Old challenges, fresh challenges

We catch up with Rob Greenhalgh to find out about his complex post-Volvo Ocean Race sailing schedule

Rob Greenhalgh has come a long way. With International 14 and 18ft skiff world championship titles under his belt, two year ago he was picked up by Mike Sanderson’s ABN AMRO One campaign for the Volvo Ocean Race and played his part in securing victory for the Dutch bank. Post Volvo, Greenhalgh’s feet are now firmly back on the ground and 2007 looks set to be a highly diverse year for his sailing.

First up - he is returning to his forte: skiff racing. “During the Volvo I missed my own sailing, being skipper of my own boat,” as he puts it. “I went and did the 14 Worlds. We finished eighth and weren’t happy with that result.” If he has a New Year’s resolution in 2007 it is to do no more campaigns half cocked.

The intention for this year is to return to the top of the 14 fleet and to achieve this he has paid for a new Beiker 5, similar to the boat Howie Hamlin and Euan McNicol raced to victory in last year’s worlds, only in this case the hull will be passed on to Greenhalgh’s long term partner in crime Richard Woof of RMW Marine. Woof will complete the boat, add the bulkheads and tweak the rig, foils and sails. This is something of a departure as Woof is best known for marketing the Phil Morrison-designed 14s. They are particularly looking at foil design and it will be interesting to see whether the boat ends up with a Bieker-style trim tab-controlled T foil on her rudder or a Morrison-style one where the rudder and T foil are raked in their entirety. Greenhalgh won his last 14 World Championship using the latter set-up.

Plans are to get the 14 on water in April, with the intention, initially at least, of coming out on top at the UK class’ nationals, the Prince of Wales Cup - a special event marking the 75th anniversary of the class, this year being held in Cowes mid-August. Once again Greenhalgh plans to sail with his long term crew Dan Johnson, despite Johnson having taken up full time employment with the police force in Richmond on the outskirts of London.

Despite all the sailing he has done, Greenhalgh still enthuses about the 14: “I reckon there will be 100 boats for POW. The 14 class is great because it is a development class. Sailing a 49er was the dog’s bollocks, but now they are old hat. With the 14, in a couple of years time, when they go wider on the wings, it will be the fastest two man boat about. They are narrow enough, they are lacking length, but the T-foil sorts that out. It is not a pro class - you haven’t got the top pros in there - but there are some great sailors. And you don’t have to sail it every week of the year to be competitive.”

The ultimate aim is to win the 14 Worlds for a second time when they are next held in Warnemunde in 2008.

Meanwhile Greenhalgh has a new 18ft skiff nearing completion by Van Munster, who builds a lot of the top Aussie 505s, 12 and 16ft skiffs in Lake Macquarie, Australia. The boat is due to arrive in the UK at the end of March, where, like the 14, it will be finished off and rigged by Richard Woof.

Greenhalgh says he is uncertain of when they’ll launch the 18. They are in no hurry as the main objective with the 18 is to compete in next year’s JJ Giltinan Trophy, the world championship for the class in all but name. For this he and Johnson will be once again joined by Greenhalgh’s brother Peter - the winning trio of the JJ in 2004. They may also compete in the UK Nationals if the boat is complete in time.

“Like the 14, it is not a massive campaign,” explains Greenhalgh. “The JJ is in our winter and it is easy to spend a month in Australia. Both boats [the 14 and 18] fill in around money earning jobs.” While the 14 is very much Greenhalgh’s personal campaign, the extent of the 18 program depends upon the availability of additional funding.

The reason Greenhalgh is not in the hunt at this year’s JJ is that this week he is occupied several hundred miles further north in Yeppoon, on the Queensland coast where he is competing in the Formula 18 Worlds, again with brother Peter.



