News Around the World
It would require a heart of stone to feel anything but sympathy for Vestas Wind skipper Chris Nicholson (above) and his VO65 crew following their high-speed grounding during Leg 2 of the 2014-15 Volvo Ocean Race. Both in public and, by all accounts in private with his crew, Nicholson maintained a dignified presence, unwilling to point the finger in any particular direction. A true team leader
CN: No, we actually had a dream run with the weather; I have done all these pre-VOR testing programmes before and the eight days we had on the water I would say delivered twice what we had achieved previously in that same timeframe… SH: Prior to the Leg 1 start, did you know what you didn’t know? CN: We weren’t very confident using the reaching struts. We thought we had a good handle on the crossovers, then during the leg I think we strayed away from that a little and paid a price. A couple of boats, Brunel and Dongfeng, are trimming some sails quite differently but we were soon onto that, but we were still always playing catch-up. SH: And on Leg 1 what did you do well and not so well? CN: We were quite poor in carrying our big sails for too long. I remember on Leg 1 we were in first or second place on the scheds, we had the masthead code zero and all the gear up saying ‘this is good, this is good!’
And we hung onto the gear as the breeze increased and lost a couple of miles here and there, so realised we just needed to back ourselves on our crossovers and be more aggressive in making that down-change. If you even think you are overpowered on the 65s it is time to change down. SH: You said the food was a little compromised due to the tight lead-in time – how were you going into Leg 2? CN: Not very well… But I was going OK, I lost I think 5.5kg on Leg 1. SH: You went into this race massively overweight as I recall… CN: Yeah right… SH: Yet you felt the team itself had really come together pretty fast… CN: The whole thing is just such a tragedy, especially the rate we were improving. Two of our young guys were really starting to come online with their driving, particularly in the night – and that was my worry from day one: how we would cope with driving at night. On Leg 1 if there was any heavy air I would pull all-nighters, but towards the end of that leg they were doing fine by themselves
20 SEAHORSE
in the dark – we were only ever going to get better. What can I say? Mate, what can anyone say… Blue Robinson
USA No surprise really
The decision to locate the 2017 America’s Cup in Bermuda will have surprised some in the US who still think this event is about sailing, but not the many others who have a deeper under - standing of its commercial nature. The unprecedented decision by the US defender to locate the Cup outside the US is yet further proof that the organisers are more concerned about moulding the event to suit their broadcast and internet crowd than attracting a large spectator fan base on-site. Which is not to say the event will not boost tourism in Bermuda: the island has been looking for just such a recovery to lure back their traditional visitors who fly in, stay in hotels, eat in restau- rants and play on the island rather than just sail in and sail out on cruise ships. At the press conference in New York announc- ing the venue it was said that along with the redevelopment of the Royal Naval Dockyards area into a Race Village a major new hotel will also now be built on the island.
Other hard news included the Match being scheduled for June 2017, Red Bull once again being title sponsor of a youth series in AC45s, and Chicago to host an AC World Series in 2016. But the remainder was more promises of future news: ETNZ submitting a proposal for an unspecified major event, Team France about to announce a major sponsor, ACEA about to announce major sponsors and TV deals, and two new challengers about to emerge… it all sounds positive, and is no doubt true, but one wonders if there could have been more meat on the bones of the venue announce- ment, especially after the long wait.
Nonetheless, Bermuda is a lovely place, suitable for promot- ing a slice of paradise only two hours by plane from the US east coast; and being four hours closer to the European markets than
BRIAN CARLIN/VESTAS WIND
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