A Volvo Ocean Race without the Southern Ocean?

Editor James Boyd and readers of thedailysail ponder the next fully crewed round the world race

This morning in Gothenberg, Sweden the Volvo Ocean Race staged a press conference within Ericsson's local headquarters hosted by Volvo Ocean Race CEO Glenn Bourke, along with Leif Johansson, President of AB Volvo and CEO of Volvo Group and Fredrik Arp, President and CEO of Volvo Car Corporation.

A new course for the race has been proposed and although it is still in embryonic form, it seems likely it will look something like: starting in the south of Spain (Alicante has been mooted), down to the Middle East via the Suez Canal stopping possibly in Dubai, then on to India, and then all or any of Singapore, Qingdao and somewhere in Japan. Then across to the US West Coast (probably San Francisco), round the Horn to Brazil (probably Rio), back to Europe to probably Portugal (not visiting the US east coast, it should be noted), then maybe Liverpool, Rotterdam, Gothenberg and finishing in St Petersburg. As Glenn Bourke has said the stopover ports will be dictated by the teams that decide to compete. If Ericsson and ABN AMRO do indeed sign up for the next race for example, then it is almost certain that Gothenberg and Rotterdam will feature in the stopover list.

So what do we think of a Volvo Ocean Race that doesn't visit the Southern Ocean? We fully apreciate Glenn Bourke's desire to make the race as attractive for sponsors and this is a good plan, but we think he has gone too far down this route and may throw the baby out with the bath water in the process; ignoring the sports side of the event in favour of the commercial. The primary reason crews sail the Volvo Ocean Race is the opportunity to sail and better the unique conditions thrown up by the most dramatic stretch of water in the world - the Southern Ocean. This remains the ultimate challenge in oceanic racing. Racing through these waters should also produce the most dramatic media from the event. A Volvo Ocean Race without a serious helping of Southern Ocean is a little like taking the fences out of the Grand National and racing it at Cheltenham rather than Aintree. Or racing the 100m on an L-shape track because it passes a Coca Cola sign. Ok, enough sporting similes.

Or maybe we're being old fashioned? Maybe the Southern Ocean is now passe? At present it forms part of the race course for the Volvo, the Vendee Globe, the Velux 5 Oceans, the Barcelona World Race, the Global Challenge, part of the Clipper round the world race plus the newer Global Ocean Race (for the 40 and 50 footers) and yesterday's newly announced French singlehanded race for 16m one designs. May be it is time to take it somewhere new? However it will be hard to dub the Volvo Ocean Race as an 'extreme' yacht race if a majority of the conditions the boats experience are in the sub-10 knot range.

For at least the first third of the race track being proposed will be a horrible one to sail. Going through Suez and down to the Gulf exposes the boats to piracy and into an area notorious for its light conditions. Similar conditions can be expected on the leg across the Indian Ocean from the Middle East to Asia. There is the prospect of more piracy as well as prolonged Doldrums conditions if the boats are made to tackle the Malacca Strait around Malaysia.

The passage up the Asian coast from Malaysia to Japan is equally not an ideal course for a yacht race. Malaysia is at 1degN and you immediately have to go through a Doldrums-like area of yet more light breeze. There is also an unimaginable amount of maritime traffic to contend with in this area. "There are loads of fishing boats," confided to us an individual who recently sailed these waters. "I couldn’t begin to tell you how many there are. I have never seen anything like it. There is also a huge amount of commercial shipping."

Weather-wise there is a northeasterly flowing current in this region, not dissimilar to the Gulf Stream. Fortunately the boats would be sailing with this but there is also the strong possibility of encountering prolonged boat-breakingly choppy wind against current conditions. On the passage up to Japan the boats will cross an area where depressions typically form and this, the proximity to the coast and the warm current make for particularly volatile conditions.

