Grant Dalton on the Volvo Ocean Race

Emirates Team New Zealand boss shares his views

The Butler’s Wharf area on the south side of the River Thames was ablaze with red last night, as the Emirates Team New Zealand-powered Camper VO70 flew down the Thames, to do the traditional sailing under Tower Bridge for the benefit of the cameramen. Having nearly been blown off my feet walking across the bridge prior to this, there was, for once, ample wind and the Kiwi crewed VO70 was struggling to hold on to her big kite in the gusts as she came back under the famous London landmark, heading downstream this time.

Among the Camper VIPs assembled at the Design Museum on Butler’s Wharf was Emirates Team New Zealand CEO Grant Dalton, who is going to be Europe-based for the next few days, following the VO70 down to Lorient in France (when the 40 knot headwinds ease), where she is stopping briefly this Friday. Dalton then returns to the UK and Plymouth for the second round of AC45 racing at the America’s Cup World Series that kicks off this Saturday.

“There is a bit of a tradition with Kiwi boats, bringing them up here and I’m surprised more people don’t do it, because the bridge is really iconic, in the heart of London, the Tower of London, etc," Dalton told us. "And to have breeze to do it was good because normally you go through here and you have to go backwards to keep the sails full!”

Having arrived into Felixstowe on a Maersk Line ship from New Zealand, the Camper team have been based up on the east coast these last days, shoehorning in a trip up to South Shields, near Newcastle, were all the sailing teams competing in the Volvo Ocean Race have had to take part in a mandatory sea survival course at the South Tyneside Maritime College. This involves firefighting and some dramatic liferaft exercises in the college's pool where they can provide a good simulation with a wave making machine, spray machines, lightning, etc.

With the Volvo Ocean Race In Port and Pro Am races in Alicante taking place on 29-30 October and leg one departing a week later, so the clock is ticking for the round the world campaigns, which are all gearing up to head for Alicante. For the Camper team this will involve a short stop in France this week and then on to Palma where the Camper head office is situated in the centre of Majorca.

It’s been almost a decade now since Dalton was last involved in the Volvo Ocean Race when he masterminded the Amer Sport campaign. So how does he feel the race has progressed in his absence? “The significant change is the course. I was against it when it first happened, but then I’m always a bit like that, and it happened in the race before and I’m still out jury-wise. It would knock out an Abu Dhabi boat and a Chinese boat if it didn’t go there and that wouldn’t be good, so for that reason alone it is the right thing.”

For the sponsors of the VO70 campaign, he believes it is probably in Camper’s interests to go to the Middle East and Far East and no doubt Emirates Airlines will also get some mileage from it, although Dalton states that their focus is primarily on the America’s Cup.

As to the fully crewed round the world only having six entries - down somewhat from the 31 that competed in 1981-2 when Dalton sailed his first Whitbread Round the World Race (as was) on board Cornelis van Rietschoten’s eventual winner, Flier 2 - he says it is just a sign of the times. “That’s more than the America’s Cup is going to have!”

Dalton says that Knut Frostad, CEO of the Volvo Ocean Race, is doing a good job and in the present climate is lucky to have got six entries.

“He is carrying on from last time in terms of the formula and the course, although he taken out India and the north of China, which was too cold. And he got hit by a nice recession. He’s controlled costs, or rather knocked the top off the costs, so you can’t spend 45 million Euros now, like Ericsson did last time. So I think there is more cost control necessary, but to judge the Volvo Ocean Race or the America’s Cup or any of the big events now is to judge the sport, because, if there is a root issue within the sport it is that it isn’t led at all. That is a real problem, which isn’t even close to being addressed.”

So Camper aren’t spending 45 million? “No no no! We are doing it the good old Emirates Team New Zealand way. I don’t think any of these teams will be spending less than 20 million Euros, in fact they’d probably be spending quite a lot more.” Still, around the same as illbruck Challenge spent in the last race he sailed, when the budget for his two boat Amer Sport campaign was a very much more modest US$12.5 million.

Having not been involved with the last two Volvo Ocean Races, the Camper campaign is Dalton’s first real exposure to the Volvo Open 70 and 'liking to stay current' or so the story goes, he sailed on board with Chris Nicholson's team when they competed in the Auckland-Fiji race earlier this year. He says that he is a big fan of the VO70 now.

“In some ways I think they are easier to sail than the old boats, because they are quite forgiving. They have twin rudders, so they don’t wipe out. But they are basically ocean bulldozers. You cant the keel, bring everything you can get your fingers on up to weather, put as much sail on as it will handle and then just point it...whatever the fastest angle is. So point and shoot. They are not really refined to sail, they are just bulldozers in the ocean. They are very brutal.”

So the right bit of kit for the Volvo Ocean Race? “Everything is pretty heavy, the sails are heavy. You can’t do anything by yourself. You can barely move a winch. But I think they are the right boat, although that will be under review for the next race. I think they have been a really good choice of boat for the race. There is nothing around better.”

One of the features that has creeped into the Volvo Ocean Race this time, although it has been slowly progressing in this direction for several races, is the America’s Cup approach of having a bevy of naval architects, engineers, R&D specialists, aerodynamicists, sail makers and other experts working on the design, rather than a team just going to one design house as used to happen. Dalton makes no bones about this: although Marcellino Botin is the boat’s Principal Designer, Camper is a product of the Emirates Team New Zealand design team, many of whom worked on their campaign for the 32nd America’s Cup and the team’s TP52 that was all-conquering on the Audi MedCup in 2009 and 2010.

“It was perfect timing for us, because we were either going to kick the machine away or keep it alive,” says Dalton of the Kiwi design team. “We’d done the TP and that was already a year old. And they had to keep current. So it was the perfect boat at the perfect time and it really allowed us to get the machine cranked up again.”

At present the Emirates Team New Zealand office in Auckland is humming as the team get to grips with designing their AC72. According to Dalton they have picked up a large number of people from Guillaume Verdier’s design office, designers Morrelli and Melvin, to ex-McLarens/Alinghi engineer and modelling expert, Dan Bernasconi, etc. “There are about 35 of them in the office in New Zealand,” says Dalton. “It is a big project, because it is virgin ground, you can’t think of it like what you know. It is a massive, massive leap. And someone will make a massive leap above everyone else, it won’t be close, it won’t even be near close. It could be four knots difference between the boats.”

With the Volvo Ocean Race and America’s Cup, plus an Extreme Sailing Series campaign running simultaneously at present we wonder if Dalton is considering any further projects for the future. We see him, or the team at least in an MOD70, we put it to him. He shudders. “I don’t have anything against them. But we have a lot on. In spades...”