Is the ebullIent DavID WItt just What the volvo ocean Race
neeDs? oR Is he a thRoWback to anotheR eRa? Helen Fretter
met the contRoveRsIal Scallywag skIppeR to fInD outam a dinosaur,” David Witt tells me.
It’s a gift of a quote from a man who has
been painted as out of touch, misogynistic,
and a whole lot worse.
Actually, the Sun Hung Kai/Scallywag
skipper is talking about the routeing and navigation
software the Volvo 65s use, how they need the technical
expertise of navigators Libby Greenhalgh and Antonio
Fontes because Witt is not what he calls a ‘techno-yachtie’.
He can work that stuff, he admits, but is not really into it.
How curious that the skipper of a yacht competing in
the Volvo Ocean Race is more comfortable admitting he’s
not an expert on the
navigation
technology than he
is being labelled as
old-fashioned in his
attitudes. Do today’s
Volvo Ocean Race
teams really need to
be so anodyne that they can reveal weaknesses on the water,
but can’t show any character for fear of being found flawed?
Controversy has dogged David Witt and his Scallywag
crew ever since they made their last minute entry into the
race last summer. Then CEO Mark Turner promised big
characters and engaging stories. Witty, as he’s known on
the boat, delivered from the outset.
The plain-speaking Australian first ruffled feathers
when he commented on the different crew numbers
allowed for women sailors. “We’re going with seven guys,”
he was quoted as saying on the Volvo Ocean Race website.
“I just don’t think the rule is a good fit, and I don’t think
the dynamic will work. It’s hard enough to win the race,
the last thing we need is to be part of a social experiment.”
The backlash was fierce: Witt was characterised first as
sexist, then as a hypocrite when Scallywag quietly signed
Annemieke Bes from rivals AkzoNobel. (Bes had actually
sailed with Witt numerous times on Ragamuffin.)
Witt has always vehemently maintained that he was‘he was clearly taken
aback by the reaction’
misquoted. In Alicante he told me he’s always sailed with
women, but didn’t support the imposition of a rule. He
was clearly taken aback by the reaction, telling me that his
daughters had been trolled on Twitter. It had, he said, put
him off doing much on social media.
Before the race start Witt was bullish about his team’s
chances of a podium finish, but on the long second leg
down to Cape Town the Scallywags were off the pace. A
dejected looking Witt commented to the onboard camera:
“It’s getting a bit embarrassing. We’re not used to having
our heads kicked in.”
In a bid to lighten the mood they made a video for
Facebook, the ‘Breakfast Show’. It famously featured a
sketch with Bes, the sole woman on board, as ‘Dr Cloggs’,
being asked how the team could best deal with a scrotum
rash the skipper was suffering from.
This time the backlash got serious, with some accusing
Witt of sexual harassment. Others felt that the ‘lads
banter’ culture made yachting look out of touch.
Complaints filed by viewers outside of the Volvo Ocean
Race led to both Witt and navigator Steve Hayles facing a
Rule 69 misconduct hearing.Huge impact
The hearing found that there was no offence, and no
misconduct, but the impact on Witt and his team was
huge, not least in tens of thousands of dollars spent on
legal fees. Hayles, who was a big presence on the boat,
stepped off. The whole episode got very close to ending
the campaign.
In Cape Town Witt was fired up, keen to tell me his side
of the story (and Bes’s, whose views weren’t sought until
the final hearing), even if he couldn’t speak publicly. In
their virtually empty team base – Scallywag was then
running with a skeleton support crew, with little PR
management – he talked passionately about the impact
the hearing had made.
On the next leg, Cape Town to Melbourne, Witt was
much more circumspect. In the onboard footagewitt and
wisdom
›
I
Photos: Konrad Frost/Volvo Ocean Race