The reluctant hero

madforsailing talks to Neal McDonald about the Volvo and his plans thereafter

He also thinks that illbruck have a slightly different hull shape to the other Farr boats and at times this gives them an edge. "There have been times when they show a turn of speed which I don't think is a sail thing, but that's pure conjecture. If you look at their hull when it's out of the water they do have a definite chine or a middle line down the boat which the other Farr boats don't have. I have a sneaking suspision there are times when illbruck's hull is beneficial to them but there may be times when they show a bit of an Achilles heel, but that has yet to really manifest itself.

"I think illbruck's key is they’re incredibly well polished," he continues. "They know their sails, they know their angles, they don't get too flapped about other people. They get on with their own thing and up until now they've been able to slowly sail away from people. I don't think there's been a leg where they've been ahead at the start. They've just not taken too many risks, they've stayed in the middle of the road and sailed cool and eventually they get round people and slowly get ahead. Hopefully the rest of us are catching up with them and that won't happen anymore or as much".

This he believes is true of the other boats, even the non-Farr ones. "Dalts [ Amer Sports One] is a bit of an unknown. I haven't got a feel for when the boat is quick, but clearly it is and he had some smart people around him when they made the decision to choose that boat over the Farr, so I have no doubt there are times when it is quick. Again the sails and the way the boat is set up is probably still more important. We've sailed with him for days and not seen much difference. The boat speed advantage we have is very much exaggerated by a number of people".

He also has ideas about 'thin' boats such as SEB. "I know they're narrow. We sat in their cradle in Rio and our boat didn't fit! We had to chop it up to get it in. They could have some good results. We have seen them sail past all of us at some stages. What surprises me is that they hold the world record [24 hour], so narrowness doesn't always mean you don't go fast in a breeze. If you had to say a narrow boat was going to do well in some conditions, it wouldn't be 40 knots reaching.

"I've got this theory about narrow boats that when you heel over you don't lift the rudder out of the water quite as much and so you can heel them over further. Although your righting moment for 1deg is greater your actual sailing righting moment is probably as big because you can heel it over further. So Silk Cut for example. we felt that she was a narrow boat in the last race and she should have been good in light airs, but in fact the time we did well as in a gale. So there are other aspects to speed than the pure drag you see when you are towing a boat down a tank in non-sailing conditions.

"And there are so many other things. You ease the sheet four inches on a particular day and you go half a knot quicker and no amount of technology or hull speed differences are going to make that sort of difference. So I think it is the way the boat is set up and sailed".

Come back tomorrow for part two of this article where Neal discusses what he would like to do post-Volvo and gives his thoughts on the next race and the prospects for GBR Challenge...

The crew celebrate their Auckland win, by showing off their red socks (a tribute to the late Sir Peter Blake...)