Team SCA bow women Stacey Jackson, Liz Wardley, and Sophie…
Team SCA bow women Stacey Jackson, Liz Wardley, and Sophie Ciszek.
I mentioned my surprise at Sophie getting her wish to be back on the boat for leg 5. I noticed in the final crew roster that both Stacey Jackson and Liz Wardley (the boat’s #1 and #2 bow persons) would be on board too, and then Dee Caffari’s better half, who’s a regular on the Sailing Anarchy forums, pointed out to me that Sophie wasn’t on the boat for this leg as a bow person, but as a driver, based on her previously discussed talent for surfing big waves. Hopefully being at the back of the boat will help her protect her back.
The other crew switch they’re doing between Saturday’s in-port race and the leg 5 start (now scheduled for no earlier than Monday, to give Cyclone Pam time to get out of the way) is that they’re taking off Sally Barkow (who’s arguably one of the best around-the-buoys tacticians on the team) and replacing her with Sara Hastreiter, who sat out leg 4. Presumably Sara will be working the pit, but she’s also worked the bow on previous legs.
I think it’s smart for them to load up the boat with bow people for this leg. They’re the kind of sailors who get a lot of practice staying on board when waves are trying to wash them off, and they’re generally good at wrestling angry sails into submission and imposing order on chaos. All of those skills are going to be really useful over the next few weeks.
Reposted from http://ift.tt/1C9cew7.
Tags: vor, volvo ocean race, weareteamsca, stacey jackson, sophie ciszek, liz wardley.
