Volvo Ocean Race

by Mark Chisnell in Saltthatdream on 5 Sep 2000 Leah Newbold, a two-time race veteran, finds it hard to believe an all-women’s team will win the round the world race.
A competitor in two Whitbreads, Leah Newbold shares her thoughts on women in the Volvo.

The past three Whitbread races have each had one all-female crew taking part, from the historical beginnings of Tracy Edwards and her crew on Maiden in 1989, the roller-coaster US Women's Challenge/Nance Frank turned Heineken/Dawn Riley crew of 1993-94, to the professional, immaculately prepared Team EF of the 1997-98 race.
Will there be another one for the Volvo Ocean Race? We all know that women's crews bring something quite unique to the event and are a complete marketing tool on their own, but, for the women who actually do the race, there are frustrations in trying to achieve better results and earn respect from the male dominance in this regatta.

It is too early to say whether there will be an all-female representation in 2001-02. Is it too early to make announcements, or is it that there aren't any women out there actively seeking sponsorship? Isabelle Autissier has made an announcement that she will team up with Christophe Auguin as his Co-Skipper. This has to be a brilliant opportunity for Isabelle, she will get the chance to do what most of us women long to do...... to sail around the world - in this particular event - with men.

It is a question we are frequently asked - why can't there be mixed teams in the Round the World Race? It is also a question I have frequently tried to come up with a good answer for, and to be honest, its a hard one! After sailing an entire season last year on the Maxi One Design Circuit, on the New Zealand Maxi with skipper Ross Field and a crew of 16 men plus myself, I once again stewed over the question. It seemed apparent that there were no major problems having me on the Maxi, being a paid professional like everyone else. I often thought to myself, why can't I do this in the Volvo?

Role for Women Despite Physical Disadvantages I do believe that there are few women who are worthy of earning a position on a male crew in this event. One of the main reasons being that, unlike a Maxi or an IACC boat where the crew number is large and each member has a specific job onboard, the v.o.60 is a small boat with a small number of crew and each crew member has to be very versatile and handy in all areas of the boat. In Isabelle's case, she is an exceptional navigator with probably one of the soundest knowledge of weather amongst all our top navigators, she can easily be justified on a men's crew. But in the case of a female trimmer or helm, she may be exceptional at her job, but when it comes to sharing the physical jobs in sail changes and heavy air reaching, she is definitely disadvantaged over her male peers.

However, it is in these specialised positions that there is a role for women on male crews, and the battle begins in trying to convince male skippers to give women a chance.

The hard part of the argument is that there are lots of cases where men and women sail together in harmony - America True in the recent Americas Cup Regatta is a classic example, and almost all the Maxis last summer had at least one female on board. There were a few women on boats in last year's Admirals Cup boats, and so the list goes on.

Hard to See Women's Crew Winning Outright The Round the World race is so very different from all these other events and the logistics of having a co-ed sailing team is an intimidating prospect. It is a very long campaign which involves long periods of sailing offshore in the most difficult sailing conditions possible, and now with more short legs, the race will be incredibly intense and demanding. Is there a need for an already stressful event to add another unknown element? To look on the positive side for women, I believe that there are good prospects for all-female crews in the future. There are some extremely talented female sailors and the number is growing as more women get the opportunity to sail with men's crews in top events. However, with a race like the Volvo Ocean Race, I find it hard to see a women's crew ever coming out on top, overall, at the end of the circumnavigation.

Having completed two races myself, I saw radical changes between the two. First time round it was hard to seriously compete against the men. The second time round, we had everything we needed to win. We had a fast boat, with fast sails, we had spent 18 months training with our male counterparts from EF Language which equated to 18 months of coaching and learning from them. Yet, we still failed to achieve monumental results. We had moments of glory, but so does everyone, yet we never had enough moments of glory to carry through a good end result. We had a good crew who were all extremely competitive, hard working and strong. Yet, realistically when it came to the crunch we were let down by our physical strength and our overall general lack of experience in all areas. I remain optimistic, but I do believe that because I have raced the last two races which included the most competitive of all in 1997-98, I think I have a realistic view.

Adrienne Cahalan who was our navigator on Heineken is even more optimistic than I am, she believes that a women's team can win the Volvo Ocean Race.

Her view is that a team that is run by women and established by women is more successful than one which has men in charge as in the case of EF. She notes that both Maiden and Royal Sun & Alliance have been successful campaigns because they have been established and run by the women themselves. I don't agree with her totally because I think that the input that the men from Team EF gave to our female crew was extremely beneficial to the way we sailed our boat. We shared all our information and all the research and development over the years. The information we received from the men both on and off the water was invaluable and it raised our game immensely.

Women Played Valuable Roles in America's Cup 2000 Dawn Riley, who was the backbone behind America True, is totally pro co-ed and quite rightly so after the successes of that team. Dawn says that Katie Pettibone and Lisa Charles, the women who joined her sailing on board America True during the racing, were considered suspect by their male afterguard when they joined, but ended up being highly respected and very valuable members of the sailing team. Another person who shares the same views as Dawn is the immensely popular Ellen MacArthur who has had brilliant opportunities sailing on multi-hulls and two-handed races with male crew. She says that she felt in no way alienated because of her gender. I agree with both Dawn and Ellen, but I'm yet to be convinced that it would work in a race like the Volvo.

When you can go home at the end of each days sailing, or as a trimmer or pit person know that you never have to go forward of the cockpit because you have big strong guys there to do the heavy work, then co-ed works just fine. I have always felt among most of the professional women sailors I know, myself included, that we don't go out there and compete against the men in an all-female crew to prove that women can beat them outright. We go out there as all-female crews because it is the only way we can be in the Round the World race.

I know there are very keen, very good female sailors who desperately want to be competing in the upcoming Volvo race, but it remains to be seen if they are capable of putting together a formidable crew who just might make me eat my words and go out there and beat the guys - I would be pleasantly surprised and very impressed if they did!