Volvo Ocean Race 2008 announced

James Boyd speaks to Volvo Ocean Race CEO Glenn Bourke about plans for the future

Having struggled to get the 2005-6 Volvo Ocean Race off the ground with a new boat, a new rule and a new course and a new race management team, so this time round the organisers of the premier fully crewed round the world race have made sure they are faster out of the blocks with their planning and progress for their next event.

This morning in Gothenberg, moments before the race boats are due to cross the final finish line, so Volvo Ocean Race CEO Glenn Bourke has announced the broad brush format for the next race.

In essence:

- the new race will take place in 2008-9, ie in two and a half years time and not four.
- the new route will start in the Med and visit the Middle East and Asia.
- an announcement about a start port and two confirmed entries will take place imminently.

"The race hasn’t been in a stronger position," Bourke told thedailysail. "We’ve had an audience of 1.6 billion who have watched the TV programming and we still have our documentaries to come. It has been spectracularly succesful for us. Volvo are happy and committed and looking forward to the next race."

The cycle for the race has been reduced from four to three years in order to maintain some continuity between events that previously has been sorely lacking between races. With the new format it is expected teams will spend one year planning and raising money, one year designing building and testing and then one year for the race itself.

And of the route? "It was driven by the teams and other sponsors we’ve spoken to," says Bourke. "The future of this kind of sailing will live and die on sponsorship. Entries are really important and the people providing the entries are telling us this is what we should do. It will be a different challenge and there will be a broader cross section of conditions thrown at the sailors. But for us it is most important that there is a momentum and a grounds well of support for the race. This way ensures a good starting point in terms of entries. That was something we didn’t have for this race."

While the key markets the race should visit have been more or less decided the course itself is far from finalised. While the race will start in the Med Bourke cannot say at this stage whether it will reach the Middle East via Suez or the Cape of Good Hope. He says he is leaving it in the hands of Volvo Ocean Race meteorologist Chris Bedford to make suggestions. While the passage from the Middle East to Asian is relatively obvious how the course gets from Asia back to the Atlantic is also undecided. If the race goes as far north as Japan then it would make sense to take it to the west coast of the US and then round Cape Horn. Bourke says he will certainly look again at trying to get the race to finish in St Petersburg as he did this time. What seems certain is that for the first time ever the Volvo Ocean Race will not include the traditional lap of the Southern Ocean.

The ports the race will visit, save for the start, also have to be chosen and Bourke says that the policy they instigated this time of linking stopovers with teams ie ABN AMRO and Rotterdam, Brasil 1 with Rio, Pirates with the US stops and Brunel with Melbourne, etc worked well and they will be looking to do this again. "That model is a good one as it creates a 10 fold increase in the interest from the nations involved," says Bourke.

This announcement is a modification on the plan Volvo were originally mooting - of having the round the world race on the traditional course and filling in the gaps in the calendar and most importantly the markets sponsors wanted to visit by additional events such as the Volvo Baltic Race and the Volvo Pacific Race.

While Volvo it seems are only interested in or perhaps only have the resource to organise one major event, we understand that some of the teams - presumably Ericsson and ABN AMRO - have been discussing the possibility of a Volvo Open 70 circuit, taking in some of the classic offshore races around the globe in key markets for their backers. Volvo themselves already have programs going in various countries around the world in different class from the Optimists upwards to the 70s and Extreme 40 catamarans.

In terms of the Volvo Open 70 rule itself, no changes have been announced yet, but Bourke says they expect to tweak it a little. He is keen on the maximum bulb weight idea to reduce the incentive of teams to strip weight out of the boat itself. "We’ll look at minimum hull height and at the pin position [for the canting keel] and appendages a little bit. We think that most of the criteria is pretty good now. The horsepower to righting moment is pretty good."

When it comes to crew numbers Bourke says that they might go one stage further in reducing it - perhaps to eight, but encouraging the use of systems to make the boat easier to sail for the crew such as roller furling sails. He is also keen on the idea of reducing crew costs by making it mandatory for a certain number of the crew to be under 25 or 30.

With less crew Bourke is also contemplating the boats carrying less sails during races. Despite the inability of any rule to limit how much teams can spend on their sail wardrobe, he still believes that a limited sail wardrobe will help the smaller teams. It will also make life easier on the crews.

The in-port races have been considered a success but Bourke says they have been getting increasingly short - starting off at four hours, while the Rotterdam in port race was around 2 hours long. "We might go for a 1 hour long or 1 hour 20 minute long race next time," says Bourke, who is also adamant that there should only be one in port race. "For the elite sailing fraternity, three races is better than one, but for the average Joe or corporate guest, it is too confusing. We want a clear indication at the end of the day of who won."

At the press conference Jan Barents Heukensfeldt Jansen of ABN AMRO has said "we would like to keep the boats racing until January 2008. The plans will be announced next week in the Netherlands. For surfe we will sail in Europe and other places." Bourke adds that VO70s, unlike the VO60s, can also compete for line honours in other major yacht races. ABN AMRO is expected to make an announcement confirming their continued interest in the Volvo Ocean Race when their boats return to Holland on Thursday, while Ericsson are expected to make a similar announcement tomorrow.

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