Moose introduces his crew

Andy Rice talks to Mike Sanderson about the range of qualities he was looking for in his fledgling ABN AMRO crew

At last week’s press conference in Amsterdam to announce the team for ABN AMRO’s Volvo Ocean Race Challenge, Mike Sanderson looked like the cat that got the cream. ‘Moose’, as he is better known on the professional racing circuit, got his break into the offshore scene thanks to Grant Dalton, and the 33-year-old Kiwi seems to share many of Dalts’ leadership qualities. Responsibility sits easily on his shoulders and he says that being skipper in this Volvo Race will feel no different to the times he has done the Whitbread as a watch captain or as one of the new boys.

Sanderson has got all but two of his ‘A’ boat team in place, and he was confident that he would be able to announce the other two very shortly. While there is a wealth of Whitbread experience in his team, it is clear Sanderson has looked for a more rounded look to the team, both in terms of age and sailing backgrounds. Stan Honey and Rob Greenhalgh represent the two ends of the spectrum. Honey, a 49-year-old Californian, has huge experience in fast-boat navigation aboard monohulls like Pyewacket and multihulls like PlayStation/Cheyenne. Sanderson was delighted to have secured his services. “I’m aware of Stan being on lists of target navigation jobs for at least the last three editions of this race,” he said. “I’m deeply honoured that he took my approach so seriously. There’s not much out there that Stan hasn’t done. It would be fair to say you couldn’t ask for a more ideal navigator for the Volvo.”

On the other hand, 27-year-old Rob Greenhalgh has never been offshore for longer than a Fastnet. But the young Brit is there for very different reasons - for his skiff-sailing skills. “I always said we would take one wildcard, a guy who hadn’t done the race, a guy we thought we showed fantastic promise,” Sanderson explained. “I didn’t expect that guy would be a double world champion. There is no doubt you can see a similarity between driving a boat fast with guys on the trapeze with driving a boat fast with the keel canted. I’m looking forward to Rob teaching us lots of new tricks. I’m sure he will go on to be one of our fastest helmsmen.”

Sanderson describes watch leader and fellow Kiwi Brad Jackson as “my 2 i-c”, his second-in-command. “There wasn’t ever too much doubt that we would sail together. We’ve done two-handed together, America’s Cup, two Whitbreads... Most recently we’ve worked together on Mari Cha IV.” The other team members announced are experienced Kiwi round the worlders Tony Mutter and David Endean, and the two bowmen - Frenchman Jan Dekker and Irishman Justin Slattery.

Not a Dutchman among them, but the team’s managing director, Jan Berent Heukensfeldt Jansen, was keen to stress that a major goal of the Dutch bank’s sponsorship of a Volvo Ocean Race team was to be seen as an international - not simply a Dutch - bank. There may well be opportunities for representatives from the Netherlands on the second boat, which will comprise an international team of sailors under 30 years old, but sailing director Roy Heiner was keen to point out this was not a boat full of apprentices. Of the 1,300 applications he has received, many of them are from “experienced, highly qualified sailors”. Heiner said he was looking for “a certain amount of youth and enthusiasm which should help when the going is hard. Enthusiasm is an important part of the second boat.”

Although not quite the youngest on the A-boat, Greenhalgh is certainly the greenest where ocean racing is concerned. “Everyone knows I haven’t got a huge amount of experience in this type of sailing. But this is an awesome opportunity, I’m very excited about it. The Volvo Ocean Race was something I always wanted to do. It’s an important stepping stone in my career. I’ve been lucky. There are a lot of people out there who could get the ride but don’t. The aim now is to make sure I’m one of the best drivers and really pull my weight.” And he’s certainly got the weight to pull. It’s a measure of just how seriously he’s taking this opportunity that Greenhalgh has altered his body shape massively. “One of my biggest worries was whether I’d be strong enough for the job. So I’ve put on about 8kg, mostly muscle on the upper body. I was doing two hours a day in the gym, six days a week, before I came to Holland. Now I’m down to one hour a day, partly because there’s work to do on the boat.”

Greenhalgh has much to find out about himself on his first rounding of the planet, but he’s up for it. “I suppose I’ll have to get used to the whole thing of four hours sleep, and being piss wet through for two weeks. But the longest leg is probably three weeks, a week of which will only be in nasty stuff, so nothing too serious. Sleep patterns are probably more of a problem on a race like the Fastnet or a channel race where you never really get into a real watch system. With this you’re down for four hours. Any concerns I have are gone now. I’m just looking forward to going sailing.”

Sailing should come early in the new year, when Killian Bushe and his team of boatbuilders have completed construction on the Juan Kouyoumidjian design. The Volvo Ocean 70 is predicted to be light years faster, and Stan Honey believes the quickest route around the world could differ significantly from the ideal route for one of the old Volvo Ocean 60s. “It could be that you don’t need to dive so deep into the Southern Ocean. Speed might be sea-state limited. Cheyenne hardly had breeze over 30 knots [in her record-breaking journey around the world] because she could pick her lane. She can handle more breeze than that but she doesn’t need it to go fast. It could be the same with these boats. There could be more of a trade-off between sea state and wind state with these boats.”

With just 10 on board, the workload will be high and Sanderson has looked for a group of sailors that can multitask. “We’ll probably end up in some sort of rotation watch system. Our philosophy is to take as many trimmers and drivers as if we’d have had 14 guys, and we’ve decided we’re going to be the ones who grunt up and do the work. We’re not as big as we could be, nor as I expected we would be when I was looking to build the team, but we’ve certainly got a higher driving and trimming skills base than I had anticipated. We are going to start off with the navigator and skipper in a floating role. But I’ve worked out I don’t need a lot of sleep so I’ll be playing a very active role. I’ve got two very experienced watch captains, who have been three times round the world, and amongst them they have numerous wins.”

The last Volvo Ocean Race took a huge physical toll on the sailors, and Sanderson is aware of the risks but believes he has them covered. “We’ve got to keep 10 guys running at 100 per cent. We’ve been very careful with the design of the boat and the design of the interior, and the organisers have done some things with specifying the heads, and a minimum bunk size. And there is no water ballast so the interior is a nicer place to be. Hopefully the boys will be better looked after by the bigger boat, by fewer sails. And maybe even because of the speed of the boat we’ll see more tight luffed, tight trimmed sails that don’t require so much active trimming. It’s more down to the skill of the guys setting up the boat properly in the first place.”

There is still the question of how much food to take for the long legs. Too much, and you’re dragging excess weight down the course, but too little and the crew are running on empty. Sanderson comments: “There aren’t any minimum food requirements, but I think the lesson has been learned that you shouldn’t be losing weight during the race, and we’ve got to make sure our guys are in top notch condition when they hit the dock at the other end.”

There is the option of rotating crew members in and out of different legs of the race, but Mousse is aiming to avoid that. “My intention is very much to stay with the same core group. I want them all to think it’s their boat and their team and their project.” The one exception might be for the in-port racing, which accounts for 20 per cent of the points in this race. “If we can get someone to do a nicer job at steering the inshore races, we’ll get them on board. But there’s no point in just getting some big name in for the day, it’s got to be someone that we’ve worked with during the build-up. If we get someone in, that person will be involved in the whole testing and training programme.”