The 43-year-old Briton was part of the 12-strong women only Team SCA during the last VOR, the nine-month ocean epic that ended last June.
Team SCA won many admirers during the event, winning two in-port races in Abu Dhabi and Auckland, while their biggest triumph was winning leg eight from Lisbon to Lorient, and Cafari believes the mound of experience gained from her voyage can help Al Thuraya flourish.
“I don’t think we’re going to challenge for first place, but I definitely want to be in the mix, so a mid-fleet finish would be good,” said Cafari, when asked what would be a perfect result.
“We’ll have smiles on our faces throughout and the girls will develop throughout, and I think you’ll see the results (gradually) improve.”
Just as SCA had another agenda during the VOR, promoting the fact women can compete at the highest levels of sport, Cafari says winning is not everything during the SATT.
“We’re all competitive out on the water but I have a mixed level on board and for me it’s about enabling the Omani girls to take on more responsibility and do more sailing and on board,” she said.
“It’s about passing our knowledge on which always takes a bit of time. It will take time to find our rhythm, but I’m hoping we can stay in amongst the competition.”
She sees similarities between the VOR and the SATT and believes her knowledge of competing in last year’s 12th edition of the VOR can help change a few stereotypes, having been living proof herself.
“This will be very similar in that it will take us a while to find our rhythm and get the boat where we want it but as their confidence grows we can get in amongst it a little bit more,” said Cafari.
“This will be the VOR but just on a smaller scale. I’m hoping the girls will get more confident too as we get into Omani waters as they’ll be racing home.
“What a lot of crews might be guilty of is not managing rest periods so they struggle.
“What we’ll be much better at is having people rested at different times so we’ll always be racing the boat at 100 per cent, so I’m hoping the offshore side of all my sailing will play into that a little bit.
“Every time you’re on the water you’re learning and because the boats are alongside each other and identical, so it’s similar to the VOR.
“You can see what other teams are doing and it’s a nice environment. Fiercely competitive on the water but a nice environment. If you ask for tips, people want to pass on knowledge because we want it to be close racing. It’s what makes the event so special, so it’s interesting.”
Each team in the VOR had their own special song as a team anthem during the competition, which would boom around the dockside race villages in each stopover as the teams arrived.
SCA’s ‘Wake Me Up’ by Avicii was one of the more popular, so has Cafari picked out a team tune this time around?
“We’ve got some Arab tunes,” she smiled.
“We’ll have to learn the words first but I don’t think we can match SCA’s song, but I think we need a new one.”
