Team SCA in the Volvo Ocean Race

For the first time in a decade, an all-female team will be competing in the Volvo Ocean Race (the world's toughest sailing race). Each team is made up of 12 crewmembers and three of members on the female team are American. The race begins this year on October 4th, and will feature several stopping points for the crewmembers to rest including on in Newport, Rhode Island.

They are expected to compete in temperatures varying from as low as 23 degrees to as high as 104 degrees. They can only have one change of clothes on board, and are not allowed to take any fresh food.

I chatted with the three American team members Sally Barkow (from Wisconsin), Sara Hastreiter (from Wyoming), and Sophie Ciszek (a dual citizen of the U.S and Australia).

Welcome ladies. And now I’m curious, how did you first get into sailing?

Sophie:

I've been sailing for my whole life, and recreation sailing was something that I loved to do and there's never usually an opportunity like this.

Well, what kind of training goes into something like this? Obviously when it come to training, you can't really do a test run because the end goal is all over the world.

Sara:

Yeah so we've been training for almost a year and a half now. The race doesn't even start until October of this year. It's very physically demanding and it's also at the highest level of sailing so it's very competitive. We spend every morning in the gym. We spend our days practicing on the water, and now we are trying to do some longer runs. We've got two ocean crossings and several races that will take part in the center.

Is this something that you had to start a couple years back in order to train for or about how long should that training typically take? I can imagine that you had a bit of training solo prior to becoming the team that you are.

Sara:

The training with the team has been almost a year and a half so far and we still have a few months to go before the race starts.

Sophie:

We also need to make sure we are physically fit for the positioning. With Sara behind and work on that in training. It can be very intense and requires a lot of arm strength.

Wow! That's something to keep in mind. A lot of people don't realize with sailing that it does take a lot of arm strength and it really is something where you need to keep your body in tip-top shape.

Now Sara, I'm curious about what exactly the Volvo Ocean Race really requires. We talked a little bit about the training that you three had to embrace and how much training it involved, but now let's talk about what the race is itself.

Sara:

So the Volvo Ocean Race used to be called the Whitbread Around The World Race. It has been going on for the past 40 years, and is a grueling 9 months and 39,000 miles around the world. We stop in 10 different cities in 10 different countries around the world. So yeah, it's a long route and not the most direct around the world <laughing>.

Wow! So that's definitely something where you are saying goodbye to your family and friends, and then I bet after 9 months you will be running to their arms, hugging them, and wanting to spend as much time as you can catching back up.

Sara:

Yeah, but like I said we do stop so we go to sea for about 30 days at a time. So we sail across the Atlantic Ocean and sail into Cape Town, where a lot of our friends and family will meet us. Then we are there for two weeks until we set off to the next place. So it's really just a touch and go kind of thing around the world.

So it sounds like there will be a little bit of sight seeing, but not enough that you can really say you've been able to see certain cities.

Sara:

No, it's more of rest and recovery time. When we do get into port, the boat is a very physically demanding vessel and the race itself is just very competitive so it's go go go the entire time.

Well, that's great that they allow for that rest time, even if it may seem like a short amount of time compared to the race itself. That way your arms aren't super tired after 30 days of sailing and then eventually 9 months.

Sara:

Yeah, but they will be awfully big though by the end of the race <laughing>.

Now how did you end up hearing about this race and then being able to become a part of this time with Sophia, Sally, and the other 9 girls?

Sara:

Just being a professional sailor, I was familiar with the race and before this time around I was sponsored by SCA (who's base is actually in Philadelphia). As females we didn't have any opportunity to participate in this race. There hasn't been a team for women in the past 10 years, so it's really about Team SCA coming together.

Any female in the professional sailing world Olympics knew about it and had applied. So there were several hundred women that applied (I think 400 specifically), and then we went through a year long trialing process of having people in and finding the best puzzle pieces that fit together.

Wow. That's amazing to hear the story of how all 12 of you came together and were not only considered the best sailors for the job, but also the best components for the team. Now I also see that you guys completed the first sail across the Atlantic Ocean for a training leg. CONGRATULATIONS, and how did that go?

Sara:

It went really well! It was great for our team to have a longer leg put in. It took 14 days, and we are getting ready to leave soon to sail back across the Atlantic Ocean to our home base in the Canary Islands.

Oh wow! Would you say this is the longest training leg that you've had as a team or have their been some that were longer?

Sara:

This is the longest one so far. For a long period of time, it was more beneficial for us to just go to the gym every morning and try to build as much muscle mass and strength as possible and then go out sailing during the day and have rest at night. Now we actually going out and sailing across the oceans to practice.

That's so exciting to see the training taking a new level. And I can only imagine how real it makes the actual race feel knowing that the training is stepping up and the race is getting closer.

Sara:

Yeah, definitely! It's nice to be in a different environment too. We've been training in one spot for over a year now and it's nice to get out and get into a few different areas of the world.

Now, do you have any place where people can go to stay updated the entire training process until October when you set sail? And then once the race begins where people can go to stay updated with the team throughout the race?

That is if there is time for you guys to update as you are busy with this intense race.

Sara:

We actually have a media person on board the whole time during the race. So if you follow along at ww.teamSCA.com, we have a fantastic media group that really tries to keep everyone up-to-date on our training trips and then during the race there will be videos, interactive things, pictures, and blogs coming off the boat everyday.

That's pretty awesome to be able to have the play by play of what you ladies are enduring as it happens and straight from you.

Thanks so much for chatting with me today.

Sara:

Thanks for talking with us and we are excited for all of our support in Philadelphia.

We are in full support for you, and wish you the best of luck on the training and then when it comes time for the race in October. I hope everything works out and you ladies end up winning.

And for the first time in about 10 years 12 women have formed together to take on the World's Toughest Sailing Race. Let's show them support as they are training and as October 4th gets closer. Don't forget to check out www.teamSCA.com for all the updates.