The Ironman of Sailing

The Daily Sail catches up with the fittest man in our sport - Grant Dalton

The modern day Grant Dalton is a man of skin, bone and muscle. You almost want to punch his six pack to see how many knuckles you'd break. The reason for Dalts turning from Mr Fit into Mr SuperFit is that since the end of the Volvo Ocean Race in June he has been in training for the New Zealand Ironman, an event that comprises a 3.8km swim, followed by a 180km bike ride and rounded off by a marathon.

"I am always happier if there’s something going on otherwise I get like a rat in a bloody cage," he told The Daily Sail. This time he set the bar high.

The New Zealand Ironman took place over the last weekend of America's Cup racing and remarkably around 400 people took part in the event held around Lake Taupo. Speaking to him he sounds satisfied to have done the event, but somewhat disappointed by his result - 358th. "It went okay. It is bloody long day. It was 11.5 hours for me. 1hr 20 swim, 5hr 50 on the bike and I crashed out on the marathon. I was very slow."

Dalton is annoyed (not the exact word he uses) that he was 11 minutes outside of the qualification time necessary for his age group to get to the World Championships in Kona, Hawaii. At the time of our conversation was mulling over going to take part in another Ironman in Germany to see if he could improve his performance. "I don’t know - I might continue I might not," he says.

Down to serious business and the great man of ocean racing attended the announcement about the new format Volvo Ocean Race in February and says he impressed by what the Volvo team have come up with.

"They always had to do something because the thing [the Volvo Ocean Race] was going out of fashion. Two things I thought were great: Glenn [Bourke] is doing a great job and I like the way they put a face to the brand by using him. Before it was so brand-focussed in terms of its presentation, it almost took away from the other sponsors. In putting Glenn up there and the way he presented, I thought was really smart.

"They are trying to pick up the facets of the sport at a time when the sport is in quite a bit of trouble from an offshore point of view. And I think they should be commended as well. I thought they should go to multihulls, but I knew that was never an option - it was a utopia. So what they’ve gone to is probably the right thing. Put it another way - I am not sure what they could have done anything any differently which would have been better, because they had to do something."

He, like many other potential competitors The Daily Sail has spoke to, doesn't think the new format will be a cheaper option for syndicates than the last race. "Life is not like that. You say it must be cheaper because of this, that and the other thing. It is nine crew, which is less expensive than 12 - but is it?

"I don’t know what the rule says in terms of onshore and offshore crews. It might say something as simple as if you do the short race, you’ve got to do the next leg, but with the weighting on inshore racing as well that puts an emphasis on doing well on the inshore short courses."

His implication is that under the current reading of the rule you might have two crews - one comprising salty seadogs for the offshore legs and another of spritely highly paid Olympians and America's Cup sailors for the inshore in-port racing.

He adds: "You’ve only got nine guys to go as fast as 12, so they had all been f***ing good, because you will go as hard as if you had 12. I was against limiting the crew too much because then nobody gets any sleep. Then you’ll be even more f***ed if it is possible!"

He makes these comments on the understanding that at present there is no ruling on whether roller furling headsails or any other crew work-reducing devices will be made mandatory when the rules are finally published later this year. "What I am saying is that until I see what the rules are I caution that it will save money."

Similarly he doesn't feel that the reduction in the number of sails will necessarily reduce costs. "How much are you going to spend on developing those sails, particularly if they are roller furling sails, because no money been spent on furled sails yet - ever...

"Singlehanded round the world blokes don’t spend any money on sails. You say well we’re saving because we’re only allowing eight sails - but what are those sails and how much are you going to spend on developing those sails? So I think the hard costs are less, the development costs are up, maybe that will end up compensating each other and you will end up in the same spot where you were."

In Kiel at the end of the last Volvo Dalton was adamant that he would not sail in the next race, but would rather project manage a campaign or set up his own team. With the prospect of a new boat that hopefully will be less hellish to sail than the VO60, he is now reappraising.

"I still want to be involved. I could be convinced to sail. At this point I am just trying to organise a campaign. If I can find someone I can employee who is better to do the job than me - and I’m sure I can find someone better... I’m certainly fit again. I've got my head together. My body was destroyed by the end of that last one - I had a 45 year old body at that point, but now I am back like a 25 year old, so I could do a better job again now because I am focussed and very very fit." Another option is him sailing as a crewmember or a watch leader, whilst running the campaign.

Regardless of whether he sails, he says that he'd like to form a syndicate. "I quite like the idea of a two boat team again. In fact one way round the rule of only being able to build one boat is to build two but you have to race them both. So arguably you have made your two boat testing really expensive because you have to race them!"

There is obviously a loop hole whereby you could field two campaigns, one of which was your proper race boat, the other just there to get round. However the powers that be at Volvo are aware of this and currently have their thinking caps on about how to prevent this.

Regarding the potential clash over crew and sponsorship between Volvo, The Race, The Race Tour and a mysterious new 80ft one design trimaran proposal from Sweden, Dalton thinks that Volvo currently have a massive advantage.

"Volvo - has the huge ace card: it has money and that is about as big an ace as you can play. It has money. It has history. So it has to be the front running horse at this point. In the economic climate that we find ourselves at the moment, until someone else comes up with money and can be a real player, Volvo has it. That may never change, because the other events may not come up with the money. But one thing is for sure - this town ain’t big enough for all of us."

Although Volvo have made all the right moves to reduce campaign costs, Dalton says that this time round the signficant problem will be finding the money to run a campaign (as if it weren't always). "I've been in the raising money game for 15 years now and I don’t think I’ve seen the world so f**ed up in those 15 years, so it is going to be incredibly difficult. The fact that the next America's Cup won’t be until 2007 is a good thing obviously. I would have thought it is not a bad scenario that a team does the Volvo as well [as the Cup]. I think had that been the case last time, people would have done it - Prada certainly wanted to. And maybe it would have been better for those teams - toughen them up a bit!" We discuss briefly the relative manlinesses of America's Cup versus Volvo Ocean Race sailors.

Now with the Ironman out of the way, Dalts is gearing up for his assault on the corporate boardrooms. "I will be actively out there in the market, but I’m not yet. You were never going to get traction pre-Cup or soon after the event. The two just happened to coincide with each other. You never get traction that close to the event, because people are taking a breather. “When’s that race? Oh, we don’t need to tell you for another year or two”. I've learned over the years there’s just no point trying. People run around two days after the event, saying "we’ll be there, we’re having meetings". It is all bullshit, unless you’re Michael Illbruck and can just be there because you’ve got the money.

"Even now is almost too early, because you need some distilling time after the Cup so companies can go ‘that is interesting’ or ‘we can’t afford that’. It is still not time - you can rev the engine but you can't drop the clutch yet, because you’ll just get frustrated. You’ve got to be very active in the middle of this year and then you’ve got until the middle of 2004, probably August next year."

Dalton says he is still keen to have a go at his attempt on the world speed sailing record, but again, at present, still doesn't have the funding in place, despite a near miss a while back.

His lines of communication are still open to Nautor boss Leonardo Ferragamo, who was in Auckland recently, but rumour has it that the Italian fashion magnate is now looking at an America's Cup campaign. Dalton will neither confirm nor deny.

One interesting proposition raised recently has been that a man such as Grant Dalton is exactly what a revamped Team New Zealand need to have as their new head. He is after all out of much the same mould as the late great Sir Peter Blake, a man whose management and leadership skills that galvanised the Kiwi team into winning the Cup in the first place.