Volvo Ocean Race - The start of a new day

by Team SCA - Sam Davies on 27 Mar 2015 This morning was a special sunrise for me. It has been a hard few days, full of emotion, stress, adrenaline. As skipper it is hard to find the balance between pushing the boat and crew, but making sure we stay safe and keep our boat in one piece.

Out here there is little margin for error. I feel like we have found our limits, and proved to ourselves that we are pushing hard. We suffered from our wipeout with the damage we sustained and it is frustrating to lose miles like that, but we are slowly getting back to as near 100% as possible.

Last night we finally found a weather window to stop and replace the battens that we had broken in our mainsail in our famous wipeout. Stacey and Liz did the repair. Libby and I tried to find the best opportunity with light winds to minimise any losses in the rankings, and I made a plan with the team to work out how to do it as quick as possible, and keep moving as fast as possible.

It involved some good planning and great teamwork. As always, the cost of the manouver was increased due to the fact that our weather window was at night! Everyone worked hard and fast - some more great team building stuff - no one complained that they were missing sleep to do this, we are all focused on the race to claw back the miles we lost in our crash.

This exercise was, for me, a way to re-instill the 'racing mindset' in everyone and get us up and firing on all cylinders for the final run to Cape Horn. In 1h 09 min we had completed our mission, and at the next sched we were very happy to find out that, despite our repair, we were the fastest boat - we are on the way up again!

So to see the sun creep up over the horizon, right on our bow, was special. Not often do you see the sunrise in the grey Southern Ocean as we do not often see the sun, and night merges into day. On top of that we were blessed with a small 'green flash' at sunrise - an amazing sight that I have never seen before. Definitely some waves of positive energy for Team SCA, and the final chapter of our repairs complete!

Since then we have been accompanied by loads of albatrosses, some huge ones gliding through the sky as we glide down the big swell of the South Pacific. One of those I named Florence today, she has been the one that has dared to come close to us all morning. I like to believe this one is the spirit of Florence Arthaud, an amazing French female sailor tragically killed at the beginning of this month. She was an inspiration to me and many others. I am happy to feel that she is now with us out here, and with Magnus, leading us forward towards the Horn.