In the Video summary on YACHT-TV it is already indicated that there was apparently a great deal of discontent within Team SCA during the sixth stage about the performance shown so far. In fact, the situation on board was apparently much more tense than initially suspected, as the chances of not finishing this stage in last place were close to zero. This is confirmed by a blog entry by on-board reporter Corinna Halloran, which was posted on the organiser's website on 6 May, one day before the arrival in Newport.
However, it was deleted shortly afterwards. No wonder, as crew member Annie Lush harshly criticised the attitude and performance of her team the day before. She refers to the crossing of the Sargasso Sea, where the team lost touch with the competition after a very good first half of the leg, slowed down by stops to remove seaweed from the appendages.
The relevant passages of the withdrawn blog entry are available to YACHT.
Reporter Halloran writes: "Annie sat with me at the railing and explained why it was really starting to hurt. 'We're just letting them slip away (the opponents, ed.). We're letting the seaweed get to us too much; we should have just pushed through it with them and accepted that our speed figures were bad, but we would have ended up moving - you can't just stop, that's why we lost so many nautical miles in a single position report.'"
Lush is quoted further: "We laid our foundations on the first and second stage, we just lacked experience. On the third leg we found ourselves as a team, and then on the fourth and fifth legs we had all the opportunities, but we held back when something didn't go our way. The same thing happens now, we no longer sail the boat when something happens. I don't understand where this mentality comes from."
And then Lush really vents her frustration: "I can't help but feel like we're letting people down, our shore team, our coaches, the outside world. We've given so much to be the best female offshore sailors, to be competitive. And we are not competitive. Everyone knows that women can sail. But we were given the key to the future of ocean sailing for women - to break stereotypes and let the world see that we are just as good at sailing as the men - and now I feel like we are throwing that key away."
Reporter Halloran concludes in her own words: "Annie has made a very important point. We want to be taken seriously - we want women to be taken seriously in sailing. We want to be on the same playing field as the men, to be seen as equals, not as inferior sailors because of our physical strength or experience."
You can hardly express your frustration with your own performance more clearly than that. It's just a shame that such openness is apparently not desired by the team management. When asked by YACHT online about the deletion of the post, the race headquarters said that the quotes were part of a private conversation that was not recorded, but written down from memory and taken out of context. It could therefore have led to misunderstandings...
Lars Bolle
Chief Editor Digital
