Portsmouth-born Sam Davies among a record number of women sailors taking part in the toughest race in world sport

Portsmouth-born Samantha Davies has embarked on her third attempt to win one of the toughest races in world sport - the Vendee Globe.
Samantha Davies is sailing on her Imoca 60 monohull Initiatives Coeur during the 2020/21 Vendee Globe. Photo by Loic Venance / AFP via Getty ImagesSamantha Davies is sailing on her Imoca 60 monohull Initiatives Coeur during the 2020/21 Vendee Globe. Photo by Loic Venance / AFP via Getty Images
Samantha Davies is sailing on her Imoca 60 monohull Initiatives Coeur during the 2020/21 Vendee Globe. Photo by Loic Venance / AFP via Getty Images

The 46-year-old is one of a record number of six female skippers - out of a 33-strong entry - who started the 2020/21 race off the French coast last Sunday.

That figure compares to the eight females who had taken part in the eight previous Vendee Globes, spanning over 30 years.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

Of those eight, Davies is one of three British women who have taken on the solo 24,696-nautical mile round trip across the planet.

Davies – who is sailing in her Initaitives-Coeur boat this year – is joined by fellow Brits Miranda Merron and Pip Hare.

German Isabelle Joschke and French pair Alexia Barrier and Clarisse Cremer make up the six-strong women’s entry.

Based on Vendee history, there is a strong chance not all will finish - in the last race, in 2016/17, 11 of the 29 starters did not finish.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

Prior to that, seven sailors were forced to abandon inside the first fortnight of the 2012/13 race. Among those was Davies, the sole female out of 20 skippers in the race, whose Vendee bid was over after just five days when she suffered a dismasting.

Four years earlier, in the 2008/09 Vendee, Davies - a Portsmouth High School alumni - finished fourth. That was a big surprise, as her boat Roxy was eight years old and 26th fastest out of the 30 entrants.

As well as facing extreme cold, fierce winds and huge seas, Davies also had a 32-hour diversion to help with the rescue of Yann Eliès, who broke a leg in a fall aboard his yacht in the Southern Ocean.

Gosport-based Dee Caffari was sixth in the same race.

No woman has finished a Vendee Globe race since - highlighting the size of the task facing Davies and co in the next few months.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

Only one woman has finished the Vendee quicker than Davies managed when clocking 95 days, 4 hours and 39 minutes in 2008/09.

That was Ellen MacArthur, who became a household name after finishing runner-up in 2000/01 in a time of 94 days, 4 hours and 25 minutes.

Uniquely, Davies is competing against her partner in the current Vendee Globe.

Romain Attanasio is taking part in his second Vendee, after failing to finish in 2016/17.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

The couple’s nine-year-old son, Ruben, is being looked after by Davies’ parents while his parents battle what Mother Nature can throw at them.

Davies is competing in the current Vendee on an 18.28m (60 feet) long IMOCA (International Monohull Open Class Association) boat which has twice previously finished in the top three.

Sporting the colours of Banque Populaire, Armel Le Cleac’h finished runner-up in 2012/13 while Jeremie Bayou - under the sponsorship of Maitre Coq - was third four years later.

As of this morning, Davies was in eighth position - four places ahead of her partner.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

Gosport-based Alex Thomson, in his fifth Vendee Globe race, was leading. All 33 entrants are still sailing, unlike after the first few days of previous races.

Davies’ first big sailing adventure, meanwhile, was as part of Tracy Edwards’ crew for the 1998 Jules Verne Trophy record attempt.

Ahead of the record, the catamaran Royal Sun Alliance was dismasted in the Southern Ocean. It took 16 days, with no outside assistance, before the crew reached dry land.

Davies was the skipper of Team SCA in the 2014-15 Volvo Ocean Race, the first all-female team for 10 years to compete in the event and the first for 25 years to win a leg of the race.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

The crew, which also included Caffari, finished sixth overall out of the seven teams.

Davies has also competed four times in the bi-annual Transat Jacques Vabre, a race that follows a historic coffee trading route between France and Brazil.

The two-handed race is named after a French brand of coffee, and Davies’ best finish was fifth in 2015.

Related topics: