On a good footing

With four entries already announced and a fifth expected Volvo Ocean Race 2008-9 is on the right track

While there may have been an uproar about the next Volvo Ocean Race “not visiting the Southern Ocean” and the hideous break with tradition this represents, what seems undeniable is that Glenn Bourke has succeeded in putting the fully crewed round the world race on to a sound footing in terms of all-important entry numbers than at this point in the previous cycle of the race.

Ericsson last week confirmed their entry and it should be stressed this is a repeat entry - something which in the history of the Volvo Ocean Race is as rare as hen’s teeth. And yet ABN AMRO and movistar are known to be keen to return for the 2008 race too. Then on Monday Peter de Ridder announced the participation of his Ray Davies-led Mean Machine team – assuming sponsorship is forthcoming – bringing the total of known potential entries up to four.

So how are the other entries stacking up, we put it to Volvo Ocean Race CEO Glenn Bourke at the Mean Machine announcement on Monday? “It is always a hard one to tell,” says the lanky Australian former Laser World Champion. “Last time I fell into the trap of saying there were 32 preliminary entries. I guess we have another five really solid ones outside of this. The potential is good. I think we have five teams already and that’s 500% on where we were this time last race. So I think that is working out. Whether that stops tomorrow or continues to go up to somewhere in excess of ten, I couldn’t tell you. But we’ll just keep chipping away.”

Once again Bourke is continuing with the idea he introduced for the last race – where there is a much greater link between stopover ports and teams. Effectively the race will only visit ports in countries funding a team unless a stopover proves to be popular with the existing sponsors. “There might be a position where a port doesn’t put a boat in the race but we still go there because it is commercially so appealing to all the other sponsors in the race that you just have to do it anyway. But that is our philosophy – they [the ports] know that, that is how we negotiate with them and hopefully it will work out for us.”

For this reason Bourke says it is unlikely that the course will be finalised any time soon, despite Volvo and all the various parties involved breathing down his neck for a decision. All Bourke can say at this stage is that the basis for the course is taking shape and now has progressed from where it was back in June at the end of the race.

The start has already been announced as Alicante and the first leg will head south down the Atlantic and round the Cape of Good Hope heading for the Middle East, possibly Dubai. If this leg does end up in Dubai then it will be in the order of 12,000 miles long - frankly an enormous first leg compared to what has gone before. If leg one ends up being as it was in the last race with a fairly high attrition rate, one wonders the merit of not inserting a stopover in Cape Town or even Brazil for purely race management reasons to ease the boats into the event more gently. However if a boat were to break early on then presumably there would be a good opportunity to ship it to the Middle East via Suez.

From the Middle East, the race is provisionally heading for Mumbai, India, then on to Singapore/Malaysia and presumably up to China before dipping back down south to Australia/New Zealand.

The prolonged passage through the tropics during section of the race has caused concern due to the prospects of high temperatures and zero wind. For example on the first leg boats will pass through the Doldrums coming down the Atlantic but will then have to another Doldrums stretch in the Indian Ocean en route to the Middle East stopover. The third leg from Mumbai to Singapore/Malaysia will also be sailed mostly in the Doldrums latitudes. Despite this the wind predictions are suggesting there might be more wind than most fear. “That period is not a bad period to go through there,” says Bourke. “You get the northeast monsoon through Singapore and up to China. It does change the wind angles a bit – more upwind. But the wind speeds are not bad at that time of year.”

This brings into question the length of pitstops and stopover. Generally Bourke says they are trying to make these shorter and this should be achievable now they have a better handle on the speed of the boats from the outset. However considering the expected conditions through the Middle East/India/Asia section careful planning will be required to prevent messing up stopover arrangements at the conclusion of a windless leg as occurred on the round Britain leg to Rotterdam in the last race.

The latest route indicates that a visit to the west coast of the States is not on the card. Instead after Australia/New Zealand returns to its normal track: on through the Southern Ocean, rounding Cape Horn and up to Brazil. The last part of the course will take in the east coast of the States before heading across to Europe with stopovers pretty much set in stone for Rotterdam and Gothenberg and possibly ending up in St Petersberg (at least this is what the course map in Bourke’s Powerpoint presentation shows at present).

