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Greetings from Fremantle.

Here at Antarctica Cup Race headquarters we consume every article and comment we can find on the future direction of long distance monohull ocean racing. Your site is a wonderful source of this information.

We have a simple mind set here. We believe the real financiers of long distance ocean racing are the people in the street. Why? Because they buy the every day products that sponsors have effectively advertised by way of watchable programs on TV, and via the internet, radio and printed media programs.

When sponsorship of long distance ocean racing is within the realms of affordability it is a mighty powerful promotion medium. If people are enticed to watch long distance ocean racing on TV we will get the sponsors we need to sustain the sport. And so the wheels turn.

How do we then make long distance monohull racing more attractive financially to a broader range of sponsors and achieve larger fleets? Which all goes to achieve future sustainability of one of the last great adventures on the planet - long distance yacht racing!

Our philosophy for the Antarctica Cup has been to create an environment that enables an individual/syndicate to accurately quantify the costs of competing in the race down to the last dollar. People can look sponsors directly in the eye and sell the substantial value-for-money benefits with a high degree of confidence and certainty. A great deal of thought has gone into achieving this process.

Even better would be the ability to offer a co-ordinated 'world circuit' of long distance ocean racing if such a thing existed. Add to that a market called Asia and you would really get sponsors on the edge of their seat? We might even reverse the flow and get sponsors coming to us!

We are the 'new kids on the block' but we believe we can make a significant contribution to the creation of a consortium of long distance ocean race promoters should others be thinking along similar lines.

Who would be the winners?

A much wider range of sponsors. Sailors so that they can plan a career with certainty. All the organisations and people that live off these events for sustainability of their business's and for individual livelihood.

We believe international ocean yacht racing has the potential to be a regular form of entertainment for the person in the street and become 'the best international sports medium' for sponsors.

This still may not help Volvo maake up their minds about the format and new boat for their next race

Many readers have written in response to articles on the future of the Volvo Ocean Race ;

Adrian Thompson (designer of Team Phillips, Aqua Quorum, Alice's Mirror, etc) thinks the race needs a complete re-vamp
The next Volvo Race. In my opinion, nobody has finally accepted the fact that the Volvo Ocean Race, as it stands, does not represent a cost effective event for potential sponsors. Illbrook has set the standards for the next race, and the budget. It just doesn't add up for these reasons. The boats are too boring by far - or should that be by Farr!

The race calendar is too long, and even the crews have had enough by USA. The media machine cannot sustain interest outside the sailing world. The cost of a winning entry is beyond the bravest CEO. The virtual one design is flawed. Finding you are 0.2 knot slow on a reach in Biscay is character building in the extreme. Too many other RTW events that have superior appeal. If I was Volvo, I would get back to the essential attraction of the event which is in essence your web address. Madforsailing. Commission a design group like Owen Clarke who still have their feet firmly attached to reality, and get them to design a Volvo Open 85 as a one design. Design it to be safe fast and sexy.

Volvo should make a dozen of these as finished boats and sell or rent them for the next race. I know they would prefer not to have this added area of product liability, but it can't be worse than flogging 4WD to USA. Cut out most of the stopovers and insist the crew of eight sleep on the boats in reasonable comfort. Benefits? Fastest mono's in the world including Mr. Pugh's jobby. Low cost entry level playing fields for all entries. The chance of a subsidised entry for up and coming sailors. Credibility for Volvo. Don't tell me it wouldn't be exciting.

Mark Heeley has similar ideas
Quelle surprise , designers not in favour of one design. I think we can all work out the economics of that line of thinking. The thing is, sailors and spectators and media and therefore sponsors do like one design, in fact most demand it. So I hope that Volvo do the right thing. Choose a new boat , fix that boat for a minimum of two consecutive Volvo races. Go for a one design Open stylee 70 footer. Class rules control hull, rig, appendages, sort out your own (limited) sail wardrobe. One set of plugs, one boat per campaign, 10 crew , 5 legs , much shorter stopovers, restricted number of shore crew, inshore racing at stopovers counting for points with obligatory sponsor crew slots. Designers/builder(s) tender for the fleet contract. Volvo could be ballsy and own the fleet charging a charter fee for the boat. Class start at Tour Voile, Cowes Week, Fastnet, Hobart and Transatlantic race would add sponsor breadth. Bring it on.

mad for sailing is soon going to start the 'Mark Heeley for new Volvo Ocean Race Chief Executive' campaign.

J Porter agrees
The basic problem with the Volvo 60 rule/boats is that they are throw away. Volvo needs to look toward the Open 60 class. Most of the recent sponsor announcements in that class were for 3-5 year deals. Volvo needs to show that if a sponsor spend 30 million they are going to get a long term value. Maybe have two classes. One for new boats and one for boat from a previous race. Also the V60s need to be told they have to participate in other sailing event prior to and after the around the world race. Events like Route du Rhum, New Man STAR, etc.

Unquestionably one thing Volvo must do is set up a class for their new boat, with a series of events like the trans-Pacific race already mooted that will bridge the gap between races. And before you Volvo sailors and anoraks start giggling about the idea of sailing them singlehanded, Eric Tabarly raced his Whitbread maxi singlehanded in the 1976 OSTAR, back in the days when men were men and small animals were scared. So how about it? Racing a VO60 in the Route du Rhum?

The news that the second GBR Challenge yacht is to be shipped out to Auckland for training, is good news to Andrew Banks

It never made any sense for the GBR Challenge to build two boats and then only have one available in Auckland. This way they will gain considerable advantages by have two of the latest generation boats available to the team in Auckland - it also means that they can alternate between boats at different stages in the series, enabling them to modify one of the boats while the other is out racing. It also leads one to suspect that the rumours about GBR78 being a development of 'Wight Lightning' rather than an identical sistership are not without substance.

'Magnus' is not impressed with the ISAF World Sailing games clashing with Kiel Week
Yeah, ISAF and the big 'all Olympic classes events' make a lot of noises and generally give the class associations a lot of grief about scheduling, event rules etc. etc. but often enough fail when it comes to their own events. My conclusions is that one should be very watchful when ISAF (and these event organisers and some national sailing associations) try to throw their weight around. In general they do not have the capability to implement and follow up, therefore should stay out running events and leave that to sailors who care about the individual regattas and classes. I prefer to stay anonymous to avoid unnecessary wrath from the lovely president of ISAF on my class. Have a nice day

Julian Bates reflects on the announcement of the English Commodore's Cup team
Perhaps a sad day for IRC when five of the six boats are IRM-style race boats. Has the Rating office gone too far in allowing IRM boats to prosper under IRC ? In encouraging the development of boats matched to its IRM rule has it discouraged the real cruiser racers?

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