News Around the World
FRANCE The future is bright British-born skipper Sam Davies recently finished runner-up in the Bermuda 1000 and won the Drheam Cup 700 (in front of Isabelle Joschke), two important singlehanded races in the Imoca class. Seahorse: Sam, you are now among the favourites for the Route du Rhum. Can you tell us how you have reached such a high level in such a physical class… It is a long story, I presume! Sam Davies: I’ve been racing in the Imoca on and off since 2003, including two Vendée Globes [fourth in 2008/2009] so I guess you are right, it is a long story and, for sure, experience is key. Having said that, the racing has changed a lot with the new boats and also a big general increase in performance. Now the leaders are much closer together and getting onto the podium is even harder! I have been back full-time since last year, when we acquired the
ex-Maître-Coq foiler. Since then I have been training a lot. I am lucky to be part of the elite offshore squad at Port La Forêt – plus I have been working with my own coaches (Tanguy Leglatin and Jean-Baptiste Le Vaillant) and sailmaker (All Purpose) to make the boat ‘fit me’. We have tried to make her easier to sail physically, accepting
these boats will always be extremely violent to sail fast but adapting the inside and cockpit to be able to live ‘properly’ and be dry(ish) and comfortable(ish). Obviously fitness and strength training is essential and with the Pole France FCL we have a good coach and a great group of skippers to work with. Personally I also do a lot of additional work on core strength with pilates and yoga.
16 SEAHORSE
I was really happy to be back on an Imoca after the 2014 Volvo.
It was a nice surprise to remember how much more fun an Imoca is to sail! The big gain for me was being able to use what I had learnt from my three years on the Volvo project with some amazing coaches and alongside the best female sailors in the world. On Team SCA we had not only top offshore sailors, but also world champions, match-racers, Olympic sailors… specialists in every field of racing. After the Volvo I spent time recovering on land when I did some
work for Thomas Coville as part of Jean-Luc Nélias’s weather routeing team, including the Transat Bakerly and Thomas’s successful solo round-the-world attempt in 2016/17. It was an honour to be a part of that team – I learned a lot from both Jean-Luc and Thomas, espe- cially about how to manage these super-fast boats in terms of weav- ing sail changes and tiring manoeuvres into a general strategy. But this year has been all about getting back to sailing solo ahead
of the Rhum. I admit I was quite nervous as I hadn’t sailed alone for more than five years, so I focused completely on solo training – including missing the Monaco event to maximise solo time on the water. Plus I have done several offshore training runs with Yann Eliès and they have really helped me build my confidence back up. It was a great boost to get a second (only 10 minutes from first)
plus a race win at this early stage. But having said that, we are aware that the big competition has yet to turn up. The pace in the Route du Rhum is going to be much fiercer, with the return of Alex Thomson and Hugo Boss, Jérémie [Beyou] with his brand new Charal, Vincent Riou with huge new foils on PRB and some of the
VINCENT CURUTCHET
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