Sophie Ciszek, currently recovering from back surgery, will be interviewed tomorrow by the VOR media team.

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Into the funnel

The VOR fleet is squeezing down into the Malacca Strait. If you look at the wind image on the lower left, you can see the problem that front-runner Dongfeng faces: The farther into the funnel they go, the lighter the wind becomes, until they’re basically in drifting conditions. They’re also dealing with strong tidal currents, which in a worst-case scenario can mean it’s actually in their interest to anchor (assuming the water is shallow enough to allow it). I don’t expect any of the crews are going to get much sleep for the next day or two.

It looks like Dongfeng’s track took them into a finger of lighter wind today, while the rest of the fleet stayed south, closer to Sumatra, and made up a lot of ground. At noon UTC the Chinese boat had an 85-mile lead; by 2300 that was down to 25 miles, with Mapfre, ADOR, and Alvimedica close together and Brunel only a few miles behind. Fortunately for Dongfeng they started moving again in the last hour, while the boats behind seem to have slowed.

Farther astern, SCA appears to be making a play for more wind (or better current?) by heading south toward the Sumatran coast. At first it didn’t seem to be working, but from the wind diagram it looks like it has a chance, and in the last hour they’ve started moving well.

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Stacey Jackson, 100 feet up. Source.

Stacey is bow person aboard SCA, currently entering the Malacca Strait on Leg 3 of the 38,000-mile Volvo Ocean Race.

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I’m kind of fascinated by this recent video from SCA.

For context, the fleet has made it past Sri Lanka, had a day or so of fast sailing across the Bay of Bengal, and now has headed into an area of very light wind they have to get through in order to reach the northwestern tip of Sumatra.

Dongfeng continues to lead. About 55 miles behind them is a group of four boats (Brunel, Mapfre, ADOR, and Alvimedica) spread out over about 15 miles, then another 25 miles back is SCA.

Since falling out of AIS range SCA has been unable to catch up with the rest of the fleet. There has been some compression when they’ve all sailed into lighter winds, but nothing permanent.

Realistically, the boat is slow. The people sailing it, as a group, just aren’t as fast as the rest of the fleet. Especially now that they’ve fallen out of touch it’s a vicious circle, because they lack the feedback that would alert them to the specific times when they’re being left behind. If they can’t find a way to make a big strategic gain, sailing in different wind unavailable to the leaders, there’s very little chance of their catching up.

Their enemy at this point is complacency. And with no nearby competitors it’s amazingly hard not to ease off. You can hear Annie and Carolijn talking about exactly that at the beginning of this video. And then you get Sam, and she’s doing her best to sound upbeat, to put the best possible spin on the situation, but you can tell she doesn’t really believe it. And then we get a long, soulful shot of Sam just staring forward, looking like someone who’s out of answers.

It gets to the heart of what I’ve been wondering about Sam’s suitability for the role of skipper since the early days of Leg 1. She’s likable. She’s a great individual sailor. But I’m not sure she has it in her to go into butt-kicking mode at a time when the crew kind of needs that.

I know I’m just seeing a tiny slice of what’s going on. It’s easy for me to construct narratives from the comfort of my computer, halfway around the world, reading into the events on the boat based on my own, very different experiences racing decades ago.

But it does feel familiar. There’s a tendency for any crew, out of sight of land and the competition, to slip gradually and almost imperceptibly into “cruising mode”. You see it on night watches, when people end up telling jokes and sightseeing, rather than obsessing over sail trim. And then the very next video posted to the channel is this one, in which we get a light-hearted discussion about the planet they’re looking at.

I know it’s just a moment. But it’s one that feels consistent with other moments from other videos, and that contrasts with the level of intensity you can see in the videos from the other boats.

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This video from SCA is almost two days old now; I’m a little behind in my VOR obsession. But I really liked it. It shows the focus they currently have on staying with the other boats and keeping their speed up.

So far they’ve done a pretty good job of that. As the fleet left Abu Dhabi they quickly fell back to sixth place, and have been struggling to keep in touch with the back edge of the fleet since then. But they’ve mostly succeeded.

The reality is that they’re just not as fast as the other boats. They eventually can get up to speed when they have competitors close to them to serve as a measuring stick, but when conditions change (and on a racing sailboat conditions are almost always changing) they tend to get out of sync and fall off the pace. At least when they’re close to another boat (within visual range during the day, or within the 6-mile range of the AIS transponders at night) they can get immediate feedback that they’re slow. Once they lose touch with the fleet, though, they’ll be on their own, with only the once-every-six-hours scheds to give them limited feedback.

For the last few days they’ve been sticking with MAPFRE, who also seem to have issues with boatspeed. At least together they’re faster than they would be individually.

