above its weight but is certainly not disgracing itself. In all but one race to date it has crossed the line with much bigger competitors trailing in its wake and has managed a best handicap finish of third. After one such outing Shaw was able to report: ‘I had a call from the sailmaker [Doyle] this morning to say they’d just sailed right past all the TP52s on the downwind leg.’ This kind of irreverence may not endear Little Nico to the big boat owners, but it is certainly exhilarating for those onboard, demonstrating once again that on a fun-per-dollar basis these explosive designs represent outstanding value. Now for some more converts. Ivor Wilkins
AUSTRALIA A high note
New Vestas navigator Tom Addis spoke to Blue Robinson as his team re-entered the race, about joining the boat plus the process of offshore navigating when AIS tells all… Seahorse Magazine: When were you approached about joining Vestas?
Tom Addis: Nico and I have known each other for years and speak often, so before this race we discussed the possibility of me doing a leg or two if he needed that; so after the accident they made changes to the team and Nico got back in touch and asked about those legs I’d offered to do… I really am very happy to help here, Vestas is a company I can believe in and the guys onboard are just a fantastic group. I felt terrible for them when they hit the reef, so a big part of me just wants to help them finish in a positive way. SH: Have you raced with Nico before? TA: You know I haven’t! But we’ve raced against each other so often and know each other so well. And we are similar types of guys, simple, fundamental types. It will be a good fit. SH: The team didn’t have time for any pre-race training and only
completed leg one and the beginning of leg two. What performance data does that give you to work with? TA: You have hit on our big issue there, just learning to sail these boats. When you design and build your own boat you develop a good feel for how it will perform – if it’s a good upwind or downwind boat. But with this one-design concept you are given a boat and it’s up to you to learn how to make it go – and when I say making it go, I mean the 0.1 or 0.2 of a knot speed differences that so add up. In a normal windward-leeward race 0.2 of a knot is a pretty minor issue compared to boathandling, but in the VOR over 24 hours it adds up, and over three weeks it means a horizon job. You can see that in other teams: some of them hit the ground running with a good handle on how to make these boats really go, other teams such as Mapfre really took time to get a handle on it. So we have a brand new boat, a fresh team who are not worn out physically, but we have lost a lot of time just understanding how to make it work. So the plan is watch the other boats and try to stay in touch… learning on the way. SH: Understanding all this, what sort of research have you been doing? TA: It’s tricky. Obviously researching the legs you do anyway and we have also been watching as much footage as we can. But the Vestas crew have done a lot of miles on the boat already. I haven’t done any miles on a Volvo 65 before this leg, but the guys have a good understanding of what the issues are. They have been think- ing about it a lot, so in the position we are in we just have to get the priorities right, get the boat in the water, not hit the bottom, set everything up right and, having done that well, boatspeed comes some way down that initial critical list… SH: With no time on a VO65, how do you navigate differently from a Volvo 70? TA: Generally they are similar styles of boat but we have less stability, so that changes our options a bit, just how the boat responds at different angles. On a Volvo 70 you could put the bow down 5° upwind and you would know how much faster you would go, so could factor that in. These boats don’t respond in quite the same way, and so we may have to be a bit more aggressive with the angles. We just have to get on the water and learn. SH: A huge knock and now back in the race from the Lisbon stopover, does that change the risk-reward? TA: I don’t think so. I have thought about that, and if our aim is just to do as well as we can in the legs, no it doesn’t. If the sponsor wanted to make a statement on one area – then it may do, but to date Vestas just want us to do the best job we can, so our approach is the same. Also there are constraints in this race with AIS on all the time, and we have fairly short legs ahead of us so the boats will be close together. SH: Match fit? TA: Pretty good, I’m not 100 per cent with the short lead-up but the other guys are fit. With the rest of the teams, by this stage of the race they are getting pretty worn out so I am probably on a par with the guys on the other boats! SH: And a fresh sail wardrobe… TA: I was chatting to Nico about that and, yes, our sails have fewer miles on them, but the other teams have been bringing in their replacement sails on recent legs plus on average this has been a lighter than normal Volvo; I don’t think it’s a massive issue. A pretty small benefit. SH: In a navigating sense, who has impressed you in this race? TA: Mostly Dongfeng, particularly on leg one which I followed closely. They impressed me with their commitment – and with this AIS system in place you have to be strong. It is very easy to dissolve into losing your plan and just running off the AIS and covering every- one, so your plan goes out of the window and you end up tacking or gybing on their shifts rather than yours, and that has been visible in the fleet here. So the guys on Dongfeng and to some extent Brunel. Capey [Andrew Cape] is confident enough to back himself, but it is easy with AIS to lose your plan and sail another boat’s race. This is why I love ocean racing, I love using an independent thought process and coming up with your own plan, so part of me is not looking forward to doing a race with live tracking. Clearly it’s fantastic for
SEAHORSE 19
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