TAKING THE HELM

The Whitbread/Volvo Round the World race has a precedent for replacing skippers in Uruguay. Skip Novak took over Fazisi in the late 1980s. Dawn Riley’s time came in 1993 when Uruguay was a stopover on both the outbound and return Atlantic legs. The US Women’s Challenge entry had run into major difficulties under its previous skipper, leaving the boat in disarray at its first stopover in Punta del Este, in desperate need of an American to head them up who could not only race the boat but could also pull a disaffected crew together. A veteran of three America’s Cup campaigns and a watch captain on Tracy Edwards’ successful Maiden Whitbread challenge, Riley answered the call and delivered the goods handsomely.

Just to finish would have been a respectable result, but she took 9th place out of 15 entries against opposition of the calibre of Grant Dalton, Eric Tabarly and Lawrie Smith. Her book, Taking the Helm, co-authored with Cynthia Goss, is an inspiring read. In this extract, the women are approaching Cape Horn with half a rudder and what turns out to be a serious structural issue with the hull of their Whitbread 60, Heineken.