Volvo Ocean Race- Navigational coach on Team SCA's big decision
by Victoria Low on 15 Oct 2014
Sam Davies gives instruction during her watch. Corinna Halloran / Team SCA
Rather like expectant fathers traditionally waiting outside the delivery room in a maternity ward, Team SCA’s squad of coaches for the Volvo Ocean Race are nervously keeping track of their protégées as they head towards Cape Town.
Yesterday’s strong tactical call by navigator Libby Greenhalgh and the team had particular resonance with Team SCA navigational coach, Aksel Magdahl.
'It definitely made my day when I got up for the early position report yesterday! What a fantastic way to start the race! But it gave me a déjà vu feeling back to the Ericsson race in 08-09 when we led by some 30 miles after 24 hours and parked completely in the adverse tide in Gibraltar, just for the others to see the no wind area and sail around us. Fortunately they really played it well and got through there nicely. We had a bit of a plan for Gibraltar, as we knew it would be difficult.
'But which option they chose was, of course, up to them, and it takes confidence to split from the fleet that early in the race, there are many disadvantages if you get behind this early. Maybe the main one is that you could potentially lose 25 days of close testing against the competition, and risk starting the next leg with less knowledge about the boats than others.
'It was interesting though, that despite the girls not seeing any reason for being south, the rest of the fleet were going there, so they might have had some other information than we did.
'We have prepared well for this leg: I have done a lot of research - more than I have done for the two races that I sailed myself! We have sailed virtually through the leg a few times, and tried to set some guidelines for each part of it. But it is important to not have a prewritten route as this can make you biased and it doesn’t make the decisions any easier.
'For the crew onboard, yesterday will have given them a lot of confidence for the time to come. As a navigator and a tactician, if the crew has confidence in you, then it is much easier to make ‘your own’ decisions rather than it being a compromise of different Team SCA website
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