Team SCA Update: Come from Behind
In the final hours before the finish of Volvo Ocean Race leg one, Team SCA passed Mapfre to finish sixth.
November 7, 2014
Sixth may not sound very impressive in a fleet of seven boats, but the women on Team SCA will definitely be celebrating tonight.
Team SCA moved up to 6th just before the finish in Cape Town.
After winning the race out of the Mediterranean (and waking me up with their theme song), the distinctive pink boat had trouble exiting the doldrums in the middle of the leg. At one point, they were over six hundred miles behind Ian Walker and his Abu Dhabi team, and they spent the second half of the leg trailing the rest of the fleet. A few days ago, they had to live through the agony of knowing the leaders had already finished—enjoying hot showers and cold beers, while the girls were still at sea.
But there was still one boat they could catch: MAPFRE, in sixth, was only a few miles ahead (after 26 days of racing), so they set their sights on beating that one boat. They figured staying farther offshore than the other team might keep them in more breeze, especially when MAPFRE sailed into the lee of Table Mountain.
The plan worked out, and they made the slow, agonizing, but decisive pass less than an hour from the finish. Their drift across the line happened less than ten minutes ahead of the other team, but by executing their plan they'd escaped that most dreaded place of all: last.
In answer to the cliché question "How does it feel?", navigator Libby Greenhalgh had a blunt response. "Pretty bloody good really," she replied, as they motored into the dock in Cape Town. "We've been fighting hard for it and willing ourselves along the last three days. There was this fantastic opportunity in the last hour and a half of the race, and I'm pleased to see we did it well."
