No soft centre to British racing's new golden girl

Davies inherits the singular traits of MacArthur as she follows fast in her wake

The new golden girl of British and European ocean racing abandons her partner and her cats and leaves her adopted French shores with another Frenchman today. With the departure of Dame Ellen MacArthur from the scene which catapulted her to fame, Sam Davies seems set to inherit the mantle of international fame. She is the complete package: bright, attractive, articulate and friendly. And she can sail.

She insists that she has not changed over the years, and not changed since, earlier this year, sailing an old and uncompetitive boat to fourth place in the hardest race of all, non-stop solo round the world in the Vendée Globe (VG). She has changed.

Within the village of yacht racing she is already box office. Like MacArthur she has completed an apprenticeship in racing smaller boats singlehanded and is better known in a country that uses ocean racing as part of its geography education and treats the players like heroes.

She is, on the outside, every daddy's little girl but the soft exterior is wrapped around an increasingly steely core. Top of the agenda now is not just completing the course but winning. And the next three years will reveal whether the transition from cuddly to killer can be achieved.

But not, maybe, the next two weeks. Her 60-foot yacht Artemis is still being developed and, despite being slimmed by a couple of tonnes, may still be too heavy and powerful for the sprint conditions which lie ahead in the Transat Jacques Vabre (TGV).

Her partnership with Sydney Gavignet for the 4,730-mile new course which takes the 14-boat fleet from Le Havre to Costa Rica – not to Brazil any more, far less Columbia – has only been in place for four months, and for part of that Gavignet was crocked with a leg muscle injury. And the competition is stiff, there are no weak boats or teams leaving the Bassin Paul Vatine today and they include the winner two years ago and the man who won the most recent VG, Michel Desjoyeaux.

Nor is Artemis the only example of a mixed crew, the other also being British and comprising Dee Caffari and Brian Thompson, who both finished the brutal VG which culled half the starters – among them the other two British skippers in the TGV, Alex Thomson and Mike Golding.

"My confidence in my boat- handling and decision-making has really improved," says Davies, who grew up in a family steeped in sailing. She also shares with MacArthur an impatience to cast off the mooring lines and a discomfort with fame.

"I still find it amazing that I made the front pages of a couple of newspapers," she says, "but celebrity is not my cup of tea. I am different on the water than I am on land and the better for that." But what does excite her, though mixed with a tinge of sadness, is the prospect of winning and moving on to the next VG in 2012 in a boat capable of winning.

The sadness comes from having to part company with the French clothing firm Roxy, whose sponsorship of her pink boat was broken by the company's misfortunes. "I shall always be a Roxy girl and be an ambassador for life," she says, adding that she is very pleased now to carry the British flag on the stern of Artemis.

Davies has set up home in Brittany with a French partner and two cats, but her French co-skipper Gavignet would not be cast in the cuddly mould, bringing with him vast experience of ocean racing, including round the world in races like the Volvo.

If peer-group approval is the most valuable, Davies's account is in a very healthy state and Gavignet, this no-nonsense French yachtie, has a tender heart. Does he feel that women, not by quota or some dogmatic insistence on equal opportunities, can bring something from a distinctly feminine viewpoint that can improve the performance of a racing yacht?

"If we start from the point that she is in any case a good sailor, and that is the first condition, the answer is yes," he says. "For sure you may be losing something in terms of human strength, but having the feminine sense of balancing things I think is very good.

"If you have two guys together who push like crazy, it can be almost like a contest between the two to see who is going to push the most," Gavignet added. "That is not a problem with Sam. I consider having this lady as being a strength for our team."