Volvo Ocean Race - SCA's Magnificent Seven, Part II

The selection process for SCA's all-women sailing team for 2014-15 is set to ramp up a notch with the second group of seven hopefuls now in Lanzarote for training.

A second group of trial candidates for the all-female Team SCA has arrived in Puerto Calero, Lanzarote.

James Mitchell

Spain's Alicia Ageno, Sally Barkow of the United States, Karin Berg of Sweden, Australians Sophie Ciszek and Jessica Sweeney, Canadian Robin Hilton and Switzerland's Justine Mettraux are all in place at the team’s base to begin a 10-day training programme.

Some of the candidates are well known to the Volvo Ocean Race, including Hilton, a rigger on Team Sanya in the last edition, and Sweeney, a navigation and weather consultant with CAMPER with Emirates Team New Zealand.
SCA's (second) Magnificent Seven will undertake medical tests, fitness assessments and, of course, sailing trials to check their suitability for the team backed by the Sweden-based global hygiene and forest products company.

Earlier this month, a first group of candidates sailed from Southampton, UK, to the training base in the Canary Islands, using the repurposed and repackaged Mar Mostro as a training boat.

Five race veterans are overseeing the trials: Magnus Olsson, Brad Jackson, Joca Signorini, Casey Smith and Martin Stromberg. They say they have been impressed with the quality of the candidates so far.

“We had a good trip down here from the UK with the first group of candidates and the attitude and sailing skills have been high," said Signorini, a watch captain on Team Telefónica in the last edition of the Volvo Ocean Race. "From a team perspective, although it is early days, the structure, people and strategy that we have put in place seem to be working well”.

After two days of medical tests, fitness assessments and an introduction to the team’s Volvo Open 70 training boat, the group will then start a sailing programme to give the candidates as wide an experience as possible.

This squad is due to leave Lanzarote at the end of February.

The first group of SCA candidates was made up of: Annie Lush (Britain), Carolijn Brouwer (Netherlands), Jeanne Gregoire (France), Klaartje Zuiderbaan (Netherlands), Liz Wardley (Australia), Sam Davies (Britain), Stacey Jackson (Australia).