Slick as Shoeby

James Boyd speaks to Team Tyco's skipper about the Volvo and his America's Cup plans

mfs: Will you be making any more personnel changes for the final leg?

KS: We might do one more change for the last leg tactically, but we've still got to make that decision. Richard Dodson was programmed in to do short legs with us and that's still a possibility, but at the same time we feel pretty comfortable how we go by ourselves on a short course situation. We always get out of the blocks nicely and we always seem to get to the front of the pack quickly. And that's Brad Jackson doing the tactics there, who's been sailing with us all the time.
So it's just a question of looking at that leg and decided whether someone local really is going to be a help or a hindrance to us. Putting someone on after a team has been together 120 days - it's not as if the team needs extra stimulation or winding up by having someone new come in. So we're looking at that one.

mfs: One of the keys to the latter part of the race is how you've rationed your sail wardrobe. How does Team Tyco's sail wardrobe look?

KS: We've got two slots left. We're putting two new sails on here [La Rochelle] - our new code 4 spinnaker and a new light air reaching sail. And that's it after that. We're not too badly off. We could have got round with three mainsails easily probably, but we've used all four.

Everyone is doing a similar thing. You don't want to save them all to the end. Ever since we left Annapolis there was only 20 days of the race left which isn't even one leg and even putting two sails on here is quite late, but we felt we didn't want to cross the Atlantic and have a drama, like losing a spinnaker over the side, and not be able to replace it. And again we're just making these sails slightly more orientated towards what we're expecting on these next two legs in terms of weather, construction, what they are where they fit our inventory.

(The sails on board were all designed by Grant 'Fuzz' Spanhake of PRG Design Group who is going to OneWorld after the Volvo is over).

mfs: The Volvo Ocean Race is a long old affair. How do you keep the momentum going in the team after how ever many months it's been?

KS: It's an interesting time of the race this. You notice it every time. You've got to be careful that people don't just start unwinding and saying there's four weeks to go to the finish, because there's still almost a quarter of the points left and there's still plenty to play for . So we're trying to keep the intensity in the programme and keep making the changes, keeping making the sails and keep doing all that stuff.

On page 3 Kevin Shoebridge gives his views on what should be done with the Volvo Ocean Race...