On the pace for the race?

Ed Gorman roams the dockside in Ocean Village in search of the front runners in the Volvo Ocean Race

Anyone following the last Whitbread Round The World Race four years ago would have had difficulty imagining an even more competitive event this time round. Although only eight boats have made it to the start - a disappointing turn-out - a quick trip round the pontoons at the race village for the first Volvo Ocean Race leaves you in no doubt that, yes, the upper limit is being upped yet again.

Paul Cayard, the skipper of the winning EF Language last time round, is credited by many for revolutionising the race, treating it as nothing more or less than a round-the-world sprint or a nine-stage regatta, and that is how skippers and crews are approaching it this time, almost certainly the last outing for the Whitbread/Volvo 60 class.

Team selection, boat set-ups and tactical and navigation preparation are geared to 24-hour round-the-cans racing, whether it be a 7,000-mile stage or a sprint of just 250 miles. Many among the Volvo crews are expecting broken gear and possibly broken boats and there is no doubt the advent of carbon rigs plus a new more powerful generation of Volvo 60s is going to encourage teams to push harder than ever.

But as Cayard also discovered, winning is about knowing when to take your foot off the gas and when the race gets into the Southern Ocean this will be a critical element. "The experience among the fleet is as high as it's ever been and the competitiveness of all the teams is as high as it's ever been as well," commented Illbruck watch leader and Silk Cut veteran Stu Bannatyne. "So people are going to push things to the limit and there probably will be breakages. Again the smart teams will know when to bottom off that little bit..."

But the Volvo is not the Whitbread of old. Years ago the race was all about the Southern Ocean. This time the advent of equal points per leg and an exhaustive nine-leg itinerary with a lot of short legs at the end, reduces the significance of the challenge of the Southern Ocean markedly. As many-a-skipper will remind you, the half-way stage in the Volvo Ocean Race, as far as points go, is not reached until the leg from Rio to Miami. It is concievable that you could mess up big time on the heavy weather stages in the Southern Ocean and still win a generally light-airs race in the Atlantic and northern Europe.