‘I wonder if I can endure’ – Samantha Davies ready to face her limits in ‘extreme’ Leg 3 of The Ocean Race

Samantha Davies says the historic Leg 3 of The Ocean Race will push her to the limits of endurance, as the British sailor prepares to set off with Biotherm.

Leg 3 is the longest in the race’s history and sees the fleet travel 12,750 nautical miles from Cape Town to Itajai, Brazil. It is an ominous passage across the Southern Ocean, the world’s wildest and more remote expanse of open ocean, and promises vicious winds and unenviable temperatures.

Double points are up for grabs on the arduous leg, with points split between the finishing positions and the order at which the teams pass the longitude of 143 degrees east.

“It is incredible to be able to participate in something that has never been done before,” said Eurosport expert Davies, who recalled her experience competing in the Vendee Globe, a non-stop solo race around the world.

“That’s what made me want to come. It’s a challenge to be able to set off into the unknown, because if you know this journey through the Vendee Globe, it will be nothing like it. It’s obviously linked to the fact that we’re not sailing solo.

“During the Vendee Globe, I sometimes felt like shouting, for example, but it’s useless when you’re alone on the boat. Here, we will share everything: the scares, the joys, the adrenaline… But especially when you are solo in the southern seas, you feel really alone, and it is not easy to manage.

“In this part of the world, where you are going to rub shoulders with the Roaring Forties and the Howling Fifties [extremely strong winds] in particular, you have to be aware of the conditions, which are tough. It’s very tiring, especially because of the cold from which you can never escape.

“There is the Antarctic wind that freezes you. And there is a lot of instability with squalls, that can have winds of 50 or 55 knots, zero degrees and hail. That’s where it’s psychologically difficult. In these waters, everyone takes their foot off the gas a little bit, even unconsciously.

“This time, however, the mentality will be really different. We have never done what we are about to do, since we usually go more slowly since we are alone.

“We will have to listen to the boat. To know if she is capable of going ‘in crew mode’ in these very particular conditions of the southern seas and to last five weeks like that because we are still in discovery mode with these Imocas equipped with these foils.

“The other point that makes me want to go is that we will learn four times faster with four people. You have to be aware that you can’t train in the southern seas because it’s too far from France. This is a unique opportunity to try things out and learn a lot.

“But the darker side is that I also wonder if I can endure these extreme conditions and at this pace for five weeks. Five weeks is a long time.

“For example, we all wondered how the five of us were going to fit in our boats with our stuff, the food… Here, we are more in army mode compared to solo sailing, where we have more comfort being alone on the boat. That’s a challenge too.”

Speaking about the other teams competing, Davies identified a foil resonance issue – a persistent reverberating sound – for Team Malizia as a potential problem ahead of the epic third leg and gave her opponents some friendly advice.

“We could see that Team Malizia was quite comfortable in the breeze. However, I am concerned about their foil resonance problem which was really impressive,” said Davies.

“I don’t know how they’re going to live with that for five weeks down south. I had a similar noise problem a few years ago. And we were able to make a small adjustment to the appendages that didn’t make much difference to the performance but it did stop the resonance.

“However, I don’t know if they will be able to make these modifications during the few days in Cape Town because they won’t be able to test them before. If not, I hope they will have effective earplugs for the next step. Otherwise, it’s going to be unbearable for five weeks.”

Leg 3 sets off from Cape Town on Sunday.

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