Sam Davies and her first solo, non-stop round the world Vendée Globe

by Sail-World on 15 Feb 2009
Sam Davies speaks during the press conference following her arrival in Les Sables d’Olonne this morning.

Davies onboard Roxy completed her first solo, non-stop round the world Vendée Globe race in an incredible time of just over 95 days. Sam posted the second fastest time ever for a female Vendée Globe skipper, narrowly missing out on Ellen MacArthur’s record of 94 days and 4 hours after becoming stranded in light winds during the final days of the race. Sam’s bright pink Open 60 yacht Roxy covered an incredible 27,470 miles during the three month race at the average speed of 12.02 knots.

How was she affected when other skippers pulled out with damage?

'Even after the start on the Day 2 after the 3 boats dismasted I slowed down for sure and I noticed the whole fleet did, and it brings home how fragile we are and there are many things beyond our control, and it takes on e thing to go wrong and the whole race is over, and when something happens to someone else you imagine it to yourself in the situation. Normally we don’t think about things going wrong, because if you thought about that you’d be scared and you’d never do this race, so it’s a rare moment when you think about that and put yourself in that situation because it’s quite scary.'

Happy with her overall race strategy?

'I’m really happy, I really wanted to sail a kind of clever race and not take any risks that was my big objective, and I think that very few mistakes that I made and I’m proud of that, the one thing that I could have done better was go with Marco west of the Azores High and looking back on that I never would have done it because it was a bigger risk and Marco wasn’t a threat to me and Brian was, and so staying between Pindar and the finish was a better thing to do.'

Three Brits in the top 6 and four set to finish from seven starters?

'This is huge for Britain. First I think I should pay tribute to Mike Golding for his performance. Even if he’s not there at the finish, he had an incredible race and was in the lead. When I saw what he did I told myself I wanted to sail like that in four years time. It’s sad that Alex wasn’t able to show his potential. The Brit Pack is proud and we send each other messages. Dee is the champion at sending jokes. We’re proud of our performance. The Brits are getting 4th, 5th and 6th. In four years time, maybe the order will be reversed.'

'Not bad heh? Watch out the French we’re coming!

'Yea we’ve been patting ourselves on the back recently, we send group emails to the brit pack, we realized that we’re quite proud to come in in a nice group not too far behind the French.'

Changes since the boat was PRB?

'The big change was we put two daggerboards which helped me go upwind a lot faster, and gives more power to the boat, so I was pleased about, in the atlantic both ways, the modifications were really just for me, checks and replacing the existing equipment and keeping the boat as it was because it’s proved itself, when I got Roxy the skipper needed more modifications than the boat.'

Best moments:

'The iceberg I wouldn’t say it was the best time, looking back on it I don’t know why I wasn’t more scared than I was, but Cape Horn for sure would be the moment of my Vendée Globe, it’s my personal victory and making it through the south and going around Cape Horn in quite a good position I think.'

Sam’s I-karaoke:

'I got quite into Queen, because they’re quite good, Killer queen was quite a good song, Girls Just Want to Have Fun, obviously that’s one, pretty much anything I put on my ipod tends to get sung out loud, I don’t listen to it a lot, it’s just the moments when I need to.

I prefer listen to my boat and it makes me stressed sometimes because I can’t listen to my boat when I listen to my ipod'

What next?

'The next few days I’m going to collapse in a heap, it’ll take a good few months to recover from the race. Although I feel in top form I’m zapped in energy and judging how long it takes to recover from a Transat I think it’ll take a while to recover from this, I’m sure, having said that in three days, I’ll probably start planning this year’s sailing.'

No hard days at all, times to dig deep?

'No, because it was just an amazing opportunity, I’d always said to myself that if I ever started feeling like it would be hard or a hard day, I’d always remind my self that I’m so lucky Roxy gave me the opportunity to do this race, and even though three months can seem long it’s actually quite short so you need to make the most of everyday and I knew in the end I would be sad if I kinda regret some bad days so wanted to make the most of every minute, especially when I was near Brazil in no wind and it was hard for me and I got some Emails from Yannick Bestaven who is usually my sparring partner out on the water, and it just made me realize that I was so lucky to be out there racing, that you just can’t complain, and there’s a lot of other skippers that would give a lot to be in my position even in no wind off the coast of brazil, so I surprised myself in how much I enjoyed that bit even.'

What qualities are necessary?

Courage, motivation, a lot of patience. Alongside me there is my team with all their qualities, the Roxy Boys. It’s a team effort. I’m lucky to be on my boat, and even if it’s a solo race, I couldn’t have done it without them.

'The Vendée Globe is a hard race, because it lasts so long. My way of dealing with it is to use positive energy. So even in difficult times, I keep smiling. It’s my way of managing the difficult times. The hard times were when Jean capsized and Yann with his leg. You put yourself in their position. Normally when racing you don’t think of those things, as you would just be too scared. But when that happens, it brings it home to you and it’s hard to deal with that fear.

The other difficult time was off Brazil, when I lost 700 miles when I was slowed down in the thundery low. I had worked hard to earn those miles in the south and it was very frustrating. I got an e-mail from Yannick Bestaven offering his encouragement. At one point we were sailing alongside each other as our boats sailed at around the same speed. That made me think that at least I was still in the Vendée Globe and that there were people, who weren’t so lucky. It was a way of looking at things positively.'

Worries about the boat ever, damage?

'The boat had sailed a lot and was reliable. I had a few problems with the rudders and was starting to worry, but Pascal Conq reassured me that even if they were a bit loose, the whole thing was so solid that there wasn’t anything to worry about. He was right as they held out all around the world. It was at the start of the south that I began to worry. So that means I sailed two-thirds of the way with the rudders not exactly as I wanted. Apart from tha,t the boat was great.

There were breakages and wear, but I managed to repair everything as I had the right tools and spares. We had planned that beforehand as a team. In fact, I had a challenge going with Erwan, my preparateur, to see who could sort out the problem quickest. He tried to work out what was happening and how to repair, while I did the same on the boat, so it was a game of who could send the e-mail first. I think it was a tie.'

Future plans?

'I haven’t planned anything, as I’ve been too focused on the Vendee Globe. I wanted to devote my energy to this race. In a few days I’ll start to get itchy feet and start to plan my 2009 season. So for the moment I don’t have any idea about what I’ll do.'

'I’d like to go back to do the Figaro, but I don’t know if it will be this year or next year. It’s certainly not over for me in a Figaro. My dream is to do the Vendée Globe with a new boat. I started noting down things I would put on my boat. So I have a list. Now I nee