While there may be compelling arguments to compress the Volvo Ocean Race into a three year cycle rather than four, we feel this is a decided arrogant move by Volvo, taking no heed of what else is going on in the sailing world. Glenn Bourke counters this by maintaining there will always be a conflict with something - at present the Volvo Ocean Race is conflicting with the Football World Cup. Running the race in 2008-9 means that it now directly conflicts with the Vendee Globe and this surely will not favour either event from a media perspective. Taking the perspective of the British press: the Vendee Globe is on what many consider a 'proper' round the world course and will have at least 20 boats competing in it. Will the Volvo, almost certainly without a British boat in it, get a look in in the British press compared to the Vendee which will have at least three? It is unlikely. The British market obviously is small fry compared to the rest of the world, but is an example.

While making the race commercially more appealing we feel the same result could have been easily achieved had Volvo stuck to their original plan of continuing to hold the round the world race on the more or less traditional course and reached new markets with events such as the Volvo Pacific Race and a round Europe race. This would give the Volvo Open 70s a circuit, with the possibility of having their own championship. This surely would be a better way of giving continuity to sponsors? ABN AMRO and Ericsson are believed to be undertaking a program of events over the course of this year and next around Europe and the US, so clearly there is a desire within the teams for something like this to happen. Yet, for some reason this program is being organised by the teams themselves and not Volvo.

What are your views on this? Contact us here .

movistar skipper Bouwe Bekking sends us this:

I think it would be a disaster not to go around Cape of Good and the Horn. Why is the race so popular with the public? Because they love these landmarks, the Southern Ocean and the drama that can happen out there.

The race of course has to be a commercial success, and adding an Arab country, Far East is good, but going twice to the USA?

My proposal would be:

Start begin October 2008:

1) Spain to Cape Town first week of October, about 6700 nm, arrival 20-23 October
Spain - 16 days stopover, in port race

2) Cape Town-Dubai, leaving 10 Nov, about 4900 nm
Dubai, arrival 28 -31 November, 14 days stopover, in port race

3) Dubai - Malaysia or Indonesia, 4500 miles
10 days stopover, in port race, leaving 15 December
Arrival around the 1 January

4) Malaysia or Indonesia - China, Shanghai roughly 1,800 miles
10 days, plus in port race, leaving around the 12th

5) China-Japan, Yokohama, arrival around 16 January, 1100 miles
1 week in port race.

6) Japan - Australia, Brisbane or Newcastle, leaving 23 January, 4500 miles
Arrival around 10 February, 7 days in Aussie including in port

7) Australia - Brazil 8,000 miles , departure 17 February
10 days Brazil, including in port

8) Brazil-USA 5,400 miles, leaving 21 March
10 days USA,

9) USA - France 3,400 miles, leaving 20 April
7 days France

10 ) France-England 240 miles, departure saturday, arrival Sunday, in port race

11) England - Holland, 240 miles, departure next Saturday, arrival Sunday, in port race

12) Holland - Germany, 240 miles, departure next saturday, arrival Sunday, in port race

13) Germany - Sweden, 300 miles. departure next saturday, arrival Sunday, finish beginning June.

The last part of the race are short legs to guarantee that the overall winner is not known well before, and mainly to reach the key markets in Europe. Of course it is easy to incorporate countries like Denmark & Norway in case there are any entries from these regions. Short legs will be easier with the time planning for arrivals.

Do the in port races in Europe pnon Friday late afternoon, early evening, as most Europeans works either four days or only 35 hours and have the Friday afternoon off.
Then leaving on the Saturday, after doing a short pro-am event - this 'guarantees' an arrival on Sunday afternoon in the next port.

Diane Swintal from the Hatch Design Group in Costa Mesa, California writes:

A Volvo Ocean Race that does not go to the Southern Ocean does not deserve to be called the Volvo Ocean Race. Period.

It would be sad, but not disastrous, to skip the East Coast of the US, but we’d love to have a stopover here on the Left Coast.


Figaro sailor Sam Davies writes:

Join it up with the Barcelona race - put a second class in - the VO70 (still crewed, but less crew, furlers allowed etc). Then they will have to race the VO70 reduced crew it might even be possible to race an all-female team (or at least have girls on board without being penalised???) Then you have more boats for the Barcelona race, and a Volvo that takes less time!