Anyway, they’re learning, and getting faster. They’ve spoken in a previous video that their plan for this leg is to hang with the fleet until they reach the Straits of Malacca between the Malay Peninsula and Sumatra, where they hope that the inshore racing will give them a chance to reproduce their success in the last few in-port races.

I think it’s a good plan. I look forward to seeing how well they can execute it.

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Brief on-board footage from today’s win by SCA in the Abu Dhabi in-port race. Some additional quotes are in this article on the official site.

If you watch the race, there was a significant element of luck — the winds were very light, and SCA didn’t get a great start. They were kind of in the middle of the pack, getting sucked into some disturbed air and had to tack away to the right side of the first beat. And then… it turned out that the right side actually was a really good strategic call.

But to give them credit: They did a great job of making the most of the situation. The tack on top of Dongfeng was a good, aggressive tactical decision, and their light-air boatspeed, which had been something of a question mark during the last few legs, looked great. Carolijn did a fantastic job on the helm, and obviously Sam and LIbby avoided making any mistakes that could have cost them the lead.

The thing I like most about the win is the confidence boost it provides. It’s a reminder that they can be competitive; they just need to stay focused and make fewer mistakes than the other boats. 

Looking forward to Leg 3!

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sailseaplymouth:

The all-female Team SCA won today’s in-port race in Abu Dhabi, the team’s first win during the Volvo Ocean Race!

Woo!

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Crew for Leg 3 – Team SCA in the Volvo Ocean Race:

As I was speculating, Sophie is off for Leg 3:

The Team SCA squad is about to start a well-earned five-day break and has today confirmed the crew line-up for Leg Three from Abu Dhabi to Sanya, China, due to start on January 3, 2015. As part of the crew ‘rotation’ for most legs, Sophie Ciszek and Liz Wardley will be standing down and Sally Barkow and Sara Hastreiter (reserves for Leg Two) will be rejoining the sailing crew for the leg.

“It is great to have Sally and Sara back onboard,” comments Sam Davies, Team SCA skipper. “Sophie is also suffering from a lumber herniated disc and will probably have a micro-disectomy later this week. This is a fairly common athletic injury and the prognosis is positive so it should be a relatively short time before she is back up to 100%.”

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I’ve probably sat through too many meetings, constructing narratives from participants’ body language.

• Sam and Dee: Sitting in conference rooms listening to presentations: Yup, this is exactly why I’ve dedicated my life to sailing alone around the world.
• Libby: So, here we are, analyzing a bunch of mistakes that were mostly mine. Pass the Tums.
• Sophie: My back hurts.

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Quotes from the dock – Team SCA in the Volvo Ocean Race:

I’m liking what I’m hearing from the team about doing their best to avoid navigational errors and stick close to the other boats to learn from speed comparisons. I’m concerned that Sophie’s back injury might keep her out of Leg 3, though. Hope she improves quickly; the Leg 3 start is January 3 (the day after the Abu Dhabi in-port race), which means she has just under 3 weeks.

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Day 25: A bittersweet day – Team SCA in the Volvo Ocean Race:

We are determined to grow from our mistakes and take the time in the next two and a half weeks to really fix them. Immediately following our finish we will (eat something fresh), unpack the boat, (shower and rest), and then debrief with our coaching staff.

This debrief might possibly be the most important debrief to date, as we now fully understand the complexities of the race and the other teams. We will analyze, in detail, our strengths and weakness in order to capitalize on our strengths and remedy our weaknesses for future legs.

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SCA’s latest video, with Stacey, Sam, and Dee all talking about being behind, maintaining their focus, and looking to improve for the future. There’s definitely a down vibe on the boat, which is understandable. But I like the way they’re approaching at it.

They got into this situation one mistake at a time, They’ll get themselves to a more competitive place the same way: incrementally, one eliminated mistake at a time.

It’s unfortunate that they’ve had so little opportunity on this leg to sail close to the competition. Brunel and Dongfeng, especially, have been doing lots of two-boat speed testing over the last few weeks, while SCA has been sailing mostly by themselves. With the benefit of hindsight, it would have been nice if they’d covered Alvimedica when the two boats crossed back on December 3. Realizing that SCA was playing what they thought would be the best route through the upcoming doldrums at that point, but (again, with the benefit of hindsight they didn’t have at the time) it would have been great to take the opportunity given to them by Alvimedica’s dropping back during the Vestas rescue to sail close to a competitor for a while.

Winning is always going to be the focus; it is, after all, a race. But I wonder if at this point, given the experience of the last few legs, SCA will think about tweaking their strategy to put more emphasis on covering and getting the benefit of boatspeed comparisons via AIS, rather than going off on their own quite so readily. To focus less on winning, more on not losing; less on reaching for the brass ring, more on just doing their best to stay on the merry-go-round.

