News Around the World
Xabi Fernández Seahorse: Mapfre was one of the last teams to enter this Volvo Ocean Race… Xabi Fernández: It’s not been easy and we have been learning the boat as we go. In the previous race we started in Alicante very well trained, with little room for improvement, while our competitors had a bigger learning curve during the first few legs. I hope this time it’s the opposite and our learning potential is now bigger than theirs!
Spain’s Alex Pella has been threatening to pull off a big win for some years now… His dominant victory in the 43-strong Class40 division in the Rhum surprised few who have followed his career
before the finish I was trapped in a huge raft of Sargassum weed. Three times I had to stop the boat and back down. After this during the final night I managed a major mess involving the big spinnaker and the forestay. It was impossible to drop it. I was desperate so Toño Piris suggested I run a halyard forward and cut away the forestay itself! I did it but by the time I finally crossed the line – with no proper forestay – my nerves were in tatters. SH: But still you set a record pace… AP: For me the record breaking is incidental, but it shows how fast the leading group was sailing. We pushed a lot, but records are made to be broken. And to be honest, if instead of having an 80-mile margin the next few boats had been breathing down my neck then the pace would have been even faster. SH: And also a first major oceanic win for a solo Spanish skipper… AP: I am very proud. But I must be grateful to the big effort of all the team. They did an incredible job, each one using his talent and energy, creating the fantastic boat that is Tales 2. In the end I just did my part of the job. I am especially grateful to be chosen by Gonzalo Botín to race his beautiful boat. This is a real team victory, not my victory. I was not sailing solo. And neither can I leave out my meteo consultant Iñigo Ortiz from Bilbao… SH: So what next? AP: Tales 2will be moved to Antigua with Gonzalo ready for the RORC Caribbean 600 and some other races there before return- ing to Spain in May. SH: And for Alex Pella… AP: I would love to tell you my plans, but unfortunately I do not have any right now. My focus is on searching for resources for the next Vendée Globe, but it’s quite difficult. In Spain there is a particular situation due to there being two influential groups that are monopolising oceanic sponsorship, and because of that they are already involved in events with tax exemptions like the Volvo and the Barcelona Race which leaves very little room for any independent projects.
A meeting with Barcelona city council is scheduled before Christmas and maybe… My wish is to race the next Vendée with a new boat designed by Marcelino Botín, built at Longitud Cero, with sails by Juan Meseguer, and for sure with Luis Guervós, Antonio Piris and Pablo Arrasate all involved. In a few words, another Spanish dream team that started from Tales 2…
18 SEAHORSE
Ideally, at the end of the previous edition you must know if you will be going to race the next, as happened when we finished with Telefónica Blueand we had sufficient funding to be able to continue training with the blue boat instead of selling it, and so on. If we had been sailing since finishing the last edition, perhaps 10 days a month… How I wish! Certainly, we learned a lot during the first 2014 leg to Cape Town but we were horribly inconsis- tent in terms of both our performance and routeing. SH: Was it hard to adapt to a smaller crew than before? XF: The new boat is smaller and has less righting moment, but removing two crew is a lot. It supposes one person less each watch – which now means three people instead of four. It is harder, especially due to the boats now being so even – that just makes the role of each of the crew even more critical. SH: And the boats themselves… XF: The main virtue is that they are all equal. The boats sail quite well and they are pretty fast downwind. By contrast, in reaching they are noticeably slower than the previous VO70s, and that’s a shame because you spend a lot of this race reach- ing! On the plus side, the VO65s are clearly stronger and more robust – and they are also drier because the keel pin has 5° of positive cant that has the effect of lifting the bow at speed. The sail changes are also easier now because we have more furling sails than before; but you have to push more and sometimes we found ourselves exceeding the wind range of the sails… which is slow. The change from J1 to J2 is much easier now with both being on furlers as well as each having a separate tack point.
We also have a new ballast tank in the bow, which helps espe- cially sailing upwind in strong conditions. Aft the new boats have two pairs of side tanks instead of the previous single central one, which allows you to trim the boat better in some conditions. SH: So what really went wrong on Leg 1 to Cape Town… XF: The positive is that we had phases where we sailed well and learned a lot about the boat. We refined the sail crossover charts which will improve our performance going forward. Personally I am convinced that the result (seventh) didn’t reflect the level of the team...
However, as sailors sometimes we failed to sail at 100% and we also fell down badly in the navigation. We made a big mistake by passing through the Cape Verde islands when we could easily have stayed in touch with Brunel and Abu Dhabi by going to the north. That mistake, in turn, put us in a difficult position approach- ing the Doldrums. From there we also went wrong around the Saint Helena High... It just went from bad to worse, I’m afraid. SH: So big crew changes… XF: This is a very long race. The lack of preparation was evident in our boathandling but also in individual performances onboard. The navigator change was made not just because of Leg 1 but more because of Nicolas Lunven’s general lack of experience in this race. Changing Michel [Desjoyeaux] is good for the team as his replace- ment, Rob Greenhalgh, has a lot of experience and grasps the culture of the Volvo Race. The big difference from our previous project is that then there was only one of 11 crewmembers who had not already raced a Volvo, and this time it is half the crew. That proved very costly. But both Michel and Nicolas have contributed greatly and both remain connected to the team via their computers… SH: What about the organisers’ maintenance and repair schedule? XF: At the moment it works well, but we are afraid to think about
THIERRY MARTINEZ
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74