One hard-as-nails Kiwi

Andy Rice spoke to Grant Dalton about the Volvo, The Race and an attempt on the world speed record

By comparison with some of the other Volvo challenges, such as the German illbruck team which has been full-on for two years, Grant Dalton and his Nautor Challenge are playing catch-up. But if there is anyone who has seen it all and done it all, it is the hard-as-nails Kiwi skipper.

When madforsailing caught up with Grant Dalton at the end of the Giraglia Race in Genoa, if he looked concerned about his chances, he certainly didn't show it. His red and grey liveried Volvo Ocean 60 designed by Pepe Frers looked well sorted after just a week on the water, and the crew looked in good control of the boat during the overnight race, despite having previously done little sailing together.

Dalton told madforsailing this would be the only race the team would compete in before the beginning of the Volvo Ocean Race on 23 September. "We wanted to do this race just to remember why we're in this game," said Dalton. "The guys have been working hard getting everything ready in the yard, so they needed a break."

Racing against a group of Maxi yachts and an Open 60, it was hard for the team to draw any meaningful conclusions about the new boat, but Dalton was satisfied with their race. "It's hard to take anything from the race - whether we were fast or not. I thought our tactics were sound. We're a new team, but I thought Dee Smith, Bouwe Bekking and Roger Nilson combined really well on the decision making.

"I tried to imagine myself in a Volvo 60 race and I think we were sailing the boat the right way - we got all the important shifts."

Just a couple of hours after docking in Genoa, Dalton and his team were motoring back out into the windless Mediterranean to return to the Nautor Challenge base in La Ciotat near Marseilles. At Nautor's build facility there, the second boat - a standard Farr design - is nearing completion and Dalton will spend the rest of the summer two-boat testing in Spain with the women's team that is to be headed by Lisa McDonald.

Dalton makes it clear that he is in charge of both teams, the men's and the women's, and he is staking his own credibility on their success. "I have total say over the way both boats are run. I've selected Lisa Charles [McDonald] to skipper the other boat, and my expectation is for them to do well. She's very talented, and she is a girl, she's not a girl trying to be a man."

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