John Stapleton from London writes:

There has to be a fully crewed RTW race, taking in as many oceans as possible - especially the Southern. It really is one of the premier sailing events. If the next is in three years the VO70 will still be good, with maybe some minor tweeks. By then, everyone should have an ABN1 or better and all the reliability and speed differences of this race will be forgotten. They really are impressive boats. Watching them come up the Solent in 20-25 knots after crossing the Atlantic was something special. The first round of W60s was also a bit patchy, but settled after that. Now that a lot has been learned, the costs should come down. Anything the organisers can do towards this would be an advantage. Teams representing clubs/nationalities might help to boost interest for the wider public.

Matt Armstrong writes:

With regard to the Volvo race, if you want good racing and want to keep the cost down why not simply give everyone the same hull to which, teams can then add spars sail programmes, keels rudders etc to a class rule but their design. In this way, teams would save a fortune on design and build, 2 boat programmes would become a thing of the past as all the hulls would be identical and we end up with a much closer race that isn’t won two months prior to the race finish.

From Rotterdam Harry de Jong writes:

Whatever the teething problems with the VO70s, they are impressive and seem to be the fastest monohulls around at the moment so they are here to stay and I frankly don't care about the safety concerns. That's all part of the deal. There is just one thing about them that I don't like and that is the fact that they have become too dependent on fuel. I thought sailing was about wind-power. Nowadays yachts have generators running for hours every day and these canting-keelers cannot even tack of gybe without running an engine.

My idea would be to either ban generators (or the use of the main engine as such) or at least limit the amount of fuel to be carried. Obviously that would cause a few headaches because the keels would still need to be canted, computers, navigation instruments, watermakers, and so on all need power and that would have to be provided by either solar power, wind power, man power (?) or other means. Sounds rediculous? Perhaps, but it might spark some innovations that we will need in the future anyway and the spin-off could even be commercially significant. Make the Volvo 'green' I would say.

Yacht designer Adrian Thompson (and once upon a time builder of the Rothmans and Drum maxis) writes:

I‘m sure you will get a flood of mail about the future of the Volvo Ocean Race – mostly complimentary I hope, as I don’t believe legislation or new rules are required to eliminate future keel structural issues. I am quite sure that the designers have learnt a valuable lesson, and that future designs will be approaching the ‘brick shithouse scale’ of reserve factors. I can’t believe that any design team will be trading keel structure for bulb weight next time round in quite the same enthusiastic way as before. As things stand, the rules are well understood and everyone knows what is needed to make the system work and be reliable. All the data and accelerations have been logged - maybe they should be shared. Moving keel pivot points or changing fin sections will just cloud the issue and encourage a fresh round of interpretations.

The V70 approaches multihull performance levels - some of video clips where just staggering and demonstrated the potential dynamic loads that these boats can achieve. They have joined the performance envelope of multihulls, and unfortunately share their reliability issues for now, but stability of design will allow that to be resolved.

From Switzerland Axel Strauss writes:

my thoughts about the announcement of Volvo for the next race:

good:
-race will continue
-part of crew mandatory under 25
bad:
-same scoring system:
The race was okay, but regarding the end result it is very bizarre that actually only two boats have done all legs. There should be penalty (negative) points for not finishing a leg. I think the in-port races are delivering too many points.
-change of route
The proposed race format with more stopovers will for sure lengthen the race and increase costs.
-3 year circle means collision with established events (such as the Vendeè Globe)
The time collision with the Vendeè Globe is bad for both races, and together with the proposed stopover in the Middle East recalls bad memories of the Oryx Cup/The Race disaster.
The Whitbread/Volvo still has the mythical element, same as the Vendeè and that fascinates people. A lap of the globe has to include the Great capes. Contemplating a Suez Canal passage is just ridiculous.
-further reduction of crew
Reducing crew to 8 on such a powerful boat for reason of cost reduction doesn't make real sense to me.
I would feel very bad on a fully powered up VO70 with a watch of three on deck. I had the impression the sailors involved rather were wishing for more crew than less. Lazyness?

Apparently the sponsors are more than happy regarding ROI with the current format/route. So why calling for such drastic changes? Volvo should consolidate and refine the thing instead of making a completely new one.

