More thoughts for 2011-2

At a second round table conference in Boston, VOR CEO Knut Frostad look at further developments for the next race

This morning Knut Frostad, CEO of the Volvo Ocean Race, made his second ‘Round Table’ presentation adding fresh news about the 2011-12 race, following on from his first presentation in Rio last month and last week’s announcement of Alicante becoming the new start port for the next three editions as well as the new permanent home of the race organisation’s headquarters.

The focus remained changes to increase the value of the event for its participants. This included the evolution to the format of a typical race stopover schedule for the next race. Stopovers will be shorter with the action focused on the final weekend, with the Pro-Am Race typically on the Friday, the In-Port Race on the Saturday, prior to the leg start on the Sunday.

“The current stopover format, with one week between the In-Port Race and leg start, ensures the stopovers are a full week longer than they really need to be,” Frostad said. “This puts pressure on the shore crews to have the boats ready quickly for the In-Port Race, and then leaves everybody waiting for an extra week before we start the next leg. We think we can make it more efficient and more exciting by focusing all of the action on the final weekend of the stopover, when all of the racing will take place.”

The stopovers will be designed around a two-week format, with the ETAs for the finish of a leg comprising the first weekend, a ‘Festival of Sail’ on the middle weekend, not including the VO70s, then the Pro-Am, In-Port races and leg start on the third weekend. The only downside of this Frostad admits is that these races will be canned if the weather doesn’t co-operate on the day.

This will allow more time for the shore crews to work on their boats, a longer recuperation period for the sailors between legs, and a more focused crescendo for both public and VIP guests on the final weekend. The end result will also allow stopovers to be even shorter than they are at present.

With last week’s announcement of Alicante as the start port for the next three races, the race organisers are now setting about sealing deals with the other stopover ports. As of today, 81 ports around the world have expressed interest. This includes 38 in Europe, five in Africa, four in the Middle East, 11 in India and Far East, six in Australia/New Zealand, 13 in Latin America and five in North America.

Frostad says that whereas for this race, stopovers have tended to coincided with where teams come from (eg we are in Boston where Puma have their HQ), this has occasionally resulted in the present race visiting ports where the local government has been fully behind the race coming to town. “We need to know that the cities who want the race, REALLY want the race,” as he puts it.

In the port bidding process this time, domestic political support will come first and if they can field or support a team then so much the better. Alicante for example are indicating that they will help put two Spanish teams into the next Volvo Ocean Race and the local government are expected to offer other incentives, such as tax benefits for teams wishing to base themselves from there, similar to those enjoyed in Valencia by those involved with the last America’s Cup. A building has already been allocated to the race – a long thin job running alongside the port that was home to the race organization and media centre prior to the start and this is to be extended to include a fixed exhibition about the race that will become a tourist attraction for Alicante. The race control centre from Whiteley will be moved down there and during the next race, this will be a place where tourists will be able to look in on.

The goal is have the full race route decided and announced by March 2010. Frostad says that some ports may be ‘non haul out’.

Aside from representatives of all the teams, numerous other ‘names’ attended th round table including past winner Paul Cayard and several French short handed sailors such as Michel Desjoyaux and Roland Jourdain, both past crewmen in the Whitbread Round the World Race with the late great Eric Tabarly. They are in town as invitees of Volvo as Frostad is adamant that for the next race he wants at least one entry to come from France, the greatest offshore racing nation, who have not been represented in recent editions of the event.

“I think Volvo is doing a great job of approaching this in a professional way,” said Paul Cayard. “I know they're studying the commercial value of the race and the ports that they choose and that's the right thing to do. You have to look out for the interests of the race not only from a sailing standpoint but also from a commercial standpoint. It's not simple, but it sounds like they're doing the right thing and I'm sure they'll come to a good solution.”

Frostad also shares some of the latest figures from the race such as the footfall in the race villages in India and China or 811,677 and 363, 700 respectively. The TV audience in China alone, where bulletins regularly appear on CCTV 1, the largest TV station in the world, is estimated to be 268,968,000 with a cumulative TV audience to date of over 547 million.

The event website has had 2.41 million visitors to date (39% up on last time) while volvooceanrace.tv has had 738,000. Interestingly the breakdown of site visitors shows Sweden the highest scored with 16.7% of views followed by the Netherlands at 13.2%, USA 10.1%, Spain 7.9%, the UK 6.6%, Brazil 5.7%, Germany 4.1%, etc.

The Mobile site they have developed with Ericsson have been significant and they now have it available also for iPhone and other platform. “In China a lot of people can only access the internet through their phone. So that was worked really really well for us there,” says Frostad.

Frostad says the surprise success has been the Volvo Ocean Race game where the latest figures are 205672 players from 186 countries, which he reckons is the biggest global sailing community in the world with 79,000 players on line each day. One group contains 1150 women, while others meet at race starts to play the game live in company. “I went to visit a group in Sweden. They have bought Deckman and Maxsea and are reading JV Bernot’s book on weather routing!”

The main priority though is to reduce the cost of the next event, particularly for the teams. This Frostad hopes to do by shortening the race by having fewer stopovers, having some stops as limited pit stops, the change of stopover schedule as already mentioned and also sharing assets between teams such as catering and a sail loft.

Ken MacAlpine and Bill Edgerton are also some way down the line with their recommendations over how to reduce campaign costs with particular regard to the boats. “Today there are some errors in the rule,” admitted Frosad. “It is too hard to get the max size bulb and a strong boat. It is too difficult and that shouldn’t be the challenge. It shouldn’t be about who had the maximum sized bulb.”

The next round table will take place during the Galway stopover.