Volvo bound

We talk to Australian campaigner Grant Wharington about his plans to take part in the next Volvo Ocean Race

Grant Wharington is a name that we will be hearing a lot more of over the next few years.

From Mornington, 40km southeast of Melbourne, Wharington was to be seen cruising around the Solent a couple of years ago in a green maxi called Wild Thing and took part in the America's Cup Jubilee regatta. Since then Wharington has been breaking into the big time. He launched a maxi boat line honours contender for the Rolex Sydney-Hobart Race, that in the closing moments of 2003 did its job arriving first into Hobart. Now Wharington has stated his intention to enter the next Volvo Ocean Race.

Wharington has raced all his life. During his chiildhood growing up in Mornington this was on the local Sabo dinghies before graduating up to Cherubs and Flying Dutchmen.

He attempted an Olympic campaign with Nigel Abbott in 1990. "We won the States titles and the Nationals and went over to the 1990 Worlds in Newport, Rhode Island and I was crewing and I was just too light and short unfortunately - we just weren’t up to weight. We were really competitive in the light and very heavy air - our boat handling was fantastic, it was just a bit hard in the moderate air. I decided to give Nigel a better chance and get a bigger crew and a stepped off. Then of course the Olympic trials were in 5 knots!"

Since then his keelboat sailing has largely focussed on Etchells and Wharington has competing in the Worlds in Sydney where he came 12th and was seventh in Lymington. He is currently preparing for the Etchells Worlds when they come to Mooloolaba in July.
However it is offshore where Wharington's real metier lies. Previously he has owned an Inglis 47. He bought this in 1989 and broke the Melbourne to Hobart record. In 1991 they sold the boat and bought another which they extended to 50ft. In this Wharington raced the fully crewed Brisbane to Osaka race and the following year won the two handed Melbourne-Osaka race sailing with Scott Gilbert.

His first maxi, a Murray Burns Dovell design, was launched in 1998 as a 70 footer and subsequently was extended to 80ft. This boat was originally built as a Hobart race line honours winner, but Wharington says it was built at a transistion time. "Realising boats were getting narrower we thought it would be a good time to get a new boat and get the latest technology. That boat had a carbon deck, but it wasn’t all carbon and it was just a little bit short and it was in that transition before water ballast came in. We built the boat with water ballast but for the 1998 and 1999 Hobart race we weren’t allowed to use it."

And so came the new maxi, the latest Rolex Sydney-Hobart race line honours victor, a slender 100 footer with a canting keel, electric winches and heavily rating optimised two spreader rig (to read chapter and verse about Skandia - read our interview with her designer Don Jones here)

The boat is sponsored by Skandia with whom Wharington has slowly been developing a relationship - they initially paid some money towards his old maxi. "Sponsorship has been difficult to get in Australia and we haven’t really had a product that has been worthy of having a big budget sponsor and obviously this boat has been very good for us, knowing that it would be a very high profile boat, an attention grabber and record breaker and that was our priority for this boat."

The Skandia maxi recently took part in Skandia Geelong Race Week with other Skandia sailors Sam Davies and Nick Moloney in the crew. Wharington says that she will be taking part in all the coastal races in Australia over the course of this year. He would also like to make an attempt on the non-stop around Australia record, although for any record breaking attempts the boat will make there is the complication of her electric winches - specifically banned under WSSRC rules. The present record of 37 days was set last year by a boat called Kaz. Wharington reckons Skandia could drop the record to 21 days when they make their attempt in March or April.

In 2005 he plans to bring the boat to the northern hemisphere and race her in the Rolex Transatlantic Race followed by the Rolex Fastnet Race and the Maxi Worlds in Sardinia. However there is an ulterior motive behind his maxi .

"We are very involved in putting our Volvo program together and we wanted to make sure we had some options in terms of sponsorship and being able to use this boat as a link to our Volvo program and to be able to market the whole package including this boat," says Wharington. "We see this as a useful corporate entertainment vehicle to be able to use in conjunction with the Volvo boat and probably ship it around to stopovers as well."

