The Fields on the Global Ocean Race

Ross Field and son Campbell discuss their latest round the world campaign

Whitbread Round the World Race winner Ross Field and his capable son Campbell are back on the round the world race track this week having set sail on Sunday on the Global Ocean Race. Having won the fully crewed race around the planet with Steinlager 2 and then in the inaugural race for the Volvo 60s in 1993-4 with Yamaha, this time the Fields are two handed aboard their Class 40, BSL.

Last time we came across Ross Field, he was representing a potential Russian Cup team at a challenger meeting in Geneva when it seemed possible that the 33rd America’s Cup might be held in large monohulls.

“I’m trying to get away from home!” he says within earshot of his wife as, down below on BSL, we shelter from Saturday’s torrential rain in Palma, as son Campbell is up to his elbows in the engine box carrying out an oil change. “I’d been working with the Russians for the America’s Cup and I had tried to get a New Zealand campaign for the Volvo out but it was basically totally impossible and I had always looked at Class 40s.”

Ross' interest in the class was piqued by fellow Global Ocean Race competitor and French sailing legend Halvard Mabire. Mabire and Field raced together on the Maxi One Designs, as well as their brief participation in the 1997-8 Volvo Ocean Race aboard America’s Challenge, when Mabire was navigator and most recently aboard the Wally Dark Shadow. Son Campbell was also on America’s Challenge and Dark Shadow.

“I just thought that firstly the class is very good,” says Field Senior, now 62 of why he's embarking on his latest adventure. “And Campbell was interested. We started talking over a year ago - we’d been chatting away about it and then Campbell came back to New Zealand for Christmas and we were talking about a two boat campaign (I’d have one boat and he’d have another) and then as it all worked out we decided to do it together. I would fund it myself as long as we could find the right boat – that was the main criteria.

“The big attraction was the boats – they are fantastic to sail two handed in. And the course was very attractive plus there is a stop in New Zealand. There are only five stops. The race is a fantastic concept and I think it will gain in popularity.

“And I think I’ve got another race left in me. And I love two handed sailing. I’ve done a lot of it. I’ve done the Melbourne-Osaka race twice and I have also done a lot of two handed sailing in New Zealand.”

According to Ross Field, doublehanded offshore racing is popular with the SSANZ series organised by the Shorthanded Sailing Association of New Zealand, the yacht club they are representing in the Global Ocean Race.

“They get over 150 boats on the start line for a five race series in the [Hauraki} Gulf from courses of 50 miles up to 150 miles and it is very very popular.”

Their boat is a Guillaume Verdier design, the former Desafio Cabo de Hornos, sailed in the last Class 40 round the world race by the Chilean duo of Felipe Cubillos and Jose Muñoz.

“We were going to build a boat, but that was too expensive and there wasn’t enough time, so we went through it and targeted the Verdier design,” continues Field. “There’d only been four of these built, and we nearly gave up because we couldn’t find one until this one came on the market.”

Their French designed and built Class 40 is the sistership to Giovanni Soldini’s all-conquering Telecom Italia and, as mentioned, has been around the world before in the hands of the Chilean team. This was an attraction as there was not much major work to be done to her other than adding three bulkhead doors to bring it up to the latest iteration of ORC Category 0, adding more safety gear and a new suit of sails from North New Zealand. They had the boat shipped back from Chile and cracked into the job list with four people working on it full time from mid-May.

“We were very conscious of the weight we took off and put back on,” says Ross. “We have put in this little galley in here, so that I can get downstairs and we can make a cup of tea without having to go right up the front. We put these big bunks in through here so we can stack behind them and it makes it more comfortable to sleep.” The galley, now on the forward side of the cockpit bulkhead, has aluminium tubing around it, doubling as a convenient handhold, while the pipecots don’t articulate but have a deep fabric covering, so they are more hammock-like.

One of the items of interest fitted to all the Class 40s competing in the Global Ocean Race is the transom-mounted hydrogenerator, developed by Yannick Bestaven prior to the last Vendee Globe.

“They are quite common place these hydrogenerators,” says Campbell. “We shortened the leg on ours - normally they are a metre long. And we have gone through and rather than spending a fortune expanding the instrument system, we’ve got custom software and we’re running a lot of stuff out of the laptop so we have displays on deck, showing all of our performance information. The rest is pretty straightforward. We have a few gizmos and widgets, but nowhere near all the gadgetry they’re running on the Volvo boats.”

The Fields themselves have complementary skills with Ross having the offshore miles while Campbell is more proficient at handling the technical side, the electronics in particular and with top notch logistical skills having done the last two Volvo Ocean Races running the shoreside operation for the Telefonica team.

Campbell: “It is one is making mess and the other one is cleaning it up.”

Ross: Campbell thinks I’m the messiest person in the world. And so does my wife!

“I am looking forward to it and sailing with Campbell and looking forward to arguing with him! I threatened if he didn’t sail with me I’d cut him out of the will, but there won’t be anything left anyway! To have someone with Campbell’s skills makes it so much easier. He does the navigation, the electronics, cleans up after me, cooks the meal and I can sit around taking the trophy while Campbell is down here changing the oil!”

Ross adds that while he is excited by the Global Ocean Race the only disappointing part of it is the size of the fleet which over the last three months has plummeted from 18 boats likely to take part, down to just six. “That was disappointing, especially after I got Bill Buckley [their sponsor] involved, but Bill has stuck with us and its worked out very well. He’s just been voted Entrepreneur of the Year in New Zealand and he is on his way to Monaco for the World Enterpreneur award next year. He has a fantastic business. His plant is mind boggling.” Buckley was co-owner of the maxi Maximus.

With the Fields’ track record, they started the Global Ocean Race as favourites and since Sunday, when they rounded the first mark of the course in the lead, they have lived up to expectations, currently two miles ahead of Cessna Citation well on their way to the Strait of Gibraltar.

Prior to the start Ross hoped this would be the case. “We have only done one race which was the Rolex Fastnet Race and we were seventh, but we got dumped at the finish in the beat into Plymouth and we ended up doing a bit of testing on the way which cost us, but it proved what we thought: the boat is most incredible at reaching and running and hopefully it will be reaching and running around the world.”

So coming from the Volvo Ocean Race and maxis, the Class 40 must seem like a toy? “Most people go from small boats to big boats and we’ve come down,” states Ross. “It is hard getting used to only going upwind at 7.5 knots but once you get used to it you are alright. We had the thing wound up to 21 knots coming down here and we averaged 15 knots for a few hours. It doesn’t seem very fast because on a supermaxi you are doing that all the time, but she gets up and goes.”