create something different. I am now in regular dialogue with designers and suppli- ers, but it’s important for me to listen with an open mind rather than just impose the concepts that we think are right. SH: Everything is driven by sponsors coming into the race. So given that for these guys the ROI is everything – and this may sound outrageous – I believe the media person is one of the most important people on the boat. Getting the right exposure off the boat means that as a sponsor you can continue to win even without doing all that well in the race. NB: In this communication climate there is no excuse for the quality from the boats not to be what we are used to seeing in news broadcasts every night of the week. And you are right, a sponsor is not inter- ested whether the boat is a VO65 or an Imoca 60 or a MOD 70… they just want a platform to help them develop their busi- ness. Doing that successfully translates to more longevity and continuity, encourag- ing repeat sponsorships. Which would obviously be good for sailors as well. Most of our sailors currently come from the inshore big boat circuits, so that if they drop out of those for 15 months to race a Volvo they then have to get back into those programmes afterwards. That can be a tough call… there are plenty of hungry guys after a limited number of good slots. Our goal is to create a programme so the sailors want to race the VOR regularly. SH: This programme would be… NB: Ideally
teams and sponsors can
miles and by the end of the next race it will be close to 150,000 miles. That is a lot of miles for a raceboat, so reliability remains the number one priority. Performance is probably bottom of the list in the sense that the boats are one-design, we are not inter- ested in making them five hours quicker around the world. What we are interested in is that the boats start and finish the next race, keeping the crews safe and telling our story. So there are new ideas for cameras, what the crew are allowed and not allowed to do in terms of media. The boats will look new and will have some refinements, such as replacing structural elements of the winch system to ensure that longevity. We have been pragmatic here, we do have a budget, but we believe every boat that comes out of the refit will be able to race around the world without reliability issues. SH: Apart from Vestas grounding, the only significant boat damage was Dongfeng’s mast breaking… NB: There have been various theories about that but the critical evidence is sitting at the bottom of the Southern Ocean. They did have a pretty rough time down there with a number of Chinese gybes… We also had a bit of rig damage
on Mapfre, but this may also have been caused by a crash gybe. SH: So far you have progressed from VO60 boatbuilder with Amer Sports in 2001/02, to sailor to boatyard manager. How is your relationship with the race going to evolve from here? NB: I will step away from the day-to-day running of the boatyard as we know it, and so next year I want to concentrate on securing the future of the race – not just for the next edition but for the next 10 or 20 years. As good as the race is, it has a repu- tation for being stop-start due to its three-year cycle, so what we want is to get continuity using different concepts and/or different boats at different times. SH: I have had plenty of feedback from both sailors and mainstream fans for the past three editions of the VOR saying that, aside from the images coming off the boats, the bulk of the media content from the boats has actually been poor… NB: That can change by me putting myself more into the loop. It has been difficult when the onboard media guy reports directly to the skipper – we are probably only getting five per cent of the story off the boats… at best. This time we want to
commit to something ongoing. Instead of a campaign model with a big lump sum for the ‘main event’, they could see it as a continuous annual endorsement, with us introducing regular – desirable – activity each year to make it happen. This means that while we will be looking at new boats after the 2017/18 event we will also be reviewing both the cycle and the format. SH: Can VO65s be turboed for future use? NB: Absolutely. The advantage we have is we are not constrained by any particular rule. For example, unlike the Imocas, with limits on their new J foils we can juggle new appendages how we want. We can put elevators on the rudders, for example, we can put lift foils a lot further aft to get beneath the boat’s centre of gravity. These are just a few ideas, but definitely they can be turboed. Imagine too what we can do above the waterline. SH: People have been writing these boats off after the next race, but you’re hinting that this might not be the case… NB: Absolutely not. They are great boats. The design brief was bang on. You could argue they are too strong and so people haven’t had the big breakages and dramas in the Southern Ocean to write about. But I made it very clear from the beginning that I didn’t want the endless breakdowns that had so disrupted the previous races. Especially when the Volvo 70s were around…
q SEAHORSE 35
RICARDO PINTO/VOR
ANTONIO SANCHEZ/VOR
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