Roy Heiner speaks out

Everything you wanted to know but didn't dare to ask.

Last time round you were in an off-the-pace boat, we knew that, you didn't have an ideal crew and you were bought in as skipper very late. How do you feel now - you're in a hot campaign here, the boat is tipped by quite a lot of people to do very well. How exciting for you is it to do the race this way? Do you regard this as doing it properly which is what you wanted to do at the end of the last race?

No. For me this is still not doing it properly because I guess everybody makes these campaigns in their own way and everybody has a different way of trying to solve the equation. As long as you are a hired hand or, in any case, not involved from the beginning then it will always be a different type of campaign. You always have to play with the beast, you can never form it to your own style. But luckily we also have a lot of experience around which points everything in the right direction. This campaign has had its back against the wall as far as time is concerned. There has been a lot of investment in some departments, not lots in others because of time limitations. I hope that we've managed to control the amount of problems we could have with time. I hope we've emphasised the right aspects.

Have you had enough money?

We've had enough money to do what we wanted to do, yes. Time is the problem.

Do you think you are going to be competitive - can you win the race?

We have the ability to win the race, yes. We have the building blocks to win the race.

Your boat seems to be the......

Prettiest? (laughs)

Prettiest, yes, but possibly also Farr's best answer. Grant Dalton told us that when he spoke to Farr to order his boat, Farr asked him what he wanted and Dalts said 'you tell me'. Apparently Farr then said I'm going to give you Assa Abloy. Whether that's true or not, I don't know but the suggestion is that your boat is the percentage boat, the safe boat?

I'll tell you what. An amazing amount of thought has gone into the building process of that boat. It's mind-boggling that people have the ability to go into such detail in the construction and put thousands of man-hours into the building, even before it's actually happened - there's a lot more to that boat than a Farr drawing.

I notice it's very meticulous especially in weight-saving and you've got some things there that no one else has got.

There is no part of that boat that hasn't been thought about 100 times by people who have sailed five times around the world and are fantastic boat builders.

What does it mean to you to win this race?

Well I think it's the only race. I think to win the Volvo Ocean Race, for me personally it's the premier offshore race. If you win this, you've won them all, definitely.

Last time it was noticeable that some of the people who had done the race before weren't quite ready for some who hadn't. Do you feel more up for it than four years ago?

Definitely. This time I'm a lot more prepared especially knowing what I'm going to step into. I want to push a lot harder. Last time was the big unknown. I'd never been on the boat before I stepped onto it in Australia. But this is definitely balls to the wire and go for it.

How are you going to pace yourself because it's a long race and, points-wise, you're not halfway until after Rio?

I think everybody will say that you approach the first leg strategically and a little bit more conservatively. You're right, half the points you have to earn right at the end. On the other hand these long legs are the ego legs and that will make it very interesting because, if you're strong in these legs, you have a big pecking order advantage later in the race and the snowball starts rolling and the crew really gels. It makes the rest of the race a lot easier. So although you have to be a little more conservative in the first leg, the question is how conservative because I think the mental advantage of doing well early on is huge.

One thing that Paul Cayard showed us was that when things weren't going right for EF Language, they were better than anyone else at re-grouping - analysing the problem and trying to overcome it. How flexible intellectually is Assa Abloy in the sense that, if you don't have it quite right by Cape Town or Sydney, you will be able to re-think what you are doing?

Very difficult to give you an answer on that one. It's difficult to imagine what would happen then within a group of guys. We think 'not a problem.' We've really tried in this campaign not to have a hierarchical approach to it and give everybody the room to develop themselves, but I guess time will tell.

Page four.... Life after the Volvo Ocean race.