Looking ahead

The Volvo Ocean Race skippers give their thoughts on the forthcoming leg to Auckland via Hobart

Q (to Neal): You’ve been called the fastest boat on the fleet, has this put extra pressure on you?
NM: Clearly we want to do well, and obviously our sponsors want us to do well, but any extra pressures I don't think we have any more than the rest of the guys at this table.

Q: Are you happy with the rule that you cannot make any repairs whilst in Hobart?
JK: I think it's a fair rule, it's only 630 miles to Hobart, and we've been doing much longer legs in this race where we've had to survive without replacing gear. So I don't think it's anything unusual.

Q (to Lisa): There was a controversial article written during the last leg about your performance, how did you feel when you read it?
LM: We don't actually hear much whilst we're out at sea, most of the information we receive is weather-related or communications from our shore-based team. We've had two pretty tough legs, we were close to other boats and we have found that we have certain points of sail and certain conditions that we are competitive in and we take each new leg as a challenge. We're very much looking forward to this next leg as it presents a new challenge to the fleet - looking around me the competition's pretty tough.

Q: How do you think you will do next to the maxi boats?
KF: The longer you are, the faster you are, so the maxis should be quite a bit quicker than us - that's a fact. If they can keep their boats together they should be in to Hobart before us, and hopefully they won’t interfere with our racing too much. I think we might have a chance if beating them if we get the right conditions.

KS: I think we're all concerned with the eight boats at this table, and haven’t really given much thought about the maxis. We just don’t want to get into any conflicts or rules issues that might cause a problem for us both.

Q: Will having so many other boats around cause a problem for you, you're used to being just a fleet of eight
NM: One of the things that occupies your mind the whole time is where the rest of the fleet is, and generally speaking there are only eight of us out there so it's not difficult to identify who's who. So, it will be something that confuses the issue, but we all have to deal with it. Hopefully within a few hours we will be separated from the rest of the fleet and there will only be a few big boats around, but certainly in the early stage of the race it will add to the confusion.

Q (to John): You mentioned earlier that you had learnt some things from the last Sydney-Hobart, what were these?
JK: Not to do the Sydney-Hobart again! There were a lot of little things, that were mainly tactical and strategy coming down the coast. It's hard to get into detail right now, but just having the experience of doing it makes me a lot more comfortable going into this leg, so I'm really happy that we did that.
Q: Do you think not having done it before is a disadvantage?
JK: I don't think so, I know Gunnar hasn't done it before, but I'm sure there are several people onboard his boat who have, so I'm sure he's got a lot of experience there.

Q: How do you think the tactics will be different for the next leg?
GK: One tactical issue is for sure to get there in one piece, if we have the Southerly buster then we know how that develops - so to have the boat working and in one piece is a major issue. Then, it depends on how quickly the systems develop, as far as I can see there are very big and quick changes down there and that could turn the whole thing around, as in football, you have to be able to receive a ball to score the goal and that is a major tactical issue there - don't be too extreme and play it as it comes.