Editorial Andrew Hurst Amusant
It’s a bit like the Chinese building a major airport in the time it takes a British local authority to grant permission for a new roundabout. In little more time than America’s Cup organisers have had since their last event, during which 14-month period they have confirmed… err… virtually nothing about the next edition, organisers of the Volvo Ocean Race have launched seven identical VO65 one-designs and started a serious round-the-world sailing race. While this is all to the credit of the Volvo Ocean Race and their well co-ordinated build co-operative, what it also demonstrates is how different things are when a genuine commercial agenda is driving an event rather than fabulously wealthy Corinthian owners and their ‘staff’. What is even more entertaining is that the per- sonalities behind the Cup never cease banging on about making the event ‘genuinely commercial’ and ‘financially sustainable’. Wannabe Cup challengers continue to put a brave face on the situation so as not to offend the Cup holders, but the position in which they find themselves is a nightmare. Dozens of design and engineering staff have been hired and are no doubt being paid, and yet until the venue is confirmed there is little work. Do you start to refine a boat for San Diego (light air and kelp) or for Bermuda (generally more breeze, no real infrastructure)? No one is going to put ink to design paper in earnest until they know. Total fiasco.
Meanwhile
The Volvo Ocean 65 fleet got away cleanly from Alicante (OK, Vestas was OCS), to be led out through the Straits of Gibraltar by Sam Davies’s girls on Team SCA. A dream opening for race organisers, in fact.
The continuation of Alicante as the hosting port for the Volvo Ocean Race is paying real dividends, with daily turnstile figures approaching 60,000 leading up to the start. The move to a one- design may give us technical enthusiasts less to write about but the general public are not bothered one jot. Good on ’em. This will be an interesting race with some of the favoured teams suffering a deficit in preparation time. Early favourite Ian Walker on Abu Dhabi’s Azzamknows he must be at maximum attack to get points on the board before other strong entries like Chris Nicholson on Vestasand Iker Martínez on Mapfreget up to speed. The last Volvo Ocean Race was particularly exciting (unless you were Spanish) since the early dominant performer – Martínez’s Telefónica– was steadily overhauled by the fast-improving Groupama of Franck Cammas and at the last by Nicholson himself on Camper, who finished as runner-up. There is every chance of a similar
scenario in 2014-15, made more intense by the boats being identical. With boat performance in this race closer than ever, there are also certain to be some wild tactical plays as the event unfolds. In going one-design the Volvo ceded some ground, for the serious aficionado at least, to the Vendée Globe, which still allows real development. But for the Volvo to continue as a grand prix round-the-world event there was no alternative; costs had got out of kilter with the commercial market and so the right action was taken – and for that CEO Knut Frostad and his team deserve appropriate plaudits. Going one-design was not to every- one’s taste but it was the right move. Early indications are that it will deliver the competitive race that everyone is hoping for.
Strange goings on ‘ REALLY?
Freddie Simpson joined Iain Percy and Anthony ‘Nocka’ Nossiter on the Percy & Simpson Olympic Star for Bart’s Bash. Well over a quarter of a million pounds was raised in a worldwide event that involved some 27,000 sailors. Wonderful is too small a word
I spend about 1,000 hours boatbuilding for every hour sailing
It used to be too easy to take a pop at the leviathan of ISAF with its historic ‘out-of-touch’ public image… but one or two recent developments really do give pause for thought. Firstly ISAF declined, for the recent Santander ISAF Worlds (which did not run smoothly…), both the marvellous race management tech nology developed for the last America’s Cup by multi-media genius (and fine sailor) Stan Honey and similar technology from German giant SAP. The offer would have resulted in significant cost savings in terms of reducing the need for imported officials. But the answer came back, ‘not today, thank you’. Hard to fathom… And then there is the rather excited debate taking place over the Sailor Classification Code, with the looming threat of its abandonment by sailing’s governing body in favour of a system based on recorded ‘days sailed’. Hard to see the gain in that. Certainly, the Classification Code is not error-free; most of us who have competed at Code-governed events have come across those talented ‘ice-cream salesmen’. But in terms of the viable alternatives the Code – in the context of 2014 – is, as Sir Winston Churchill famously said of democracy, ‘the worst choice, except for all the other options that have been tried’. There must be something in the water at ISAF HQ.
I am an honest man – Suspended Naples Mayor Luigi de Magistris (under investigation about hosting the AC World Series)
Oracle last time supposedly spent US$300 million. I call
that totally obscene – Roger ‘Clouds’ Badham He can drink from it or
p**s in it, it’s his Cup – Badham
I’ve got a few ideas about the rudder cavitation and I’ll spend all night getting
them on the boat – Paul Bieker, and no4 of Russell Coutts’s 7 reasons for Oracle’s Cup victory in 2013
– International Canoe world champion Chris Maas
If carried, this submis-
sion will cause chaos – Former ISAF classification chairman Antony Matusch
TAKE CARE NOW The Volvo is 40,000 miles… and you can’t
do it without sails – Mark Towill, Alvimedica
If this [Commanche] isn’t the worst-rated boat ever in IRC and ORC history then you have failed
q
– Ken Read briefs designers at Verdier-VPLP
They had no idea how cold they were going to be and how wet they
were going to get – Grant Dalton acknowledges the crews in the first Whitbread Race of 1973-74
Seahorse magazine and our associate raceboatsonlybrokerage site are both at:
seahorsemagazine.com The editor is contactable by email at:
andrew@seahorse.co.uk
SEAHORSE 7
CHRIS ISON
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