (to Lisbon, Portugal) Sunday, May 17th, at 2:00 PM.

The Volvo Ocean Race boats berthed at Ft. Adams in Newport
The Volvo Ocean Race boats berthed at Ft. Adams in Newport

SCA Corporation, an international paper products and forestry company based in Sweden, sponsored the female team. Its intent was to create a fully supported team, on the same level as the men’s teams. Team SCA began in 2012, when 250 women from all over the world applied for 11 positions. One by one they were eliminated and the chosen few went into training.

Approaching the Volvo finish in Newport, Team SCA squeezes everything oout of light winds
Approaching the Volvo finish in Newport, Team SCA squeezes everything out of light winds

Last year, they sailed into Newport as part of their offshore training. Skipper Samantha Davies and her crew-mates are soaked in extensive solo offshore racing experience and have the skills to sail alongside the boys. They proved that in the first week of Leg 6, sailing right up in the front pack, exchanging for the lead. That was sailing at its highest competitive level. Days before arrival in Newport, an unfortunate high pressure system cut them off from the leaders and set them back 100 miles.

Team SCA, sailing through the East Passage
Team SCA, sailing through the East Passage

On the positive side, they finished in daylight, and were treated to the beauty of Brenton Point, Castle Hill, Hammersmith Farm, and the Volvo Race Village at Ft. Adams.  Twelve hours earlier, Dongfeng, the winner, battled Abu Dhabi to finish in the dark. In a tense close fight, they finished three and a half minutes apart after seventeen days. That is nothing short of amazing and one-design sailboat racing at its finest! 7,000 plus fans on land and an estimated 200 boats cheered in the night time winners.

Team SCA, less than a mile from the finish
Team SCA, less than a mile from the finish

As the father of a daughter who sailed competitively in high school, I have witnessed women competing in sailing on an even footing. Both my children, sailing for Newport’s Rogers High School Sailing Team in the 1990s, competed on a coed basis. And the fastest Rogers High School Sailing Team skipper was a woman for several years. For sure, the Farr Ocean 65 racing sailboat is a handful, twelve-and-a-half metric tons (27,000 lbs.) of throbbing carbon fiber race horse. Lugging the sails below and dragging them up on deck, and constantly trimming and changing sails is no easy chore. Flying along at 20 knots, the 65 ft. hull must bang on the waves like a surfboard.

Okay, men are stronger on the whole. But with teamwork and pacing – critical for ocean racing – skilled and properly trained women are up to the job, as are some men. Furling the asymmetrical spinnaker when gybing into the East Passage off Jamestown, Team SCA executed the maneuver flawlessly in front of my eyes, with the rhythm of a Swiss watch- a fine finish to 5,000 miles of sailing under challenging conditions.

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Team SCA gybing to enter the East Passage, Block Island in the background

This Saturday, May 17th, at 2PM, the Volvo boats will race over a short course at the mouth of Narragansett  Bay. The fleet will start near the Ft. Adams shoreline and sail to a buoy off Castle Hill Lighthouse and back. The race will consist of two laps over this short course. Ft. Wetherill in Jamestown and Ft. Adams in Newport will be the prime viewing areas for those watching from land.

Team SCA has won two of the five in port races in the 2014/15 Volvo Ocean Race so far, third place overall for the in port races to date. Team Alvimedica, skippered by Rhode Islander, Charlie Enright, has also won one of the in port races so far, so the racing should be keen. The layout of the course will make for a lot of maneuvering at close quarters, something fun to watch.

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Team SCA at Ft. Adams, getting the boat ready for Saturday’s in port race and the Sunday start of Leg Seven, Newport to Lisbon, Portugal

Photos and story by Roberto Bessin 2015

Volvo fleet flies into Newport, RI


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RI Future Sailing Correspondent Roberto Bessin was at Ft. Weatherill State Park in Jamestown to see Team SCA enter Narragansett Bay after a 5,000 mile sail from Brazil – the sixth leg in this year’s Volvo Ocean Race, which made port in Newport last night and this morning.

SCA, the only all-women boat competing in bi-annual race, brought up the rear, finishing at about 10am. Dongfeng, a team made up of Chinese and French sailors, finished almost exactly 12 hours earlier. They beat Team Abu Dabi by only 3 minutes, in an exciting night of sailing that saw hundreds of boaters welcome them to Rhode Island. Team Almevidica, captained and partially crewed by Rhode Islanders, finished 5th of 6 at 3am.

