More on the Pirates

We get the full story about the Volvo Ocean Race's exciting new entry

So a Volvo Open 70 (hopefully complete skull and crossbones spinnakers) with Keira Knightley on the bow and Capt' Jack Sparrow behind the wheel (or more likely cowering in the bilges) is due to be on the start line of November's fully crewed around the world race.

Sadly despite reports in the press that give this impression Vicky Lewis from Buena Vista International, the promoters and distributors of the long awaited Pirates of the Caribbean sequel tells us that there is only a small possibility that we will be seeing the film's stars around the boat. "People got a bit excited saying they’d be crewing the ship, but that's probably a bit unrealistic as we want to win the race and get professional sailors on there. But what is most likely is at the New York stopover, they’ll do some publicity around the boat and if we can get them on board then we’ll try and do that. We’ll just wait and see everyone’s availability. Perhaps in Portsmouth it is quite near the film’s release, so if we can get Keira Knightley there we will, but nothing is confirmed yet."

Allegedly Johnny Depp who plays the slightly camp but cowardly swaggering swashbuckler - a character that Depp in interviews has said is based on Rolling Stone guitarist Keith Richards - is a keen sailor and one suspects that if anyone is going to get involved with some in-port racing it will be him. "He is not trained to crew I shouldn’t think, but I’m sure he enjoys it," says Lewis. "It will depend upon schedules. I’m sure he has got lots of films lined up."

At present the actors are tied up shooting Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest in Los Angeles and the Caribbean.

Having an entry promoting the new Pirates film is an immense coup for the Volvo Ocean Race as this seems certain to prise the event out of the sports pages and place it squarely in the general news pages - something the event sorely needs. While singlehanded sailors such as Ellen and to a lesser extent Emma Richards and Mike Golding have been able to achieve main stream popularity in the press this has almost been at the cost of the fully crewed round the world race as it has transformed itself from the swashbuckling adventure it was in the early days of the Whitbread Round the World into a serious, and on occasion perhaps too serious, sports event.

One of the most interesting aspects of the Pirates entry is how it all came about and for this major adulation goes to the Volvo Ocean Race's head of sponsorship, Angus Buchanan, once upon a time nipper on Peter Blake and Robin Knox-Johnston's ENZA New Zealand.

"It came about from a discussion that we started having with Disney a year ago," recounts Buchanan. "We initiated that. It was originally a throw away idea. It was one of those madcap ideas that developed very rapidly due to the enthusiasm that caught underneath it and has literally ripped through. Anyone who has come into contact with this deal has been bitten by it over a period of a year to the announcement that we made." Buchanan says that he had no contacts with Disney prior to setting up the deal proving that on occasions cold calling can work for those attempting to beat a path through the sponsorship jungle. In fact most of the leg work was done not directly with Disney but with their agency Orchard in the UK and with Buena Vista.

Nor is the deal simply a case of Disney/Buena Vista stumping up the cash for a boat. Buchanan says it is a highly complex arrangement, involving a partnership between Volvo and Disney. "It has since evolved into an enormous global film marketing partnership, where Volvo will be leveraging the sequel and Disney will be entering a boat in the race." Volvo have had considerable involvement with the film industry prior to this, usually commissioning name film directors to work on their television advertisements.

Although an avid sailor with his own maxZ86 Pyewacket, Roy Disney, as some may have presumed, has not been involved with the deal as he is no longer formally part of the Disney empire.

In addition to Volvo and Disney's involvement, other brands, possibly other partners supporting the film's release, are also due to get involved with the project.

With the deal done and the announcement made so the race organisers are now stepping back and the Black Pearl, as the boat is to be known, will simply be another of the boats entered in the race. There is of course the worry that the Pirates boat will generate so much publicity that in media terms it will swamp the rest of the race. Still, this is a nice problem for Volvo to have to deal with.

What perhaps wasn't clear from the announcement earlier in the week is that the Pirates boat is not the sixth boat in the Volvo Ocean Race, but the seventh. Richard Brisius and Johan Salen's Swedish company Atlant, who in the past have been behind the EF and Assa Abloy campaigns are now responsible for building two not just one boat. While their first boat will be Swedish (although many of her crew are believed to be British, with presumably former Assa Abloy skipper Neal MacDonald the first choice to be skipper), the second boat for the Pirates will be an American team with an American skipper.

At present the skipper of the Black Pearl hasn't been appointed and the obvious choice has to be former EF Language skipper and winner of the 1997-8 round the world race, Paul Cayard. According to Buchanan Disney want a race winning skipper who is a good communicator. In this respect Cayard fits the bill perfectly. And if not him - then who? Dee Smith has the required goatee while Chris Larsen and Kenny Read are perhaps a little too clean cut for the role. Then again Lisa MacDonald also holds an American passport... It is a shame that husband Neal isn't American as of this group he certainly has the best swashbuckling potential.

The choice of skipper will be down to a combination of Disney and Atlant and an announcement is most likely to be made in May.

In Sweden Atlant have gone from a position of being uncertain if they would be involved in the forthcoming Volvo Ocean Race to managing two of its seven boats. "About a year ago we had one company that we thought that it could fit with so we gave it a try and that’s when we started," recounts Richard Brisius. "That went very well over the summer and we worked with designers and builders and then that fell through in September. And then this thing started almost immediately after that."

While Atlant have experience of running two boat teams in the past with EF, this will be the first time that they will be running two separate campaigns. "Time will be a big factor in this," continues Brisius. "If there is any possible two boat benefits to be had out of it then we’ll do it. Otherwise we’ll just support both these teams to give them the best possible chances to succeed."

Cost-wise Brisius says there is not a lot of difference between a Volvo Ocean 60 campaign and a campaign for this present race, despite the organisers attempts to reduce crew, sails and the duration of the race.

"The cost of the boat is slightly higher due to them being bigger boats," says Brisius. "I think the cost of maintenance will be higher. With new boats you need to repair more and you need to spend more time developing them. The Assa Abloy boats came out almost perfect from the yard and not much broke and all the systems were the same from the start, so they were pretty low on maintenance."

The cost-saving measures Volvo have implimented will only have limited effect he believes. "It will save a little bit but not so much because crew wages go up because we want the best crew with the best experience and they want more money than last time. And the sails - possibly you save there, but someone told me that just the weight of the sail wardrobe is the same, it’s just there’s less of them. Then we try to spend more time on development..."

Compared to the last Volvo Ocean Race Brisius says that there is also the worry that because the Volvo Open 70 is new no one will know whether they have a "dog or a winner" until after the start. "Also as it is an unknown technically, things can break. How will the keels work when they are pushed very hard around the world? We don’t know. There are all these elements of risk but that is why we like this."

While both Atlant's boats are currently under construction at Green Marine they are being project managed separately, with Jason Carrington soley involved in the first of Atlant's boats. The first boat and the Black Pearl are due launch in fast succession in early July. Although Brisius will reveal little about the design other than that it is from Farr Yacht Design, although if skippers get involved soon enough they may be able to influence modifications to the rig and to the all-important multiple appendages.