Volvo Ocean Race - Team SCA denied permission for sail change

by Team SCA on 18 Apr 2015 The International Jury has denied the Team SCA’s request to replace their Race FRO with their pre-race FRO after their sail was badly damaged during a crash gybe on Leg Five from Auckland to Itajai.

However, Sam Davies and her crew are keen to take the experience gained from Leg Five into the 5010-mile leg to Newport, USA, which is due to start on Sunday.

During the incident on Day seven of Leg Five, the boat broached and the FRO tore down the luff and horizontally across the sail to the leech causing the boat to crash gybe. The majority of the sail ended up in the water where it continued to flog, while the crew recovered from the broach and then recovered the sail.

In their submission to the International Jury, the team stated that they considered that the incident was a racing incident, and one that occurs in trans-ocean races. Indeed two other boats in the fleet also suffered similar wipeouts.

A report from the Volvo Ocean Race Boatyard Sail Loft deemed that the damaged sail was unusable. It also questioned the structural integrity. The report stated that ‘given the size of the tear and the area of damaged cloth it is not possible to repair SCA’s FRO to a standard where it would be suitable for the remaining legs of the Race’ and concluded that it was ‘not repairable for the purpose of being used for further racing.’

Sam Davies, Team SCA skipper, comments:

“We are of course incredibly disappointed with the ruling. Not being able to use the FRO for two thirds of Leg Five had a major impact on our performance. We will now look to do everything in our power to try to make this sail as usable and as safe as possible as, if this sail breaks again, there is potential for further damage to the boat and crew. But the reality is that there will always be a huge risk factor associated with the sail especially as we still have some 10,000 miles of racing left.”

Sails have been a subject of much discussion across the fleet since the start of the race and Team SCA raised its concerns on the limited sail numbers when the rule was first published. Race rules allow each team to have only eight sails onboard with four as back-up, which is one of the smallest inventories that this Race has seen.

With the sailing making team hard a work the rest of crew is now making their final preparations ahead of the Leg Start on Sunday. As part of the crew rotation Justine Mettraux and Sally Barkow rejoin the team for this leg, replacing Sara Hastreiter and Elodie Mettraux who sit this leg out. Corinna Halloran will be the OnBoard Reporter.