What Dalts thinks ...

Club Med skipper, Grant Dalton, tells Ed Gorman and madforsailing that the fate of Team Philips will not affect his approach to The Race

Dalts, what are your feelings about the abandonment of Team Philips?
I don't think we can be considered under the same umbrella as Team Philips at all. They are an exceptional case. History may show that, if someone else does another boat of similar design, that the concept was right, but we don't know that. We are very pleased that no one's hurt, but it doesn't affect anything in terms of the event.

So you don't believe there are any lessons or consequences for Club Med?
We have thought about this and talked about it a bit too. There is absolutely zero ramifications for us at all. It's like trying to compare a road car with a rally car. They're so different, there's nothing to learn for us. Yeah, we need to get off this thing if the time comes, but there are no ramifications.

Do you think there are any wider lessons about the Team Philips story - the way they conceived their boat and the problems they have encountered?
Not that I can see. Obviously I'm not involved so I can't really draw any parallels. In terms of strategy, we always felt that the huge size of these boats was far enough into the twilight zone without changing anything else about them. In other words, our boat is an extrapolation of tried and tested smaller catamarans and yet we've had our problems. That alone has been a big enough step as the engineers have struggled to come to terms with the dynamic loads. There is a big difference between static load and dynamic load and that's the area that's given them the grief. Dynamic loads are very hard to calculate so it's a bit of a suck it and see situation, but we've got that nailed now. We felt that size was a big enough problem and I guess Team Philips didn't. They felt that was just one part of the challenge.

Early on when you first committed to The Race, you were concerned about the whacky races aspect of the event. Since you got involved there has been a lot of comment in the European press, predicting disaster scenarios in the Southern Ocean and so on. Despite what you say, the fate of Goss's project must have sent a shiver down your spine?
No it hasn't. One, it's not us and two, we may as well be living on Mars as far as Goss is concerned. We are nothing the same. We have approached this as we would any round-the-world race. I think we've approached it very clinically, very unemotionally. We've built up a team and a boat that's getting to its peak now. The whacky races thing may appear on the outside to be the umbrella over the whole of the fleet, but we don't see ourselves that way at all.

Let's talk about Club Med. You've probably had the smoothest build-up with Steve Fossett's PlayStation next. How do you see it shaping up between you and them?
The whole thing about this race is that if PlayStation is quicker then there will be bugger all we can do about it and they will be gone over the horizon and we'll never see them again, unless they break down and we catch up. I tend to look more inwardly at the other boats that are the same as us and put my focus on them (Club Med's sisterships Team Adventure and Code 1). They are basically about four or five hundred kilos lighter than us simply because the structural changes we have made to the boat during testing are retrospective, whereas they have had the advantage of incorporating them into the initial build. They have a weight advantage, though you counter that with them not having such a long build-up - but then a lot of our build-up has gone straight into them in terms of the lessons we have learned on their behalf, if you like.

The structural mods you have made since you first started sailing Club Med have been fairly significant then?
It would be fair to say that when the boat went into the water originally, it would never have got round the world - it would have done a Goss. Now we're in a position where we'll get round.

Of the two other Ollier boats, which do you fear most?
I like Cam's sail programme (Cam Lewis, skipper of Team Adventure). I think it's better than ours. Of the three of us, he's the more together. He's a very, very good yachtsman. He's a bit wacko but he's very aggressive. Loic is too (Loick Peyron, skipper of Code 1). But I think he's suffering a bit from being too much like we were a few months ago and he hasn't been able to move on. So of the two other Ollier boats, I rate Cam. I've seen video of his boat and I've seen a lot of things that have been done to our boat which I know are making it go faster, and I see them incorporated into his build.

With your Whitbread background, it must have been frustrating seeing other people taking advantage of the advances you have pioneered?
Yes, very frustrating. We've taken effectively two other boats with us. If all three boats had been launched together and then gone round-the-world, none of them would have made it.

What about Tony Bullimore and Team Legato. Is he a threat?
It's a hare and tortoise event and it's a cliche that you've got to watch out for everybody and fear everybody. In this case we could all self-destruct and he could come charging through two weeks late. Yeah, absolutely, he could be there. I saw a picture of his boat and it looks bloody good.

Finally Dalts, give us your ideas on how you are going to tackle The Race - it's all a bit different isn't it?
I saw an interesting video clip in Paris of Cam very early on - probably his second sail. He had the small gennaker, which is still big, sheeted on tight, and a staysail up and he was just sending it - we would hardly do that now. I was thinking to myself 'right, we're going to watch this'. If he's going to send it, we've got to get on race pace ourselves. But I don't want to do another Silk Cut (Lawrie Smith's Whitbread 60) when everyone got on race pace and then they tried to go up another gear, and broke their boat apart. If Cam bolts, it's going to be hard not to put the throttle down but we've done enough with the boat now to get a sense of what feels right.

The first stage of The Race from Barcelona down to the Straits of Gibraltar could be critical, especially if one boat gets out ahead and leaves the others parked?
Yes, we're focussing pretty hard on that. The first leg of the Whitbread/Volvo is usually won by a huge margin because the rich get richer and it's happening with the Vendee too in terms of getting down to 40 south and you're gone. So, yeah, getting out of the Straits is an important focus for us.

You are enjoying this project?
Yes. It's probably been quite a lot harder than I was expecting but I enjoy the sailing on this boat - you can't compare it - it's just fun.

Thanks Dalts and best of luck.