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Day 21: The Reality Hurts:

My opinion (possibly completely wrong) is that SCA is consistently falling to the back of the fleet because of their relative inexperience, which manifests itself in several ways:

• Their performance is good at the start of legs (such that they’ve held the lead briefly each time), but then falls off with the passage of time. Enough of their crew is inexperienced with long-distance crewed racing that they tend to slip into “cruising mode”, where they sit around telling stories when they should be pushing themselves and their boat. (Note that I’m not sure this is actually happening as much as it looks like in the videos; I suspect this could also be a reflection of a bias on Corinna’s part toward showing that kind of material, rather than focusing on ongoing focused racing that is nevertheless happening.)
• Similarly, inexperience leads to their slowing down relative to the other boats at night, and in light winds (which as pointed out previously their training may have neglected). Those are conditions in which it’s normal for less-experienced crews to ease up without meaning to.
• Lack of experience makes them cautious about pushing the limits in rougher conditions. Pushing too hard will break the boat, and only experience can teach how close to that line one can get without crossing it. They’re choosing to sail more conservatively than some of their competitors, and it shows, as when their speed was just a tad less when the boats were crossing the Agulhas current in the opening days of this leg. Basic seamanship is essential; you can’t do well if you don’t stay on the right side of that line, as this leg has demonstrated vividly. But the teams whose margins for error are smaller due to their long experience have an advantage in being able to get closer to that line without (hopefully) crossing it.
• I don’t think Libby (or Libby+Sam, if you prefer) is as good at navigation/routing as the leaders. The “bad luck” they’ve had with wind has happened often enough that I think it’s fair to conclude that some of it, at least, is the result of bad decisions, not just bad die rolls.

Note that I’m not claiming they’re poor sailors/racers/navigators in any absolute sense. They’re awesome sailors/racers/navigators, with the track record to prove it. It’s just that in this particular setting, going up against the teams they’re going up against, they’re relatively inexperienced. Which, it turns out, is enough to put them consistently at the back.

It’s good to see Corinna talking about it in this latest blog post. The thing that was supposed to make this all-women’s team different than previous ones is that they were there not just to participate, but to compete on a level footing in terms of the boat and the on-shore resources.. They got their wish: they’re competing on a level footing. Unfortunately that competition has shown that they’re not as good as the other teams. But that can change. And the first step in it changing is for them to face the reality of what’s happening, and deal with it constructively. It sounds from this blog post as if that exact discussion is taking place aboard the boat.

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Some great video off SCA. First we see an accidental gybe that interrupted an interview with Libby down below, with shouts from the deck to “Put the vang on! Put the vang on!”

I’m guessing that quickly tensioning the hydraulic boom vang might be helpful in terms of supporting the mast, or in keeping the main free of the old (now leeward) running backstay, or something like that.

In the view from the stern camera you can hear the helmswoman shouting, “I haven’t got it! I haven’t got it!” as the gybe is beginning. Maybe turbulence under the stern lessened the effectiveness of the rudder. The rudders on the Volvo 65 are small, to reduce drag, but that makes control an issue.

I’m surprised they were able to recover so quickly. I credit the helmswoman for that; she must have been able to use whatever steerageway she had from the boat’s forward motion to crank them back onto starboard gybe before the lee helm of being heeled over forced them around to the point of no return.

From the subsequent discussion by Libby it sounds like SCA’s poor performance relative to the other boats over the past day has been due in part to working out what the most effective “modes” are, in the sense of which sail combinations to use and how far off the wind to sail. The wipeout at the start of the video apparently reflected their having decided to switch to the A3 gennaker, the boat’s largest sail, in a bid for speed.

So they’d been sailing slightly conservatively, sacrificing power in return for control, as they rode the bucking bronco of the Agulhas current.

At the end of the video is some intense footage from Stacey Jackson up the mast, apparently making a repair on one of the mainsail batten cars. I’ve mentioned before what a wild ride it is going aloft in a rough sea. I can definitely tell you that the GoPro footage doesn’t do it justice. The boat’s apparent motion down at deck level is minimized by the wide-angle lens, and there’s no real frame of reference; she’s gripping onto the halyard and shrouds for dear life, and since she’s doing it successfully it all looks quite ho-hum.

It’s not. That mast is whipping back and forth violently. Stacey’s clinging to the end of a 100-foot stick while an angry giant tries to shake her off. You can hear the stress in her voice, along with the nausea.

Later, in today’s “Inside Track” episode, Genny Tulloch interviewed her. Stacey said:

I actually felt really bad. I cut Corinna off just after I got down. I was about to have a moment, and I didn’t really need it recorded. It wasn’t an enjoyable trip yesterday, it was quite bumpy, but it was the last chance to do it before it got worse.

It’s hard to describe it to compare it to something on shore. It’d be a little bit like a roller coaster ride where you just hang on with your hands rather than sitting in a seat. You sort of pirouette around the mast at times. There’s nothing to hold you to the mast. I used some short straps on my own harness, but otherwise you adopt the koala bear technique quite a bit when you need to work with your hands. So you wrap your legs around the mast where you can.

