Jez Fanstone talks

Ed Gorman caught up with the British skipper of News Corp, Jez Fanstone, at the London Boat Show and got fully briefed on their Auckland-based build-up for the Volvo Ocean Race

Jez, tell us about the Sydney-Hobart Race? You finished third among the Volvo 60s. It sounded like a really tough one, but perhaps it was the perfect way to blood your crew and put them through their paces?
It was great. We always targeted the Hobart as very valuable for us ever since we started last June. We've been sailing down in New Zealand doing a lot of sail programme work, but it's not until you get out in a race situation that the whole pace of things changes and you really have a good grasp of what you've got. The Sydney to Hobart is tough and this year was no different. You always get some kind of upwind slog. It was hard, tough on the boat, tough on the crew but we have learnt some very, very valuable lessons not only on the sailing side but also with the whole shore and management side too.

What are your first thoughts about your rivals, John Kostecki's illbruck, who won it in the Volvo class, and Kevin Shoebridge's Tyco?
We always saw illbruck as the benchmark. They've been at it longer than anyone else. They bought the winning boat and the winning programme from last time. They got hold of a lot of people early on and they've done some really good work. So it was great to come up against them and see what they've been up to. Tyco is another experienced campaign with a lot of good English guys on the boat and it's a boat that came second last time, so they were another good test. In general we're very happy with where we're going, what we've done so far and what we need to do. The race highlighted the good points and also the areas we need to work on. We pretty much knew that before we started out and it was good to test it in a race environment.

For you personally, stepping up to skipper - how are you finding that progression and being the one under the spotlight?
The Volvo is very much a team game. It's twelve people doing their job. Each doing their job to collectively make the whole thing work. I enjoyed my experience in the last race (Fanstone was on Lawrie Smith's Silk Cut) and this is obviously a very different one. I am involved in a lot more things than I was before with the whole business side and PR aspect of it - it's a very exciting time and there's a heap to learn. But we've got good people on the team and Ross (Ross Field, the News Corp campaign manager) is a great help. We are going about it in a very thorough manner.

Obviously you've got Ross's experience and everything he's done to draw on, but do you also look back on Paul Cayard's approach and his management style, and the whole way he dealt with the Whitbread. Do you see that as an example to follow or have you sorted out your own plan?
We set out with a philosophy very early. Even when Ross and I sat down together to raise the money we adopted a very professional approach. Everybody who is involved in the campaign has a wide variety of experience and skills which they are bringing to the team to make it strong. For sure I think Paul Cayard certainly raised the game last time. We look back to how they did things and talk to people from his campaign and we try and learn some of the lessons from that. He did a phenomenal job, so it's a good place to start looking.

In term's of the race, what do you think is going to be the key to winning it this time? Is there going to be one particular area where advances are going to make the difference?
The gains now are smaller than they were last time and much harder to get. The whole race is a complete thing. It's a technical race, it's a weather-based race but it's also a human challenge and a team-orientated event. The sails are key, a fast boat is key, you need a good rig and weather is very important. So it's technology, weather and people. Alongside that is the whole lifestyle management aspect, getting the stopovers right so people have a good break and they are relaxed and focused at the start again. You also need to organise your repairs so that they work well and we need to look after News Corp's interests which are important because we recognise their commitment to us and we give a commitment to them.

In the last race there was enormous pressure on navigators and tacticians. How do you plan to handle this aspect of the campaign?
There's a lot of pressure on all the guys at some time in the race and it's getting more constant as time goes on. The detailing of everything requires a lot of effort. For sure, if you go the wrong way it doesn't matter if you have the fastest boat in the world, you are going to struggle. The race is going to be very, very tight because people have learnt how to sail the boats. They didn't know how to in 1993/94 and they were still probably learning, if you like, last time. If you look across the board there is now such a wealth of experience in these boats. We've got Nick White as meteorologist who sailed with Ross on Yamaha and we are talking to other people right now. We will definitely have other people on the boat.