Decisions decisions pt2

Andy Hindley looks at the pros and cons of monohulls v multihulls for the next Volvo Ocean Race

Continued from yesterday's article...

Even the risk aspect Hindley thinks is more or less equal. "A monohull is not going to flip over and stay upside down. There is an opportunity to sink it (whereas a multihull is unlikely sink). Ours are built with bulkheads but we’ve all seen pictures of America’s Cup boats sinking and they sink really quickly. I think if you hit an iceberg at 20 or 30 knots then I think most of the crew will be unconscious from the impact. You can’t ensure that there won’t be icebergs where we send them but we need to look at minimising that risk."

A high speed collision with an iceberg in a monohull would almost certainly result in a fatality - even if you end up conscious and in the water you have to hope you liferaft has deployed itself - whereas a multihull if it flips or hits something at speed, it is at least still a comfortable raft that is floating and you can sit and drink cappucino until the cavalry arrive (as witnessed in the recent Route du Rhum).

Hindley says that the capsizes and the carnage in the recent Route du Rhum rattled many of the decision makers in Sweden, although a fleet of new 60ft trimarans being raced singlehanded is not a great comparison with a fully crewed maxi-cat. "Even if you left a 60ft trimaran in a marina in 70 knot winds it would turn over if it wasn’t tied down. But if you were in the boardroom discussing this it would be hard not have this in the back of your mind and if you are about to spend $10 million you are going to do some research."

The only near capsize on a maxi-cat in recent history Hindley points out was on one of PlayStation's attempts on the Atlantic record. "If you speak to the guys on PlayStation they nearly pitchpoled it fully crewed with an extremely experienced crew on board. If you take that example – travelling at fantastically high speed, running as deep as they could with as little sail as they could and nearly flipped it over, someone might argue it needed those extra big bows putting on [ PlayStation was lengthened by 20ft soon after].
"The contrary argument to that is if they can’t design it right first time and they need that sort of experience then that could happen again. And it is a learning game in big multihulls. They learned and acted upon it. But who’s to say that won’t happen again? What’s to say that a tight box rule 80ft multihull in the Southern Ocean was running as deep as it possibly could and experienced the same sort of thing?"

Perhaps the main issue concerning potential skippers is how would you race a maxi-cat at the same level as you would a maxi-monohull? Well the simple fact is you can't as sailing-wise the two boats are chalk and cheese. Racing a maxi-cat, or at least one with a decent power to weight ratio, with the foot perpetually to the floor will result in a capsize, so you have to back off and take into account that flipping the boat will not cause you to win. Saying this some Volvo/Whitbread skippers have already experienced this aboard VO60s - remember Paul Cayard's admissions at the end of the first Southern Ocean leg in the 1997/8 race when he said he was going to have to back off for the first time in his life or risk harming the crew.

Another consideration in the multihull/monohull argument is that size for size multihulls are more impressive - whether it is press photographs of them flying a hull or simply tied up at the dock. "If I showed you 10 multihulls of the same size compared to 10 monohulls then of course, yes the multihulls are going to look more impressive. You then ask yourself how many multihulls are you going to get on the start and how many monohulls are we going to get? Does it make any difference whether we choose a monohull or a multihull to get numbers on the start line – I don’t know."

"But then there is another counter argument that you don’t have to have as many multihulls on the start line as you with a multihull because they are so much more impressive that you could have the same return with less boats. And that could well be true too."

To achieve the cost reductions Hindley thinks it is not possible to stay with the existing Volvo Ocean 60. "You can take off the Code Zeros and reduce the number of sails and take away the stacking – and you’re trying to tell me that is exciting? You show me a sport that is vehicle driven where the cars or the bikes don’t advance in technology year by year."

Two other issues Hindley feels they are close to nailing. "With weather routing there are four options," he says. "One is no internet and weather routing - very difficult to police, a bit of a backward step. Second option is to do what we did last time. That makes it easy for us because the rules are written - very expensive for the teams in satellite time on the internet, not fair if you don’t have a lot of money. Third option – on shore routing so there is no need to surf the internet, but if you ask Ellen what her phone bill was for the transatlantic race where routing was allowed – it is still very expensive and instead of them employing 2 or 3 shoreside routers, you perhaps could have so much money you employ an entire bureau of meteorology.

"Or there is a fourth option we are considering very seriously is that Volvo consider providing the weather for each team and they have no internet access. They know where the weather is going to come from, they know what sites it will be and we send them the raw data and an analysis."

Hindley admits this could change the navigation game, but at a saving estimated to be around $100,000 per month in satcom costs the teams might be willing to accept this. "There is the argument that that is a backward step in technology - if people can surf the internet that is a big positive for the technology providers. But we are sending video via satellite and that is far more technology-hungry than surfing the internet will ever be."
The other issue is the scoring and Hindley is quite excited about the new format for this which is "a variation on what has gone before. It is much more rounded and will give massive media return." This is likely to include scoring for in-port racing, etc.

Finally Volvo are looking at ways of increasing sponsor's benefits and developing the class by running other events. Mooted some months ago was the possibility of a trans-Pac race taking in California and Japan and it would seem to make sense to key into other events such as the Fastnet, the Sydney-Hobart and other events to form a kind of Volvo Championship scoring system.

"Volvo is very pro-active in trying to keep the race alive and we do want the interim period to be filled with activity that can be related to the Volvo Ocean Race," says Hindley. "You could have a feeder series, testing series, a sponsor that could be interested could try it out with small amounts of money to put their toe in the water to see what it is like. You’d be gaining media exposure and training time for your team at minimal expense and at the same time it is very good for Volvo and the sailing community."

Glenn Bourke has now presented the options to the Volvo board and Hindley says that the decision will be made by them although they are heavily guided by their recommendations. "At the end of the day the $27 million investment from Volvo should buy you some part of the decision making process as to what you want and what you certainly don’t want."

He says that once the decision has been made it will be a relatively quick job to put the pieces in place. "We know what we're going to say because we’ve worked up all the models and we can slot all the model figures in and that won’t take very long at all. What we've got to do between now and February is to get the presentation together so that we know we’ve covered all the angles. We need to turn the jigsaws pieces into the picture we’re going to explain to everyone in February."

At present Hindley says there are 33-34 parties interested in taking part in the next Volvo Ocean Race, although how many of these will make it through remains to be seen.

For a man who back in 2000 could not contain himself over the prospect of sailing big cats, Hindley is being remarkably level-headed. We wait until February for the official announcement.