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Team SCA passes Castle Hill Lighthouse in Newport, as it enters the West Passage of Narragansett Bay. (Roberto Bessin)
You can see the coast of Block Island behind Team SCA in this one. (Photo by Roberto Bessin.
You can see the coast of Block Island behind SCA’s 65-foot sailboat in this picture. (Roberto Bessin)
Team SCA passes Hammersmith Farm, the former Kennedy estate in Newport, as a helicopter flies overhead. (Photo by Roberto Bessin)
SCA passes Hammersmith Farm, the former Kennedy estate in Newport, as a helicopter flies overhead. (Roberto Bessin)
The six remaining boats - one crashed into a reef in the middle of the ocean - docked at Ft. Adams in Newport, where an entire temporary "village" has been created for the 12 day event. (Photo by Roberto Bessin)
The six remaining boats – one crashed into a reef in the middle of the ocean – are docked at Ft. Adams in Newport, where an entire temporary “village” has been created for the 12 day event. (Roberto Bessin)
(Roberto Bessin)
Team Abu Dabi’s boat, with the state-owned tall ship Oliver Hazard Perry to her stern (Roberto Bessin)
Team Alvimedica's boat in gorgeous Newport Harbor. (Roberto Bessin)
Team Alvimedica’s boat in gorgeous Newport Harbor. (Roberto Bessin)
The six competing Volvo boats and the Oliver Hazard Perry at Ft. Adams in Newport, RI. (Roberto Bessin)
The six competing Volvo boats and the Oliver Hazard Perry at Ft. Adams in Newport, RI. (Roberto Bessin)

Volvo Ocean Race sails toward Newport, RI


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Volvo Ocean Race, Itajai, Brazil in April. Nest stop Newport.
Volvo Ocean Race, Itajai, Brazil in April. Next stop Newport, RI.

The first solo sailor to circumnavigate the earth in 1898 had to hug the Castle Hill coastline as he finished his 47,000 mile voyage in Newport, Rhode Island. Joshua Slocum was dodging the lethal shipping mines planted at the entrance of Narragansett Bay during the Spanish American War. After surviving two years and 47,000 miles at sea, he was at risk of being blown up just miles from the finish line.

The six teams racing in the Volvo Ocean Race face no such perils. Only the Atlantic Ocean stands between them and Newport Harbor, where they will complete the sixth leg of the around-the-globe race on approximately May 5. With some 4,000 nautical miles between them and Newport, their arrival time is still a guess. This Volvo Race, sailing’s biggest biannual event, has previously stopped at Alicante, Spain, Capetown, South Africa, Abu Dhabi, Sanya, China, Auckland, New Zealand, and Itajai, Brazil . They’ll be in Newport from May 5 through the 17th, when they set sail for Lisbon, Portugal, the next leg of the what used to be known as the Whitbread Round the World Race.

When Slocum sailed around the world, he sailed a wooden 37-ft. oyster boat. The Volvo Ocean Race chose the Farr Ocean 65 for 2014-15, and basically established a new one-design fleet of carbon fiber rocket ships. Instead of the weird and disparate multi-hull competitors in what the America’s Cup race has evolved into, the Volvo boats are very similar. Because of that, right now, the boats have been sailing at close quarters for the first three days of the current leg. Often the difference in speed is a mere 0.2 knots.

Team Alvimedica has three Rhode Islanders aboard: Charlie Enright, the skipper, Mark Towhill, the general manager and Amory Ross, the reporter. Charlie and Mark, both with formidable offshore sailing experience around the world, know each other from the Brown Sailing team years ago. With advice from PUMA Ocean racing veterans, they put a world class team together. They are highly motivated to win this leg, and have a great number of fans here in Rhode island.

Team SCA, one of six current competitors, is writing history with an all women’s crew. Corinna Halloran, from Newport, is aboard SCA as a reporter. The 15 women comprising Team SCA come from six countries including Switzerland, Sweden, Great Britain, Australia, US, and the Netherlands. SCA is the largest private forester in Europe and manufacturers paper products marketed internationally. The 15 women were chosen from 250 applicants. Skipper, Sam Davies, took fourth in the recent Vende Solo Race, and she leads a talented crew. What has been mainly a playing field for men over the years has opened up, with due respect to Isabelle Autissier, and Ellen MacArthur.

A seventh competitor, Team Vestas Wind from New Zealand sailed up onto a reef in the Indian Ocean on an earlier leg of this year’s Volvo Ocean Race. The last harrowing moments were caught on video:

It is exciting to see Newport once again hosting a world class sailing event, and how great it is with such equal boats pitting sailor versus sailor, for unpredictable, close competition. The inshore race May 15th and 16th will be in the West Passage outside of Newport Harbor, visible from many vantage points in Newport and Jamestown. It should be thrilling to watch the Volvo boats sail under the Newport Bridge. And then the VOR departs for Portugal, France, and Sweden, to finish off 38,739 nautical miles of blue water sailing. For the sailors it means more freeze dried food and only one change of clothes at sea.

I’ve been a sailor for 45 years. I grew up sailing on San Francisco Bay, I’ve sailed across the Atlantic twice and I’ve sailed the Mediterranean and the Caribbean seas. This Volvo race reminds me why I moved to Newport more than 20 years ago.