“Peter and I did a 49er event last year and we thought this time we’ll do a Tornado event. So we emailled this guy asking if he could charter us a boat and it was going to cost about £5,000 between us. So we went off that,” he admits. Instead they have opted to compete in the Formula 18 Worlds where they are racing a Capricorn, one of the Aussie-built Martin Fischer designs that won the Worlds last year. “It is a good boat apparently – although we don’t know what one looks like!” quipped Greenhalgh before he set off to carry out a week’s training prior to the regatta. Whether or not he does any more F18 sailing after this, will be down to how good an experience he has this week. The F18 should succeed in ticking all the boxes – the boat is fast, competitive, he will be up against many of the world’s top cat sailors, and the size of fleet is huge.

While he may have ticked off the Volvo Ocean Race and skiff sailing, this year marks the start of Greenhalgh’s catamaran sailing career, for in January it was announced that he is to take over from Alistair Richardson at the helm of the Basilica Extreme 40. “I am pleased about that. It is my sort of sailing and it should be a good pro circuit.”

With OC Group and class founder Herbert Dercksen now running the show, it will be interesting to see how the Extreme 40 circuit plans out post Volvo Ocean Race. Greenhalgh plans to approach the Extreme 40 circuit as a professional program and so training will begin for the Basilica team, including Peter Greenhalgh, James Grant and possibly Jonathan Taylor (aka Boycey), at the beginning of March with the circuit supposedly kicking off at the start of June. Four events sponsored by iShares are planned between June and October at venues including Amsterdam, Munich, the Solent and somewhere on the south of France. Other demonstration events are planned in Switzerland, Italy and Spain throughout this year and Greenhalgh says while he is contracted to race the iShares events, he will do whichever others he can. It is highly likely that Basilica will also compete in the Round the Island race.

“What we enjoy is racing and everyone enjoys going fast,” says Greenhalgh of his move into catamarans. “So long as you have good equipment I am happy with that whether it is a monohull or a multihull.” He admits his experience of cat sailing in dinghies or bigger boats is at present limited since he first kicked off racing them last year with Mike Sanderson in the Clairefontaine Trophy (a French champion of champions event raced annually in one design 28ft cats).

In addition to his skiff and cat programs, Greenhalgh has additional ‘paid’ work. He is a regular in the afterguard on board Colm Barrington’s Ker 50 Magic Glove and following her impressive class win at Key West is set to compete with Barrington again at Acura Miami Race Week, before the boat returns to the UK for Skandia Cowes Week and the IRC Nationals. He also sails occasionally on the Irish Mumm 30 Mammy! and following his Volvo experience it is likely that this year he will go offshore once again this time on board Mike Slade’s new Leopard, at least for the Rolex Fastnet Race and Sydney-Hobart.

While ‘big gigs’ are now more available to him following the Volvo Ocean Race - he says he would certainly do the Volvo again and would very much like to be part of Sir Keith Mills’ Origin America’s Cup campaign - Greenhalgh is also keen to keep running his own programs, ideally on boats that are exciting and competitive to sail. “In the Volvo you are a little tooth in a little cog in the whole mechanism. I missed being my own boss. I love doing different regattas and different races and chopping and changing. That keeps the interest.”



Where he goes from here in terms of his ‘big’ campaigns will depend upon the outcome of the next America’s Cup – if any team other than Alinghi win and it returns to a four year cycle then he, like most professional sailors at his level, may attempt to shoehorn another Volvo in before Cup sailing resumes.

Most impressive is just how Greenhalgh has changed physically over the last two years, like an actor, fine-tuning himself for a part. Prior to joining ABN AMRO he weighed in at around 76kg. For the Volvo he beefed up enormously with great water melon-sized biceps and topped 90kg. Since then he has returned to 76 and would ideally like to be 72kg – “as light as possible for dinghy sailing”. At present he is doing a lot of cycling and plans to compete in the one leg of the Tour de France where amateurs are allowed to race. Nick Moloney and OC Group boss Mark Turner did this last year and Greenhalgh, as well as a couple of other Hamblites, are planning on going this July.

One of the refreshing things about Greenhalgh, and which may also be construed as arrogance, is that while the UK does a great line in afterguard and second in commands, influence without responsibility, he makes no bones about where he wants to end up: as skipper, the man in charge.