Volvo Ocean Race | Roaring Forties, chapter 40: Girls are back

The final part of our 40th birthday tour through the Volvo Ocean Race story celebrates the return of the girls, as Team SCA prepare to launch the first all-female campaign in over a decade.

Rick Tomlinson/Team SCA

The next edition of the race will feature an all-female team for the first time since 2001-02. Backed up by the eponymous global hygiene and forest products company, Team SCA have everything in place to compete at the highest level.

“This is the first time in ten years that we have had an all-female team in this race, and it is probably the first time in the race’s history that there has been a team that is being put together in the same way as an all-male team,” commented crewmember Annie Lush.

Lush is one of the five confirmed crewmembers so far along with fellow British sailor Sam Davies, Australians Sophie Ciszek and Liz Wardley and Carolijn Brouwer from the Netherlands. In total, the women’s crew will be able to race with 11 sailors plus 1 non-sailing multimedia reporter.

The five women have been undergoing a rigorous training program at SCA's base in Lanzarote on their training boat, PUMA’s repurposed Volvo Open 70. They will soon start training in their brand new one-design Volvo Ocean 65.

Experienced Volvo Ocean Race sailors are coaching them, including Brad Jackson and Joca Signorini. Sadly, their coach and six-time Volvo Ocean Race competitor Magnus Olsson died in April 2013 after suffering a stroke while on training duty. Despite the sad news, the crew kept training and raced the Fastnet race in August, finishing ahead of Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing on corrected time.

“It is an amazing opportunity with fantastic support from coaches, shore crew and sponsor,” said Lush. “It is up to us now to go and do it.”

Boasting experience at the helm on Amer Sports Too in the 2001-02 race, Brouwer is equally excited. “Team SCA is not a ‘second hand’ project, it is a first class professional project with great potential.

“I know what it is like to spend weeks on a boat with ten other people and, of course, there will be challenges, but equally this is an incredible opportunity for women’s racing, and I am thrilled to be able to be part of it.”

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