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Red sky at night

The sunset as the teams left Cape Town was beautiful. 

Yann Riou on Dongfeng got footage of someone (maybe Kevin Escoffier?) working the bow, with Mapfre ahead of them. Corinna Halloran on SCA videoed Annie Lush (I think?) grinding with Alvimedica to leeward.

I’m happy to have the on-board videos again. I wish all the teams were as good as Dongfeng and SCA about posting them quickly with minimal post-OBR editing.

As the sun set SCA was leading, though just barely. Then they and Mapfre tacked inshore a little early, sailed into lighter wind, and had to tack out again, causing them to fall behind the other five boats. Around 2315 UTC Vestas also got burned from being too far inshore and had to tack out.

At sunrise SCA was at the back of the fleet with Vestas a mile and half to starboard and Mapfre three miles ahead. Throughout the day today, SCA has seemed a bit off the pace, though it’s hard to tell why from the tracker. Lighter wind? Steering/trimming? Sail selection? Weed on the keel? As of the 1540 update, SCA and Vestas are trailing the fleet, about 12 miles behind current leader Alvimedica. 

Winds were lighter than expected this morning (Stacey Jackson talks about that in the SCA video), but were back up to the mid-20s in the latest update. The boats have finished beating, and now are reaching southeast toward stronger wind. Tonight they’ll cross the Agulhas Current, which tends to build up nasty waves as it flows counter to the wind. Hopefully everything on the boats holds together.

Sources: Dongfeng, SCA.

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Alan Block (“Mr. Clean” of Sailing Anarchy) interviews Sam Davies in Cape Town on the eve of Leg 2.

In the Sailing Anarchy thread where he posted the video he labeled it “my crush.” The video description says “dreamy.” I’d comment on that except, well, (mumble) reasons.

Good interview, including detailed discussion of the whole “Person in charge” vs. “Skipper” thing. In general, his interviews of people in Cape Town over the last few days have been great. It’s basically just him with an iPhone running around talking to people. Too bad he’s not planning to be at the Abu Dhabi or Sanya stopovers.

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majagray:

#Repost from @team_sca
Congrats on the amazing job yesterday!!
—-

Hello Cape Town! It was worth the walk to the top of Lions Head this morning , what a view! #CapeTown

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amazingwomeneverywhere:

We have been running a competition in conjuction with Zooppa, the creative community platform, to encourage videographers to create short films that celebrate Amazing Women from all walks of life. 

The winning entry was by by Philippe Noguchi, Ballet for Change is a film  tells the story of a middle-class young woman’s dream to bring ballet to the children who live in the favelas of Rio de Janeiro. Featuring 25-year old Luisa who quit her job as a journalist to follow her dreams and created Projeto Plié, supported Harmonicanto, a NGO located near slums in Engenho Novo, Rio de Janeiro.

Director Philippe Noguchi, Philippe Noguchi is a young director based in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. He graduated in journalism at Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro and has worked as a culture reporter in vehicles such as Jornal do Brasil (newspaper) and Multishow (TV). His audiovisual work began at the University, with small commercial films.

This film initiative is inspired by Team SCA, the only all female entry in the ongoing Volvo Ocean Race. The race is the world’s toughest sailing event, a 38,000-mile marathon of the sea lasting over nine months, through some of the world’s toughest environments.

Videographers were asked to create up to a 90 second video that celebrates Amazing Women. The submissions feature women from all walks of life and backgrounds; from women that have improved their local community and overcome adversity to simply celebrating women in general.

A further seven films were selected to win prizes and the winning films will be featured here over the next 8 months 

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“I’m kind of known onboard to be good at catching the waves. It’s got to come from my surfing – sailing and surfing go hand in hand. The boat is much bigger and faster than a surfboard, there are 12 people on it, but the elements are the same. When I’m steering the boat downwind, I look at numbers but I pretty much read the waves. And catching a wave with the boat going around 30 knots is pretty crazy.”

— Sophie Ciszek

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The video of SCA surfing at the beginning of the new “Life at the Extreme” episode provides more context for that cool photo by Rick Tomlinson that I’ve talked about before. If you go frame by frame through the video you can find the exact moment when Tomlinson’s photo was taken.

Tomlinson wrote:

This shot was taken during a photo shoot with Team SCA’s brand new Volvo Ocean 65. This was the first time a Volvo Ocean 65 had been put under pressure in heavy offshore conditions just after its launch. We had planned the shoot for the forecast windy conditions and we had some great waves building up on an ebb tide.

The girls sailed the boat upwind for quite a few hours to get a long enough runway for the high speed downwind blast. We had good communication with the boat as we waited with the helicopter for the call that the front had cleared and they were in position for a final half hour upwind leg and then to bear away and “send it”.

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