So according to Bourke’s philosophy we will be seeing teams from Dubai, Mumbai and Singapore? “Yes, we are talking to them about it. We are talking to all the ports in that area about putting boats in,” he says.

In terms of the version 2 of the Volvo Open 70 rule, Bourke says that this will be finalised and published in the next week or so. “It has a few changes. Our whole objective with the new rule was to take out the flaws of the old rule and to try and encourage the designers to build the boats a little more robust.”

One of the more contentious points with designers and teams who were hoping to have more flexibility in the rule is that the box looks set to be made much smaller with a weight variation of just 140kg, compared to 1.5 tonnes (12.5 to 14 tonnes) last time. In fact all the boats ended up around the 14 tonne mark last time around. The new weight variation will be similar to that allowed by version 5 of the America’s Cup rule, says Bourke. “The other thing we have done is put maximum weight on to the fin and bulb. It just forces you to put more weight into the boat and the logical place it is obviously down low and in the middle of the boat, because that is where we need it. I think it will be helpful, it won’t destroy the performance of the boats too much, so the new ones will be a little bit faster than the old ones I guess.”

While this may not be ideal for the creative souls within the class, it should even up the performance of the boats while making them safer and more robust in the process. “There will still be a lot of poetic license for designers in terms of shape and foils and all of that stuff,” says Bourke. “Durability is important to us. If you have another 160kg of carbon in the boat it has to be helpful.”

It is of course always possible to spend money on boats and there is a strong argument that it is relatively futile for any class to attempt this. However limiting the rule, removing the need to go to the nth degree to lose weight from the interior of the boat and in particular the keel ram system in order to slap it on the keel in the form of extra lead must have some bearing on cost.

“Designers says no, but my gut instinct tells me yes it would reduce cost,” says Bourke of the cost aspect. “One thing is that you only need one fin and one bulb - just make that the maximum weight and make sure you build the boat to fit around that. So that in itself is a saving. The fact you can put more structure in means things like rams don’t have to be milled away. The rigs will stay basically the same so if you have old rigs from this race you can probably use them again in the next race just fine or as a back up.”

With the change from Kevlar for the Volvo Ocean 60 to carbon for the VO70 there is also much more of a possibility to take a first generation boat in the next race. Carbon doesn’t soften in the same way as Kevlar does after prolonged round the world usage and some of the present generation VO70s would effectively have to be detuned to comply with the new rule. “I don’t know whether we grandfather the old boats or make them comply with the new rule,” continues Bourke. “Even if we make them comply with the new rule there will be some boats that will be taking some lead out and putting it into structure so the [old] boats should be fine.”

In terms of crew numbers nothing is likely to change in terms of the men’s boats but Bourke is keen to find a formula that will encourage a women’s team to compete. He is considering some sort of crew weight formula where for example you have 10 men of 90kg and whatever is the equivalent weight of weight is - maybe 14?

For the record, prior to the Mean Machine team being revealed Glenn Bourke showed the incredible 'Life at the Extreme' video of the Volvo Ocean Race - well worth seeing if you haven't already - and shows some of the interesting facts and figures for the race.

These included:

- 1.8 billion TV viewers (in monitored territories)
- 3.5 million unique users to the Volvo Ocean Race website
- 17,500 press clipping.
- US$ 450 million: estimated media value to stakeholders on the reported US$ 85 million invested by the six syndicates
- US 100 million: estimated media value to Volvo as title sponsor
- US$ 75 million: reported 'added value' economic impact for Baltimore/Annapolis during the stopover there
- 61 million Euros - economic impact for the Galicia region
- 3 million visitors passing through the nine Volvo Ocean Race villages
- 4 million - average number of people received SMS messages about the VOR
- 28,000 - the number of business to business meetings held by Volvo and the syndicates thanks to the race
- 4,000 hours - of live radio/audio content
- 2,035 - number of accredited media
- 224 - number of countries where VOlvo Ocean Race TV and internet coverage was available.

Watch out for more announcements over the next few weeks.