Torben Grael update

The Ericsson Racing Team skipper brings us up to speed on his Volvo Ocean Race campaign

With the Volvo Ocean Race now just one month away, Torben Grael and his Ericsson Racing Team crew last week were in Porto Cervo competing in the Maxi Yacht Rolex Cup. Fortuitously they had been given the opportunity to campaign Neville Crichton’s new mini maxi Alfa Romeo 3 but with the boat being so new were struggling to get her up to speed compared to the well-refined IRC boats such as the Alinghi-sailed Numbers. Nonetheless they finished fourth overall in the Mini-Maxi class.

In fact Grael looked a little sheepish when we asked him how much racing he has done this year. Personally he competed in the Star South Americans back in January with his son Marco, finishing fourth while younger brother Lars won. Obviously with his commitments to the Volvo Ocean Race, Grael was unable to defend the Gold medal in the Star he won in Athens (in addition to his Star Gold in Atlantic, bronzes from Seoul and Sydney and Soling silver from Los Angeles…)



This year Brazil was well represented in the Star by the highly capable Robert Scheidt and Bruno Prada, who ended up taking silver behind Percy and Simpson. “I think he was happy especially since he came from behind,” says Grael on how his fellow countryman performed. “I think if he’d been in the position Freddie Loof was in I think he’d have been very unhappy but coming from behind and getting the medal on the last day was a very good result. It is not easy to get medals every time.”

Obviously there was some disappointment for Grael, the Olympic legend, in not competing in this Games. “Sometimes we have to take options in life and I am very happy with the option I made with Ericsson Racing Team and I hope everything goes well from here on.”

Meanwhile Ericsson go into the Volvo Ocean Race as favourites. They have had more of the vital preparation time than all the rest of the teams. They secured the exclusive services of Juan Kouyoumdjian, the designer of the winning ABN AMRO One last time and acquired Mike Sanderson’s 2004-5 race winner as well to use as a work horse. Among their crew are many ABN AMRO old hands such as Brad Jackson, Tony Mutter and Dave Endean, along with race veteran Stu Bannatyne and former Pirates of the Caribbean navigator Jules Salter. The only possible chink in Ericsson’s armour is the Anglo-Brazilian divide in the crew. When Grael took over as skipper, after John Kostecki’s departure, so he brought with him his Brasil 1 crew Horacio Carabelli and Joao Signorini, but after months of training together any difference in sailing styles will surely have been ironed out by now.

For the last year, the team have been hidden away training out of their base in Lanzarote where not only have they were able to make better use of the winter months than other teams, but, in Puerto Calero, were perfectly located to sail straight out into big conditions the Canary Islands typically have on offer.

Since their latest boat, Ericsson 4, was launched, the two boats completed their qualifiers for the Volvo Ocean Race on the delivery from Stockholm back down to Lanzarote where they have since been busy two boating. “We are pretty happy with the boats we have but we are pretty anxious to get some racing in to see how good they are,” says Grael. The first opportunity for this will be the In Port races in Alicante over 4-5 October (the 5th is the new Pro-Am day of racing), but if the last race is anything to go by this may still not shed any light on the form for the main event (last time the initial In Port race was held in light conditions and the beamy ABN AMRO One had a shocker…)

Obviously since we sailed the first of their new boats, Ericsson 3 off Barcelona earlier in the year (read about this here), their second new boat has come on line. Grael says that although their newest boat benefited from more R&D time from the Juan K office, it is not the same significant step up as was the case between the two ABN AMRO boats last time. “I don’t think there is any dramatic improvement at this stage. The rule is more known now and we already know what worked and what didn’t work last time, so the boats tend to get closer and closer. I think it is going to be a lot tighter racing than it was last time. Still I hope we are in a good position to do well in the race.”



As ever with Juan K’s involvement the team have been pushing parameters of the rule to the limit and one such example is the canting keel set-up. This time the VO70 rule specifies a combined maximum weight limit for keel foil and bulb of 7.4 tonnes, so designers have been trying to ensure that within these constraints the centre of gravity within the keel foil and bulb package is as low as possible.

While the VO70 rule states that the keel fin shall be ‘solid’ and elsewhere that the only permitted material is steel, the Ericsson team have been attempting to argue the case for a steel keel foil with foam-filled cavities being legal. In repeated Public Intrepretations (the key one being no33 - read this here) the Rule Management Group (RMG) has been giving the thumbs down to this. Back in March this issue went as far as the International Jury when Ericsson Racing Team sought a Request for Redress on the basis that in the RMG had exceeded its jurisdiction and in issuing Public Intepretation no 33 they had effectively ‘changed’ rather than ‘interpreted’ rule. Again the Jury found against Ericsson Racint Team, confirming that it was the Rule Management Group who are the ultimate arbitrators with regard to the VO70 rule.

Whether six months on Ericsson have changed the keels on their boats will only be found out when the measurers get to work on the VO70 fleet once they have arrived in Alicante.

Grael won’t comment on the situation other than to say: “The way the overall thing is structured is not very good. You don’t have an Arbitration Panel like you do in the America’s Cup. So it is very hard to get any disputes solved. I don’t want to comment too much on it.”

As to the other boats Ericsson will be competing against, Grael says it is hard to assess their form at this stage. “Some of them have some interesting features. They are all more similar than they were last time, which is why we think it is going to be a tighter race than it was last time.”

Among the interesting features are the powerboat-style ‘spray rails’ on the Russian boat and the ‘reaching strakes’ as featuring on the Farr-designed Telefonica boats. “I think they will be good in some conditions and might not be very good in others,” says Grael. “What is very different from previous races is that we have so many new designers, which is a good thing. It is going to be exciting to see how it all evolves.”

Obviously Ericsson Racing Team comprises two boats and crews. Grael is heading the ‘international’ team while Anders Lewander is skipper of the ‘Nordic’ crew, although this now features race veteran Richard Mason, along with perennial competitor Magnus Olsson. Grael confirms, as Bouwe Bekking has with his Telefonica team, that unlike most of the previous two boat teams in the Volvo Ocean Race they are allocating equal resources to both boats. “It is a two boat campaign it is not 100% for the international team, we are trying to get a good result for the Nordic team as well. In terms of their sails they are pretty close, I wouldn’t say identical because the boats are a little different.” To this end, during their two boating, the two crews have been mixed up (as ABN AMRO did last time). So don't expect the Ericsson Racing Team 'Nordic' crew to be 'also rans'.

While the Telefonica boats were joined in Alicante last week by Puma and Green Dragon Racing Team, so the Ericsson boats are at present heading up to the Volvo Ocean Race start port where they are expected to arrive at the end of the week.