Also some technical aspects of the rule should be revised (ie rig height vs spinnaker area, freeboard protection of crew)

From Sydney Australia, John Rich sends this:

Just a short note on the subject of the new Volvo Ocean Race program:

It looks like an end to once a great yachting adventure.

The commercial interests and politics take over the sport of round the world racing.

The new race format will be born in three years. This new race may become a great success. Some will call it a move with the times but many of us, the spectators will be sad.

In all this planning there is nothing in the pipeline to cap the costs which clearly got out of hand in the last 12 years. This was clearly reflected in the number of entries.

The boats are fast, crews are professional, new records are being set. Yet, there is no romance, no spirit of adventure as all race followers like me would like to see.

To have a fleet of dozen or so cost effective identical yachts, comprehensively web cast and televised events would be inspiring and captivating. Further, making it all into the challenge of the people for the people would be a formidable goal of the race organisers and the sponsors.

Such a step alone would make the the Volvo Ocean Race into a great media spectacle with number of individual event possibilities rolling from year to year through various geographical market jurisdictions.

This would be a bold marketing step for Volvo Group. The one that would make commercial sense in the highest return on capital invested.

Robert Tatman from Florida writes:

I agree with a lot of your most recent posts, but find the lure of adventure missing from this new proposed Volvo schedule. To me it sounds more like an around the world TP 52 grand prix campaign. The Whitbred/Volvo Race has had the draw of the grandest adventure because of its inherent dangers and challenges. To "sail" around the world, whether non-stop or through selected stops is the 'de-rigueur drawing card for sailors and the viewing public in these events. I have been an active viewer of the current Volvo and past events, and I would have to say that these new V/70's are tremendous. However it seems that, maybe through adequate safety concerns, they were held back a little.

Awesome designs, canting keels, and huge sail area; coupled with a limited crew just did not work. My reply to Mr. Bourke and the Volvo committee, "let the boats run." Let the crews and skippers decide when to hold back and when to turn it on. This brings the adventure and skill levels to new courageous heights once again.

As for the boats leave them alone. Tweek the safety measures for an adequate keel support and driving mechanism (maybe the one-design approach), add maybe one or two more crew members for real off-watch recuperations and sail handling. Get rid of these in-Port races. Most were boorrrring, and had little wind for full display of these magnificent steeds. If you are going to have an "OCEAN RACE", keep it in the OCEANS of the world. Have wonderful parties and guided tours of the boats when docked, that is more enjoyable for the public and mingling with the crews as everybody catches their breath from 20-30 knot slamfests around the great oceans of the world. As to the concerns of moving out of the realm of too much reliance on powered devices, generators and hydraulic pumps; I agree some of this should be limited. Having a boat that could "sail" around the world without thoughts of fuel management is what this sport should get back to and maintain a spirit of the sport that is diminishing rapidly. How fast can a monohull sailboat go around the world without the use of such devices? Lets keep this sport real and may the best "sailing" team win.

From Alistair Skinner, Club Admiral, Shanghai Boat & Yacht Club:

While a 'dumbing down' could be seen as detrimental for the Volvo Ocean Race, Volvo's commitment is good for the visibility of our sport, and let's face it very few corporate sponsors do more and the Ocean Race is only part of it.

This along with the like of AC and ISAF's 'Connect to Sailing' can only help to further raise the profile of, and therefore the interest in the sport of sailing.

After all the growth of interest in the likes of rock climbing came, not because of Everest attempts but because of sponsored, televised events on shorter more accessible events.

They are of course correct. The Asian market is extremely interesting to sponsors, and of course without sponsors the event dies and sailing is the loser.

We should never forget that the greater the commercial advantage to the sponsor the more likely they are to wish to use some of their marketing budget on a sailing event and for many companies, ABN Amro and Ericsson included, China offers huge growth potential.

Clive Higgins from Ireland sends this:

Great race, Pity that there was a difference between ABN 1 and the rest of the boats. Great if they could make the race more one design.

The Volvo web site coverage of the race was poor, All the information was not up to date. The daily sail web site was more up to date then the main web site, congrads to you all on that.