Someone decided that a British woman should be the
first woman to go around the wrong (safe) way. Let us
understand what is really going on here. Could it be this
event happened purely out of national pride? Or was
this primarily a good advertisement for the BT Global
Challenge and a way to make money off of an insurance
company named Aviva?

Dee Caffari is mostly a lucky woman to be sponsored to do
this event. I have to admire her. What male sailor cannot
help but admire an attractive and capable female skipper?
Aviva knows her tale will stir the hearts of many around the
world, and it has. That is good advertising, but I feel it
diminishes the event.

Nearly anyone can do something like this, with a measure
of determination, and the right backers. Or perhaps the
right backers and a carefully chosen skipper. The skipper
is certainly less important that everything else. Obviously a
pretty face opens some doors, and being a woman is a
requirement for a female event like this.

Actually sailing the event is not all that hard in a boat that
has been modified to be easy to sail which is how every
other ocean racer should be rigged!

Note the contrast between Chay Blyth's BT Challenge which is
a pure hungry money-grab, set up with hank-on-sails and a
ridiculously huge 18 man crew, to Dee's sensible roller furling
set up.

Perhaps now the fools that are suckered into paying Chay Blythe
small fortunes will understand the boat really only needs one or two
people to sail it around the world--not 18 people. This serves to
gross $810,000/boat for Chay Blythe, or $9.72 million for all 12
boats--Plus sponsor money, as the names of these boats change
to suit the sponsor.

In this case I wonder how much the insurance company Aviva is
contributing? Does the even make a profit? I would expect it
does. At a minimum it is advertising for future BT Global Challenges
with renamed boats.

Given a more realistic crew size Chay would not make so much
money on the BT Global Challenge. Most of the sailors were not
hard-core sailors--they freely admit these are people going through
middle life crisis. I have more respect for individuals who do it all
on their own--the fund raising, the rigging, the PR, and the sailing,
whether it is something as simple as a transatlantic crossing or a
major event.

All that aside, I have to say I really like the way Aviva is rigged.
Steel is strong, the boat is easy to sail, and it is large enough to
relax. Sailing in the Southern Ocean means watch keeping can
be like Robin Knox-Johnston's where he would sleep 8 hours at
a stretch on Suhali. These steel boats are well designed for ocean
cruising, and not terrible risky outside the shipping lanes.

What would have made the whole thing interesting is if they had
made it a race with 12 different women skippers racing for the
prize of the historical distinction of being the first woman to sail
around the wrong way. The woman who won that would have
earned well deserved and serious distinction. The way Dee is
pursuing this record--if you want to call sailing the easy way around
a record, is simply a matter of time, like a job promotion based
not on merit, but on longevity.

"DSK" wrote ...
wrote:
Today... during my internet wanderings... I ran across this web site:

http://www.avivachallenge.com/index.asp

It is about a young lady (Dee Caffari) sailing solo aboard the "Aviva"
a Challenge 72' Class yacht... and attempting a solo circumnavigation
the hard way.


She's singlehanding one of the BT Challenge boats, they sail around the
world "the wrong way," people line up to pay for crew spots. Crazy.

BTW the boats are steel, but built for speed.

DSK