Race to the start line

James Boyd was in Qatar at the weekend to see how Tracy Edwards' Oryx Quest was shaping up

Compared to the silkily smooth running of some major regattas, the build-up to the Oryx Quest, Tracy Edwards' non-stop round the world race, was in chaotic state when we visited Doha this weekend. Of the four maxi-multihulls due to take part only three out of four had so far turned up. Of the three in Doha's harbour only one, Tony Bullimore's Team Daedelus had made it to her officially appointed berth off the Oryx Quest race village on Doha's Corniche.

Although sold to a new but so far anonymous owner, a sponsor has only just been found to enable Edwards' former Maiden to compete in the Oryx Quest (now that the boats have arrived in Doha other sponsors are expected to step in prior to Saturday's start). The new backer, the Doha Asian Games Organising Committee, announced at the official opening of the Oryx Quest race village on Sunday night, has resulted in a modest name change of the maxi-cat from Qatar 2006 to Doha 2006 both names promoting the Asian Games, a sports event second only in size to the summer Olympics itself, being hosted by Qatar next year. So far Doha 2006 has been unable to make it off her berth at the Marriott hotel as her 'supreme team' work hurriedly to put her back together after her major refit, believed to be the first on a race boat in this part of the world, was turned around in just 34 days. At the time of writing among the items she was still lacking were a starboard daggerboard, mainsail battens and crew oilskins.

Team foulweather gear was also lacking on Team Daedelus. Meanwhile Olivier de Kersauson has been moaning to anyone who will listen about his maxi-trimaran Geronimo being moored in Doha's commercial harbour. Because this is a high security area he and his crew have to wait 30 minutes to have their papers checked whenever they want access to the boat. Various official looking and heavily stamped paperwork in Arabic has been flying around over the weekend in an attempt to allow sponsors and press access to the French trimaran this week. De Kersauson is also still seething from being stopped by heavily armed Iranians on a gunboat as he and his crew were delivering Geronimo to Qatar.



With the start of the Oryx Quest looming this Saturday Cheyenne finally made it to Doha today following her hurried shipping from Rotterdam to Dubai where skipper David Scully and a large team have been rushing to restep her towering mast before sailing to the start. Cheyenne's owner Steve Fossett isn't racing in the Oryx Quest due to commitments to his latest aviation record attempts.

...the upshot of all this is yes, everything is late and, yes, there are teething problems when it comes to bringing a round the world yacht race to Qatar. This is the first time a major ocean race has set off from and finished in the Gulf and having four of the world's largest not to mention widest racing yachts turning up in a bureaucracy-heavy Qatar is having a similar effect on local officials as if a family of awkwardly-sized Martians descended upon London.

An example is the now familiar conversation at Doha's Customs House when it comes to teams bringing 'temporary imports' into the country. Theoretically this should not be a problem, except when the Customs officers come to fill out their paperwork - where is the boat's next port of call? Erm, Qatar.

The fact is Tracy Edwards has pulled off an incredible feat. As a woman operating in a typically male-dominated business environment in the Arab world, Edwards has managed to persuade the Qatari government and other corporate sponsors to back her event. She has managed this despite some costly broadsides from a rival race organiser, near financial melt down not to mention a considerable amount of litigation against her. Yet, thanks to the efforts of her and her team a completely virgin territory has been persuaded to open its doors to our sport. And come Saturday we will have a round the world yacht race on a new course, negotiating waters few have ever raced through, with a $1 million purse that will be fought over by four of the world's fastest boats. Quite a result.

"Bringing four big boats here and starting a yacht race here - the logistics make my head hurt. It is just unbelievable," admits Edwards looking increasingly happy every second that ticks by between now and Saturday's start. "If people had told me how difficult it was going to be… well, it makes Maiden look like a doddle. There were so many things thrown us which we’ve had to deal with and we’re only trying to organise a yacht race! But we’ve got through and we’re here."

In the autumn there had been talk of postponing the start of the race in order to allow more time for the teams to get prepared. However the first available start date after 5 February was 3 March. "Olivier said 'I’m not going around Cape Horn then' and you have to respect that. We ummed and ahhed about it and in the end everyone said stick with it. However when you have a deadline somehow people get to it."

Edwards has been in Qatar two years now and says she is just about getting the hang of how 'the system' works here, how best to steer a path through the complex local politics and bureaucracy.

