Volvo Ocean Race boats in the Rolex Fastnet Race

Abu Dhabi's Ian Walker and Team Sanya skipper Mike Sanderson discuss their races

Three of the six Volvo 70s had their competitive debut in the Rolex Fastnet Race with the two new generation boats the Farr-designed Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing, skippered by Ian Walker, lining up with Franck Cammas’ Groupama 4, one of the three Juan K-designed offerings for this autumn fully crewed round the world race. They were joined by Mike Sanderson’s fledgling team on their first outing outside of the Solent in their newly refitted Team Sanya, the former Telefonica Blue, followed her refit in Hamble.

As reported the race was won, just, by Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing, with Groupama 4 finishing just four minutes 53 seconds astern, with Team Sanya just under an hour after the UAE entry. Abu Dhabi snuck ahead of Groupama 4 having cut the Lizard fine on the final approach to the Plymouth line after Franck Cammas' team had led from the Fastnet Rock.

For Mike Sanderson this is his first time sailing a VO70 in anger since the ABN AMRO campaign folded after their world tour post 2005-6 Volvo Ocean Race. Since leaving TeamOrigin in the late spring last year he has been back home in his native New Zealand. Talking to Sanderson one gets the distinct impression Moose is back in his element...

“It was great," he told us. "Our biggest fear in putting this campaign together was that we weren’t even going to be competitive in the race and what we have learned is that even in conditions which weren’t ideal for what we thought the boat’s strengths were going to be, we were there or thereabouts.”

It should also be considered that Sanderson’s campaign is very 11th hour and their boat was only relaunched a week prior to the start. He is aware this puts him on the back foot: “Some of these teams have been sailing for 1.5 years and I know what we were like on ABN after we’d been sailing for a year and a half. But we have great guys and we know where we need to get to and we are really looking forward to taking it on.”

With this being the boat’s first major offshore outing since she was relaunched they did well, but it was not without consequences and as reported Team Sanya suffered three significant set backs that cost her time on the race course, including blowing out a skin fitting causing the bow to flood shortly after rounding the Pantaenius offset mark. The main sheet broke because they had just had the winches serviced and refinished. “The knurling on the drums is a bit aggressive so we chewed out a main sheet so we lost time in that.” But Sanderson grimaced when discussing the amount of time they had lost rounding the Rock in their jib change from their J1 to J4. “The other two guys definitely smoked us there. We were only about 2-3 miles behind them then and afterwards we were 7. But that was the first one we’d done. Literally...”

However considering this was their first outing, Sanderson was satisfied: “Even tacking out of the Solent – we were going ‘we are there or thereabouts...we can do this’. The boat is just fine but we are so green. Obviously structurally it is not a new boat, but we had it in so many bits... So I am really pleased for the whole team.”

Team Sanya’s moment of glory in the race came when she cut the corner at Land’s End as Abu Dhabi and Groupama 4 continued on further west before tacking. “We talked about that quite a lot," says Sanderson. "We knew that, whatever, they would beat us to the Rock given what the weather was supposed to do, but if it hadn’t then we were closer to the mark... So we tried and cut the corner and started pointing at the mark to see what happened.”

In the build-up to the Rolex Fastnet Race Sanderson says they had been using the services of legendary navigator Mike Quilter (ex-Peter Blake, Grant Dalton, Team New Zealand, etc) to work out a game plan for the course, if they were ahead or if they were behind, etc. However as Sanderson points out: “Apart from crew work and speed, there weren’t that many tactical opportunities on a forecast like that.”

Impressive was how the Volvo Open 70s were continuously nipping at the heels of the substantially larger maxis Rambler (until she lost her keel) and ICAP Leopard, just as Puma had during the recent Transatlantic Race 2011. Sanderson says this wasn’t so much upwinds as tight reaching. “They don’t seem to stretch away, but if you could push Rambler as hard as the Volvo boats - which you could if you ever put one in there long enough...”

Obviously Sanderson is regularly being asked to make comparisons between ABN AMRO One, which he at the time considered to be a ‘second generation’ VO70, and his new steed and he reckons the new Team Sanya boat is a “chunk quicker”.

Due to the Telefonica team working up their boats in Alicante prior to the start of the last Volvo Ocean Race they ended up with the reputation of being light weather weapons, however Sanderson says this is misleading: “It is not when it was designed, but that is where it ended up. In fact it is at least 5% stiffer than Ericsson 4, but they just couldn’t use it as the rudders were too little, the boat was too bow-down trim, etc. So we have changed that and we have new daggerboards coming and a new mast coming and lots more sails. And we get to keep the heavy keel...”

