The Volvo Ocean Race
ALL WOMAN TEAM - AMER SPORTS TOO

Skipper Lisa McDonald Running a Pre Leg Crew Meeting
Photo By: Rich Roberts

COMMENTARY

Reprinted and updated from the California Log

About halfway around the world, the eight Volvo Ocean Race competitors Sunday are well away on the second longest and potentially most perilous leg from Auckland to Rio de Janeiro, around Cape Horn.

Lisa McDonald, skipper of the all-woman Amer Sports Too, and five of her crew--Katie Pettibone, Emma Westmacott, Bridget Suckling, Anna Drougge and Karyn Henderson--remember it well.

Four years ago, when it was called the Whitbread Round the World Race, they sailed aboard EF Education, a sister ship to Paul Cayard's victorious EF Language. The disparity in those performances is reflected in the current situation when Amer Too plays a distant second fiddle to Grant Dalton's Amer Sports One. Amer One is in second place, behind John Kostecki's illbruck. Amer Too avoided last place on Legs 2 and 3 only because Tyco and SEB dropped out and has fallen far behind the pack from the start of this leg.

Similar boats, similar gear, same ocean but a world apart.

In 1998 EF Language caught a flyer around the Horn and beat the next boat to Rio by three days. EF Education's mast fell down in the Southern Ocean, 3,000 miles from anywhere.

So, like any helpless women with a flat tire on the freeway, they all collapsed in a heap and bawled, picked up their cell phones and cried for help?

Nope. To their heroic credit, as the boat tossed and the chill winds howled, they hacked away the tangled mess, set a jury rig and sailed on under their own power to collect a new mast and continue the race.

What sort of women are these?

McDonald, an American married to Neal McDonald, the British skipper of Leg 3 winner Assa Abloy, answered that question at Cape Town after Leg 1 when a reporter (me) noted how upbeat the women seemed after finishing a distant last.

"It's a tough bunch of chicks," she said.

Obviously. But in this fleet they are simply outclassed. From the start they weren't dealt the best hand. Nautor built two boats, one a Frers, the other a Farr, and the men and women sailed them alternately and with mixed crews for two or three months before Dalton picked the one he wanted-the Frers. The women had one month to settle into the Farr, which remains rigged for men, not women.

There is a difference, you know, related to size and strength.

By the time they reached Sydney after Leg 2 questions were being raised about their abilities and how hard they were really trying. After more troubles on Leg 3-a busted rudder from a collision with a shark and a broken headstay-the doubts persisted in Auckland.

McDonald was asked, "You were determined to keep going?"

She studied the guy who asked the question as if the answer was obvious.

"Oh, there's no turning around," she said.

But, are they good enough?

McDonald said, "The team came together in the eleventh hour and so we never had a proper opportunity to run crew trials. We are still working on getting the best group of people."

That was by way of explaining two crew changes, including replacing navigator Genevieve White with Miranda Merron of the UK.

It's not just that they're women, but overall they aren't the best women sailors in the world. It's like the days when the U.S. sent college basketball players, not pros, to the Olympic Games. These women, mostly amateurs, are sailing against pros-men who are far higher on the scale of world-class male sailors than the Amer Too women are on the women's scale. No Dawn Rileys or Ellen MacArthurs here.

Merron has ocean racing experience but admitted, "It's quite a big difference navigating in these circumstances. I couldn't possibly hope or dream of having the same level of experience as the other navigators in the race. So I would say that I am mildly apprehensive at the moment."

The other replacement, Emma Richards, also of the UK, seemed eager but said, "This is one form of ocean racing I haven't yet really touched."

And now we see Keryn Henderson's ominous e-mail from the boat: "In the next 48 hours the weather is going to change from this nice 10-12 knot downwind sailing to a building breeze of up to 40-45 knots. The Southern Ocean is about to come and bite us hard."

Hardly notes of confidence for the team. But honest self-appraisals.

Only the six women from EF Education had sailed even that one Whitbread. The other seven to start were rookies.

The latter included White, the 33-year-old Australian who was a late, desperate replacement for a dropout. Although an accomplished inshore sailor, her ocean racing experience was little more than doing deliveries. Placing her in the critical position of navigator-at least the second most important position on the boat--was personally unfair, but good on 'er for giving it a shot.

McDonald has never whined or whimpered, but she said at Sydney, "It's an incredibly tough fleet. Look around you. The guys have done Olympics, America's Cups and five, six, seven Whitbreads. You can't expect one round-the-world race to compete against six or seven. We're giving it our all, every step of the way."

Are they strong enough? Every time a Volvo boat tacks or jibes, the stacks of spare sails and food must be moved to the other side of the boat--hard labor for anyone but especially tough on women, who are outweighed 40 to 50 pounds by their male rivals.

Are they tough enough? I know Pettibone is, and not only from her efforts in the previous race and a couple of America's Cups. She told me before this race that she had never been scared on a boat. I asked her if that included last spring's wild Worrell 1000 catamaran destruction derby up the East Coast when her female crew quit, she filled in for Rod Waterhouse's injured male crew-and finished second.

"Well," she said, "maybe once."

Courage counts most when you're terrified. On that point, I don't know if Pettibone is typical of the Amer Too crew. She wouldn't comment on the criticism of the women.

"I haven't actually been reading much of what has been printed," she said. "I learned that long ago with America3. The official line of the team is that there is no line. We have been asked not to comment, to dignify any unjust remarks."

If she could comment, I'll bet she'd say something like this: "We have a young team, the team is developing and we will get better."

There isn't much time.