New hand on the tiller

We speak to newly appointed Volvo Ocean Race CEO Knut Frostad about his latest role

Volvo Ocean Race in the market place

The last five years has seen the world of offshore sailing change dramatically. There are no more 60ft trimarans. In France more giant multihulls have been built both for singlehanded and fully crewed racing. The IMOCA Open 60 and Class 40 fleets have swelled dramatically while the Volvo Ocean Race seems to regularly contain a small number of large budget teams. Is Frostad happy with their position in this picture?

“I was quite involved with Brasil 1 at the funding stage last time and I can assure you we are way ahead of where we were last race at this time,” says Frostad. “At this stage we weren’t sure whether we had a race at all. This time we have seven newly-built boats that are way ahead of where most teams were. So in one way I am quite impressed because it is one year less and we have that. In general the Volvo Ocean Race hasn’t really found its shape yet. That is what I am looking for now.

“I think the introduction last time of the in-port races was a good element to the race. That is settling into people’s minds that that is part of the race now. The route, starting in Europe and then Asia and ending up in Europe – that has settled down. Long term I want to make sure we have the best sailors in the race and that we have more teams than we have today, not necessarily a lot more teams. There is no point in having three more boats unless there is the best sailors in them. We want to make sure that this is the prime event that every sailor wants to do.”

In terms of budgets, the race is longer but the stopovers are way shorter and Frostad believes that sailing team budgets have remained around the same since the last race, but some sponsors are spending more on their marketing associated with the race.

According to Frostad the current set-up suits Volvo who are looking for “the most exciting event in sailing that is the most attractive event to the best sailors and the best sponsors.” Having consumer giants Ericsson and Puma in the race is exactly what Volvo wants.

Specifically in terms of boats, the Open 60 class has gone supernova with 19 new boats expected on the start line of the Vendee Globe this November – does Frostad take inspiration from that? “I do. I have been following the Open 60 class carefully. They have developed into great boats, but purpose-built boats. The question is more - do we still want the Volvo Ocean Race to be a team event or not? If we still want it to be a team event the Open 60 is not the right boat in my mind because we’d have to change the boat and it would have to look different if it took part in the Volvo Ocean Race. It would not be an optimal boat to race both the Vendee and the Volvo and suddenly having another breed of Open 60s that wouldn’t fit in anywhere. The only way you could race Open 60s in the Volvo Ocean Race would be limiting the crew to four.”

Frostad adds that having sailed a VO70 in the Southern Ocean last race he would be reluctant to attempt to sail them with any less than 10. “They are so powerful and it would require changing the boat dramatically to do that.”

Frostad is also known as a fan of big multihulls and there was a strong lobby before the Volvo Open 70 was announced to go multihull. “I am a big multihull fan and that’s no secret - the French think they have their man inside the Volvo now! There are good arguments for it and against it. For sure if the Volvo Ocean Race went to multihulls you’d have to start from zero, because what multihull? Today there are hardly any the same length any more. They are talking about starting The Race again with giant multihulls, but they are all different. Today we’d have to restart with a new class from zero. Is that a good thing? Obviously they have great positive effects, they are amazing to watch, but to organise an in-port race inside Boston harbour with 90ft multihulls or something would be impossible! So you’d have to send them speed sailing back and forth or something.”

Course

Obviously the most obvious change to this year’s Volvo Ocean Race is the course now after Cape Town, heading across the Indian Ocean to India and then across to the Far East and Singapore and China before a massive leg to Rio. The view of many is that this change has detracted from the round the world purity of the event in favour of the commercial dollar. Frostad has no problem with this. “It is not secret that going to India and China is commercially driven. It will change the way we sail the boats. It will change everything in ports. You’ll meet people who have never seen this sport before. Is that right or wrong? We could go to Auckland where they know the first names of everyone on all the boats, but no one is going to pay you for it. Simple as that. I think all the sailors realise that. I haven’t heard any real negative comments from sailors who are doing the race. They all understand and frankly some are quite happy that they don’t have to do the whole Southern Ocean on Volvo 70s!

“And it is exciting - I have talked to some of the navigators and they are scratching their heads big time. It is a big challenge. I think you will see boats heading left and right pretty dramatically because especially on the leg to India and the leg from China opportunities are much bigger than any leg we had last time.”

How it all works

What has previously been an intellectual challenge for Frostad has now become part of his job in that he says he wants to try and understand the mechanics of what makes a successful event in the sailing world. One factor may be budget, however he believes that it is also may be down to the personalities involved. “If you have Grant Dalton, Roger Nilson, Paul Cayard, Bruno Peyron all in the same room and they all want to do the same thing, they’ll do it. If they are not happy and they aren’t in the same room or they don’t like the race, then they’ll go off and do different things. Most people I talk to - they all want to get back into one game.”

It is these people who are key as they are capable of not only managing teams but also funding them. Frostad cites the example of Team New Zealand: “Grant Dalton funded TNZ. Take him out of it and it wouldn’t happen. It’s not Dean Barker doing that. Grant is. He knows how to do and if he wants to do the Volvo, he’ll do it. So we have to get that family back together, deciding they want the race. Maybe they have some conditions. Maybe they’d like to see different stopovers and the kind of in-port race and the boats should be more like that...”

Ideally in Frostad’s view the Volvo Ocean Race should return to its role as an equal-sized partner to the America’s Cup and an equally attractive proposition to the ‘key players’. Already they are getting there with two teams, Ericsson and the Spanish having rolled on from the last race, as Cup teams (up until now) have over the last couple of decades. With the Cup presently at the worst hiatus in its lengthy history this can only work in his favour.

In our view Frostad is a welcome hand at the tiller of the Volvo Ocean Race. He comes with the right credentials, but most importantly he is unquestionably passionate about the race. We look forward to seeing him make his mark.