New race for Volvo boats

James Boyd speaks to Matt Humphries about the Volvo Baltic Race

As a prelude to next Monday's announcement about the future of the Volvo Ocean Race, so we hear of a new Volvo-sponsored race for Volvo Ocean 60s to held this summer up in the Baltic.

The Volvo Baltic Race is the brainchild of former Dolphin & Youth skipper and four time round the world race veteran Matt Humphries and Patrik Mehks of Viarnare, the company which owns many of the boat builders such in Sweden as Nimbus and Maxi, along with a number of hotels, one of which - significantly - is in Sandhamn, the starting point for the Round Gotland Race.

The Volvo Baltic Race is designed as a back to back series of races taking in the three major yachting events in the Baltic: Kieler Woche, the Gotland Runt and the Swedish Match Cup. The program is as shown in the diagram above with a format designed to give competitors good racing, whilst also allowing them to carry out sponsorship duties.

The boats will spend three days at Kieler Woche, during which they will race for two days. They then race to Sandhamn and on to Stockhom, where - thanks to Stockholm harbour who are one of the partners in the event - the boats will be berthed outside the King's Palace where a big hospitality area will be set up.

They will then return to Sandhamn for the start of the Gotland Rund on 29 June. Following the Round Gotland race the boats will race to Marstrand on the west coast of Sweden where their arrival is scheduled to be on the day of the final of the Swedish Match Cup.

Matt Humphries says he has been gunning for such an event since the days of Dolphin & Youth. "It is something I felt very strongly about when I was doing Dolphin," he told The Daily Sail. "We had a great opportunity and the door shut behind us and there’s never been a youth entry since. Maybe with this race there is the opportunity for that to happen again because it is not a lot of money to charter a boat for two weeks, put a bunch of guys together, etc. And you can compete at a high level and you can show your results."

Humphries adds that because of the relatively low cost of taking part it should also allow a lot more syndicates and sailors to take part in the premier ocean racing class - "which is what the sport needs".

As someone looking to field his own campaign for the next Volvo Ocean Race, Humphries says that the Volvo Baltic Race is a great way to showcase what the VOR is all about to new potential sponsors, who came dip their toe into the water before they make the full commitment. "I’ve been very strongly needing this personally and I know that many others have been and there is no better place to do it for now than in Scandinavia, because there are a lot of campaigns coming out of northern Europe."

He also believes that there needs to be events for Volvo boats other than just the Volvo Ocean Race, a view shared by Glenn Bourke and Andy Hindley at Volvo HQ.

"There is no continuity in any way," says Humphries of how it has worked - or not worked - to date. "If there was something for the sponsors and sailing groups to continue doing, they would probably keep campaigning 60s thereby keeping up their exposure and making it possibly a lot easier to continue campaigning these boats until the next RTW race rather than starting from scratch and chucking a dart at the corporate world hoping to hit the money."

Next Monday Volvo are expected to announce other races in addition to just the format and new boat for the next Volvo Ocean Race. At the time of the race finish last year, it was being mooted that Volvo might be staging a trans-Pacific race between California and Japan - two markets not currently catered for with their Volvo Ocean race.

With the Volvo Baltic Race and other events for the Volvo boats anticipated it is likely that a championship system will finally get out of the blocks - another potential aid for skippers to show their form to potential sponsors.

At present Volvo have signed up as backers of the Volvo Baltic Race for three years - the first event kicking off this year. "He came to us looking for sponsorship," commented Andy Hindley, Director of Race Operations for the Volvo Ocean Race, of his pitch from Humphries. "He'd put a good package together, thought about everything and it made a lot of sense for us to go with him. It will mirror in many ways the new format of the new event we're announcing on 10 February." Although Hindley is not specific this is likely to mean a new scoring technique, but also new restrictions in the number of sails and crew Volvo Ocean Race boats will be able to carry in the future.

Humphries says that there has been a lot of interest in the Volvo Baltic Race, but the announcement of syndicates will not take place until Stockholm Boat Show in early March. "We’ve got a lot of interest and there are a lot of my colleagues and friends from the Volvo Ocean Race want to get themselves organised. In March we will have a race and syndicate briefing where we’ll go into more detail about the racing and an update on the syndicates."

While old VO60s and Whitbread 60s have a resale value a fraction of the original build cost, Humphries says that having a continuous circuit would create a better resale value for the boats.

Exciting times in the world of Volvo offshore racing