Volvo Ocean Race

Team and skipper profiles for the upcoming race

Assa Abloy
Skipper: Roy Heiner (NED)
Navigator: Mark Rudiger (USA)
Designer: Farr Yacht Design
Boat Builder: Jason Carrington/Green Marine
Flag: Sweden

Crew:
Magnus Olsson (SWE)
Jason Carrington (GBR)
Klas Nylöf (SWE)
Stu Wilson (NZl)
Richard Mason (NZl)
Mike Joubert (RSA)
Sidney Gavignet (FRA)
Jules Mazars (FRA)
Neal McDonald (GBR)
Guillermo Altadill (ESP)

Assa Abloy is a product of the Atlant Ocean Racing Team, who built and managed the successful EF boats in the last race. Once again, the owners of Atlant, Johan Salén and Richard Brisius, working in collaboration with Ocean Race legend, Magnus Olsson, are the driving force behind the team. Having won the race once, you can be sure that Atlant know the recipe for success. Though the campaign started in earnest only in August 2000 - relatively late compared to some of the other syndicates.

Having conclusively demonstrated the value of two identical boats for crew training and sail development with EF Education and EF Language in the previous race, it comes as no surprise to discover that Atlant commissioned the building of two more identical designs. While most of the boats for this year’s race have been built using traditional male moulds the need to build two boats convinced the team to use more sophisticated and expensive female tooling.

Having the fastest boat in the fleet is not going to help much without a top-notch crew to drive it. The next recruit to the sailing team was Mark Rudiger who was initially named as co-skipper and navigator. On 24th of November 2000 it was announced that Dutchman Roy Heiner had won the job of Skipper. For several years, Heiner had been trying to form his own syndicate but with time running out and no sign of the required funding for his own campaign, the marriage was a natural one.

Heiner’s is a complex character, born of a diverse upbringing and wide range of interests. A Dutch national brought up in South Africa, he studied as a Civil Engineering before discovering that he could earn a living from his passion, sailing. A gentle giant of a man, Heiner has not allowed his technical training to obscure the complex interpersonal skills required to run a tightly knit campaign. A quite word is always forthcoming when required but equally he has no fear of the sharp command when he feels others are falling behind his own standards of perfection.

Long hours in the Olympic single-handed Finn dinghy honed both his sailing and technical skills before moving on to the three-man 30-foot Soling keelboat. Disappointed at failing to reach the finals at the Barcelona Games in 1992, Heiner took the almost unprecedented step of returning to the physically demanding Finn at the age of 33. It was brave move that paid of handsomely with a bronze medal in Atlanta in 1996.

While Heiner is clearly the skipper on the water, the strong but silent hand of four-time Ocean Race veteran, Magnus Olsson is evident in virtually everything done by the team. Further crew selection has hinged not on the need for new talent, but on the desire for tried and tested reliability. Just one of the crew is an Ocean Race debutante with the others having clocked up 13 racing circumnavigations between them.

With so much Ocean Race experience amongst the crew, the emphasis in the training and work-up phase has been on developing speed. While some of the other syndicates have put great efforts into significant deep-ocean raining Assa Abloy have stayed nearer to home. Immediately after launching, both boats were sailed to the team training base in Gothenburg, Sweden. Here the team have rigorously tested the two boats against each other. Applying the lessons from the EF campaign, sail development has been a key priority.



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