Sanderson says he is pleased that the Volvo boats are back in the Fastnet. The time he did it on a Volvo/Whitbread boat was with Grant Dalton aboard the Merit VO60 when they won in 1996 (and prior to that on New Zealand Endeavour...). And then there are all the other ‘pro’ classes. “I think it is great. Seeing the tris and allowing Banque Populaire to race, it is probably the only race Banque Populaire has been allowed to do outside of France. It is huge and they did a good jib in allowed the Volvo boats to still be Volvo mode in the race and still stack and allow them to use their minimum mid-girth sails, etc.” Oh that the organisers of all the classic 600 milers follow the RORC's example.

And given Puma’s recent and unexpected win under IRC in the Transatlantic Race 2011, one wonders if they couldn’t have a go at the IRC pot next time around.

Abu Dhabi

Ian Walker looked as though he had had a substantially wetter ride as Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing docked in Plymouth’s Sutton Harbour this morning.

So how was it? “Wet. From half way across the Irish Sea to the Rock and back was flat out. I don’t know what we averaged, but it was in the 20s, blast reaching. It wasn’t particularly fast, because we couldn’t get a spinnaker up, but we definitely went 30 knots on a couple of occasions. It was frustrating because we couldn’t put the bow down and let it rip...

“It was a great race, very interesting, and very interesting as far as the Volvo is concerned. Groupama definitely had the legs on us reaching and fetching, but we seemed quick upwind. So we built up quite a long lead and then we lost all of it when we had weed on the daggerboard after Start Point and we took too long to clear it. They pulled ahead of us there and we got back ahead of them upwind after that.”

Walker reckons Team Sanya’s corner cutting at Land’s End was always going be a short term gain, but a long term loss as there was more pressure and lift further west going up to the Rock. “It was smart, because it gave them big leverage on us and a chance to pass us. We had quite a nice lead coming into the Rock, but the problem was we had the sail change to negotiate, so we were coming into the Rock at 25 knots, we had the G1 and a staysail up and we had to get the 4 up, but it’s so wet on the bow that we had to slow down. So for half an hour we had to slow down to 15 knots, which doesn’t sound much, but that is four miles.”

Walker observed that they don’t have a proper genoa staysail at the moment, whereas Groupama came round, dropped their jib and completed the beat to the Pantaenius mark under staysail alone. They then had a big drag race out to the Scillies on a beam reach and Groupama were quicker on this point of sail. “We tried to sail low and fast and drive through them, which we did, but they had weather gauge and they came rolling over us. They had 4-5 miles on us at the Scillies.”

However Abu Dhabi was able to retake the lead passing the Lizard. “Jules did the right thing: We cut the Lizard really closely. The tide had turned inshore, so we had a nice sluice along the Lizard and we put a big sail up early and effectively got down inside them and when it freed up at the end we crossed them – so that was good.”

Walker says he was pleased with his team: “They really pushed hard from the Scilly Isles. No one had had much sleep, but we knew it wasn’t long to the finish, so we had everyone on deck and sailed it like an inshore race. We have a lot of drivers in our team - seven who are comfortable driving in every wind strength and in Jules for sure we have some local knowledge, in scraping through at the Lizard where we took the lead and also building up quite a big lead quite early in the race, how we worked St Albans’ Ledge and the start, etc.”

To win this first clash, and in fact the last clash prior to this autumn’s start of the round the world race, is a feather in the cap for the Abu Dhabi team. “The Fastnet Race is great," continues Walker. "It is fantastic to win this race, especially when you have the 100s. We passed Leopard about 200 yards away from them, about half way from the Rock to the Scilly Isles. They were running downwind putting a headsail up, and we got across their bow and then they turned up on our line and then we pulled out 20 miles. It was great to win the race. We broke the record, so that is really pleasing.

“In terms of the Volvo race I am happy we are on the pace. It is the first time I have ever gone fast in a Volvo 70 (!), but clearly the Juan K boats are very fast, so I think we are in for a right ding-dong of a Volvo race.”

With her enormous bow, Abu Dhabi looks very wet, Walker’s bloodshot salt-stained eyes a testament. “I don’t think it is too bad,” he says stoically. “It is very wet on the bow, but any VO70 is wet at 90deg true. You can’t hammer along at 25 knots with the bowman up there otherwise you’ll kill him. It’s as simple as that...”

While the refitted Team Sanya was very new in the water, Abu Dhabi, the last of the new generation VO70s wasn’t far behind and during the race they suffered a reasonable amount of breakage, but as Walker points out: “It is the first race this team has done and this boat has done. Had the race been a week ago we wouldn’t have even have got around the course. So I am very pleased we finished.”

As to the Volvo boats being back in the Rolex Fastnet Race, Walker thinks it is a good step. He would like to see races such as this being part of a circuit between round the world races.

So the first show down between the VO70s, and the last until the start of the round the world: If this is a taste of things to come then we’re in for a gripping few months this winter.