Wharington had tried to get a campaign together for the 1997 Whitbread with John Bertrand, but says the timing was all wrong and it proved impossible to get the money. Even now getting the money is going to prove difficult and he expects that part of his budget will come from Europe.

"For one reason or another the timing hasn’t been right previously. I think now it definitely is and winning the Hobart race has been great for us and I think that stands us in good stead for getting some corporate partners involved who want to be in that event."

This is no pie in the sky idea. With a maxi boat already to his name, Wharington is already well on his way to securing his budget. "We’ve currently got enough to do the design and build the boat and get us to the start line, so we are probably one third of our way through the funding, but there are crew wages and shipping and other issues which rack up to a hell of a lot of money. We don’t want to be sailing the boat to the start line we want to ship it to round Europe. Building it here and training here and shipping it over and obviously paralleling with the maxi."

While Wharington has previously funded his boats himself thanks to his property development business in Mornington, but this will not be possible for the Volvo Ocean Race campaign. "I won’t be funding the short fall myself. My business isn’t going that well! We’ve not looking to make an enormous profit out of the thing, we just want to run it as a professional campaign and pay the right people the right money and run it as slick as it can be."

The maxi will be used as a combination of corporate hospitality support vessel for the Volvo Ocean 70 while also taking part in events on behalf of his Volvo sponsor in its own right.

Aside from being a useful addition to the Volvo Ocean 70 program, the maxi is also proving to be a valuable test platform. "We have been very happy that we have custom-built hydraulic systems and canting keels and retractible engine drives, which have been very good for us to prove that our knowledge and ability to put it together and have it function perfectly has been well proven here. It is all good technology to take forward into the Volvo program for us."

While the campaign is led by Wharington, old sea dog and former News Corp crewman Barney Walker is running the technical side of the campaign while the financial side is being managed by businessman Matt Allen, who is better known in Aussie sailing circles for racing his Farr 52 Ichi Ban.

At present few further details are forthcoming. They are talking to designers including Farr Yacht Design and Owen Clarke. Wharington imagines that the boat will be built in Australia and for her to be Australian registered but he is smart enough to realise that in getting sponsorship flexibility is the key and anything could change.

Wharington says that he will start building their boat on 1 November leading them 10 months to carry out design and R&D work. He is keen on the idea of joining forces in a limited way with another team, although this type of behaviour isn't part of Volvo Ocean Race culture. "We want to do female tooling for the boat. I think there will be a lot of benefit of updating these boats with foils and rigs, so it may be that we end up doing female tooling and some other syndicates may talk to us about our doing them a hull shell and a deck and they go and do their own foils and rigs. These boats are just going to be darts really and I think it could save a lot of syndicates a lot of money if you went down that track with a good design and have three or four boats that are exactly the same hull shape, but varying appendages."

Wharington is excited by the new boat, particularly following his experience from the last race when he sailed the Sydney to Auckland leg with Knut Frostad on board the sluggish djuice. "I think the new rule is fantastic. The old boats were like trying to ride a rollercoaster. They were so suped up from their original shape and design and the whole thing about the Volvo race is positive to me, the extra size of the boats bringing them up to date with canting keels and multiple fins and dropping the displacement down dramatically and bringing in the short course racing - that is all positive in my opinion."

At this stage he hasn't really considered the crew. "There is an enormous amount of talent around and I don’t think there will be any problem getting the right people down the track especially now there are only nine people on board." Aside from Barney Walker the only which has crept up is Graham Taylor with whom he sails the Etchell.

While some people have been saying that nine people isn't enough for a bigger boat, Wharington is more philosophical. "I think people have got to realise that fitness is going to be a big thing and they have to have the best people to handle the boat. You could sail one on your own if you geared it properly, so I don’t think it is an issue that can’t be overcome. Nine - that’s what the rule is - just deal with it. It is all about sail handling systems and whether you have more furlers or whatever. It is just details which have to be got over."

We watch with interest.