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James Boyd speaks to some of the Volvo skippers about their thoughts for the next Volvo Ocean Race

While it is most welcome news that Volvo will be running their race again over 2005-6, the hardest choices about the next event have yet to be made. The general concensus is in wanting to reduce campaign costs next time round, but how to do this and keep the event at the Grand Prix cutting edge, the Formula One of ocean racing? There is added pressure on Volvo from some quarters where it is felt that the longer the delay, the less time there is to take to the sponsor hunting trail.

"I wasn't at all surprised," Neal McDonald told madfor sailing of the delay. "They [Volvo] are in a tricky situation. If cost wasn't an issue, bigger faster boats would be the obvious thing. I feel for them. It is a critical decision and I'm not surprised they haven't been able to make up their minds over the type of yachts. I would have gone to big multihulls. Clearly that's not the case. Personally I'd stick to what we've got. Any rule change has got to be more expensive..." So one vote for sticking with the Volvo Ocean 60.

At present it is believed Volvo campaign budgets weigh in at $12-22 million according to how long prior to the start the campaign began testing and training and whether or not this figure includes the amount sponsors have spent on marketing extras such as big corporate tents for hospitality and shipping in guests. McDonald believes that campaign budgets have doubled and in some cases tripled just since the last race.

Djuice's Knut Frostad thinks budget slashing is most definitely in order. "I think Volvo is on the right track when it comes to reducing costs for the syndicates. I hope they can manage to get the price below $10 million," he said.

So how best to par back campaign costs? "Salaries are a huge part of it," says Neal McDonald, a sentiment echoed by many of the campaigns. If the race is long this represents a huge hike in man/days for the crew, but there are also other factors at work such as the America's Cup which has upped the anti, forcing Volvo campaigns to pay top dollar if they are to attract top talent.

Saying this McDonald thinks that limiting crew numbers would turn out to be a false economy. "The first people to go would be the less well paid in the first place. So it wouldn't have a big impact. And if you had a small campaign, you'd probably have to get more people to work on the shore crew. So crew reduction - that's not an obvious one".

McDonald feels that shortening the race from nine months to six, as has been proposed, and somehow dictating when teams can begin on the water training would go a long way to reduce costs. "So you're not allowed a two boat campaign or to build with female moulds, which we'd certainly do again. Then there's the sails. You could half the sail budget without making a great different. Making it 18 or 20 sails max and only carry five spinnakers and four jibs."

McDonald makes the interesting point that if you have less legs, then the opportunity to change sails is reduced, therefore you don't need to have as many to start with.

While heavy hitters such as Gunnar Krantz and Kevin Shoebridge feel it is not essential to have all the details in place to go sponsor hunting (then, who knows? Maybe they don't have to...), there are others who do. Knut Frostad is one. "A potential project that wants to participate in the 2005-2006 event is running out of valuable time. They can't get sponsors without knowing the route and not knowing which boat, and hence budget, they want to run with. I hope Volvo comes up with the answers quick."

Neal McDonald agrees. "If you go to sell this, you say "I'd like to do this". They ask "well what are you racing?" and you have to say "well, we don't know".

But McDonald makes the valid point that in fact it shouldn't be the sailors making decisions about the next race but sponsors or possibly those trying to raise the sponsorship. Where do sponsors want the race to stop and how long do they want the race to stay in port?

This brings us on to the transient nature of Volvo Ocean Race campaign sponsorship.

Due to the four yearly nature of this event there have been few instances of sponsors returning for more. While in the past this has normally been the prerogative of booze and cigarette companies such as Merit (Philip Morris) who hold the record with three consecutive appearances and Kriter (champagne) in the earlier races, about the only example today are UBS who sponsored Pierre Fehlmann's maxi in 1985-6 and are back this time as a backer of Nautor Challenge.

The fourly yearly cycle unless your name is John Kostecki goes something like this - two years of endless nailbiting and proposal writing to try and raise sponsorship. For the very lucky sponsorship comes through 12 months before the start of the race immediately followed by frantic activity as teams attempt to get their boat designed and built, their crew trained and sail program sorted and the whole package to the start line. Then there is the race and afterwards it all stops dead before the merry-go-round cranks into action again. This is not a good scenario for sponsorship continuity.

Part of the problem is the nature of what sponsors want from the event and this is possibly defined by the large sums being sort by campaigns. Many sponsorships seem to be about getting one message across. This has been the case with ASSA ABLOY, the gigantic global lock company that was founded only in 1994 and has since acquired 100 companies worldwide and doubled in size when they bought the Yale Group. They now have 25,000 employees and were looking for a device to unify their work force scattered around the globe.

"We realised that this would be the fastest and most cost effective way for us to bring our values and messages to our partners, to make it attractive to be part of the ASSA ABLOY group, involving everyone in the fan club," explained Anna Bernstein, ASSA ABLOY's Vice President of Corporate Communications in Gothenburg. "We have achieved three to four years of work in one nine month period". An internal audit throughout the company has shown the Volvo Ocean Race to have been a roaring success in achieving their objective but the company has also received a rather handy $40 million worth of brand exposure as a bonus. But will they be continuing with their sponsorship now they have achieved their objectives? The answer is 'no'.

But what is needed is some longevity and sponsors who feel they can justifiably return race after race in the same way as they do in Formula 1 or the 60ft trimaran circuit in France. Volvo are touting the idea of a trans-Pacific race to be held sometime before the next round the world race, but what is surely needed is the Volvo Ocean Racing Championship (copyright: madforsailing.com) - a points scoring circuit, perhaps including events such as the one Volvo is proposing, but also the major offshore events such as the Fastnet, Sydney-Hobart, Round Gotland and the Transpac. While this would again raise campaign budgets it would create more value from the sponsorships and a firmer foundation from which teams can work and for the race as a whole.

For Volvo there is the additional problem that their event is now no longer on its own. There is the Antarctica Cup loop around the Southern Ocean in Ron Holland one designs and the very recently announced The Race Tour in 2006, round the world with stops in big multihulls and if one hears the secret desires of most of the top skippers in this race it is to go circumnavigating as quickly as possible in the world's fastest boats.

The big cats and tris may not represent a threat to the next race, but will in years to come as the giant multihulls become increasingly competitive. There is also the undeniable fact that the G-class multihulls, as Bruno Peyron calls them, are the fastest boats in the world and, as both Kevin Shoebridge and Ross Field have pointed out to madfor sailing, they represent the future of yachting - two attributes Volvo would surely like to be able to say about their boats.

We wait with baited breath to see what Volvo decide.