Slick as Shoeby

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

mfs: So on to the much talked about issue of changes for the next Volvo Ocean Race. What do you think should be done?

KS: I'd like to see bigger boats, less legs, over a shorter period of time perhaps, more racing for them in between time to make more of a class out them (in between races). I'd like to see a little bit less information going on to them with the whole sched thing, I know it's hard because of Virtual Spectator. The six hour reporting thing certainly changes how the race is sailed.

You cannot fault the level of competition or the closeness or intensity of this race and you've somehow got to keep that. It's just got to be made a little bit easier. The nine stops have been a bit...

But people have started to say that they're coming back [to do the Volvo Ocean Race] again. I didn't think they'd say that because there have been a few people around that were pretty worn out. There are more worn out people at the end of this race than any other one I've been involved with. I think it is the intensity of the sailing that is causing a lot of pressure on board, a lot of crew changes. There's been a lot of jump shipping going on. And there's so many stopovers that the logistics are a bit of a nightmare.

mfs: So what should the new Volvo boat be?

KS: Well I'm only assuming a multihull has been wiped already, I think that would be fantastic personally, but I just don't think Volvo will go that way. Maybe they've got a little niche here and should stick with it.

As far as a monohull - it has to be a reasonably sized boat like 85-90ft or something that whatever race it goes into it wins. So if you do the Fastnet or Hobart Race or whatever, you've got to get line honours. Because that is what I think these boats have lost. They'll go in a race like that and come fifth. You've got to make the race more exciting so it attracts sponsors, but also the people who want to go out and get the sponsors. Make it attractive so that Gunnar wants to come and sail again, so he'll go and find the money. It's got to have a budget and it's got to not cost so much, but if you get enough people out there looking for it, it'll happen.

mfs: Is it possible to do a bigger boat and make the costs lower?

KS: It's not possible to do a bigger boat with a smaller budget. That's not going to go hand in hand. But with the Cup it's $50 million to join and they've still got plenty of people. You could put some limitations in that could slow it down: Let people build one boat not two or three. Put less sails on them.

If it was one design then maybe you say that this is when everyone gets their boats, and it's only a year before or something, so you don't have the programs running for three years costing loads. But personally I favour a rule like this [the Volvo Ocean 60 rule].

mfs: What about keeping the existing boats?

KS: I think it is time for a change. Having been round the world on them twice now they're fantastic 64 footers no question, but for a round the world they're just not big enough. My God, my dog lives better than we do on those things. I think it would be a bad thing for the race. There's been enough talk and discussion and it's been so universal among everyone that it should change I think it would be the wrong thing to do to keep them. There's a huge amount of work involved changing the class. But the race has got to go up to another level or its not going to hold its position.

mfs: For this race they allowed Code Zeros and carbon masts. Could the present 60s be 'turboed' further?

KS: 12 years ago when these first came out the whole idea was to have these for one race and then go up to an 80footer and it never happened. This was going to be like the one with training wheels and the next time they were going to bring out the maxi version of it, then everyone said 'no that's too much money we'll stick with these'.

I think whatever happens, they've got to be the fastest thing out there. We don't want to say well they're all going to be the same so we'll make them heavy and last longer. That would be the wrong thing to do. They need to be carbon fibre, full-on whether they have swinging keels or water ballast, carbon rigs - it has to be top-of-the-line stuff.

We've got away with eight [boats] and it has been a good race. 10 is a good number. Get up to 15 it would be amazing. Get ten 85 footers on the start line you'd have an awesome event.

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