Fortunately she has some powerful allies most notably in Qatar's Crown Prince, Sheikh Tammin Bin Hamad Bin Khalifa Al-Thani. She found another that resulted late last year in her switching her interface with the Qatari government from Qatar Sports International to the Qatar Marine Sports Federation. President of the QMSF is the amiable Shiekh Hassan bin Jabor Al Thani, a kindred spirit who races competitively in Formula One offshore powerboats. With the Lamborghini team Sheikh Hassan finished third in last year's world championship. "He is used to doing logistics for his team, he is used to facing difficult problems, he raised his own money and he totally understood the potential problems we had very close on the horizon," says Edwards of the Sheikh. "We met with him and it has been brilliant. I went in [to QMSF] two nights ago and every single person was working on our event!"

While at present the logistics of operating in Qatar are a nightmare, Edwards believes that they can only get better. Aside from the lessons learned from the present Oryx Quest, the government is particularly keen to ensure the smooth running of next year's Asian Games to the extent that laws are set to be changed to expediate this. Edwards says that this legislation will also oil the wheels of future events she runs out of Qatar.

Since September Edwards has also been able to rustle up what is believed to be a fairly substantial amount of money to help each boat get to the start line. These funds have once again come from an offshoot of the Qatar government. Edwards won't reveal how much this is worth to each team, but says "it is a Qatar government body and it was within their remit to help us. It is a sponsorship deal - they will get branded on our boats and we be including them in all our marketing."

Unfortunately this deal was not closed until the end of November. By this time it was too late to get the still broken bow on Cam Lewis' Team Adventure fixed, nor was it possible to get the third of this series, Offshore Challenges' rig-less Kingfisher II, together in time. "It wrankles me that we didn’t managed to get Kingfisher II because Mark [Turner] and I worked extremely hard on that," says Edwards.

In the sailing world paying boat owners/skippers to take part in a yacht race is very much a new precident. Edwards fights her corner (something she is good at): "It is ground breaking and I hope it is seen as that. I have heard people saying ‘oh, she is paying people to get to the start line’. But why is that wrong? It is fleet sponsorship. When we raised the money for the event we said rather than raising money just for us it should go to the boats. It makes so much common sense to me that you should do that. Why should they have to pay to come and do something? You wouldn’t get a tennis player paying to go to Wimbledon." We look forward to other race organiser's thoughts on this...

While Edwards has obviously been concentrating on the Oryx Quest her thoughts have also progressed on her next event, the Quest Qatar - round the world with stops, again for the world's largest fastest multihulls and monohulls. At present she is contemplating moving the start date on by a year. "It is the end of 2006 at the moment, but we have a lot of enquiries about moving it to October 2007.

"We are bringing out the Multiplast guys here to the start because we have had interest from people in the region who want to put teams together for the next event which is fantastic news and it would be nice to give people the chance to build the next generation of multihulls. If it was 2006 it would be tight as they would have to have the money now.

"There is also an interesting mix of these big monohulls now. People are building them and wondering what to do with them. We've had a lot of enquiries from people who have built these boats and may only do two legs but would like to see their boat doing it."

Edwards has been liasing with the organisers of the Asian Games who also feel that seguying from their event straight into the Quest Qatar as was originally planned might be a bad idea.

The course of Quest Qatar is still to be finalised, but with Mari Cha IV owner Bob Miller and Frank Pong, both based in Hong Kong and interested in her event that is certain to be one of the stops. Otherwise, Edwards says, the stopovers will be largely based upon wherever the commercial interests of Qatar lie.

Beyond 2006/7 Edwards is expecting her non-stop and stopping events to be held regularly every alternate two years. There is also discussion about the possibility of a points scheme to include her Qatar-based events as well as records. "From a sponsorship point of view it's a case of giving people a bit more to offer their sponsors rather than ‘here’s an event’ and that’s it for another four years," she explains

Another admission that Edwards makes is that from the next event she hopes to stand back from the event organisation side with a view to managing a team instead. Her team includes Event Manager Kels 'Duracell Bunny' Gilkison, Operations Director Mike Knowles-Smith who's previous jobs have included managing the withdrawal of the British armed forces from Hong Kong and the familiar figure of Race Director Alan Green. "I don’t know if I’d do the next event, but I’d certainly love to run a team again. We have got so many great people in the event - they don’t need me. Once the money is in I’m a bit defunct really."

Later this week we will examine the course and the line-up of the Oryx Quest.