When it comes to sailing races and sporting challenges, very little compares with the Volvo Ocean Race. And that challenge is wholly passed on in the requirements the race organisers place on the rig suppliers to the current VO65 fleet, Southern Spars. The Kiwi sparmaker – whose reputation for getting things right first time was recently added to with their build of Team New Zealand’s winning America’s Cup catamaran – had a dream start in the round the world event that was then known as The Whitbread. Peter Blake’s Steinlager 2 sported twin rigs that were the first ever produced by Southern Spars for a round the world race competitor. Blake’s effort that year would go down as the most dominant ever in round the world racing when ‘Big Red’ went on to win every leg – a feat unmatched before or since. Then things took off. By the next event, raced in 1993- 94, Southern Spars produced rigs
56 SEAHORSE
for six teams, including both the Maxi and Whitbread 60 division winners, NZ Endeavour and Yamaha. And the story has continued to
grow, Southern Spars having so far supplied masts to a total of 46 competing teams. With a list of past customers that includes seven of the last nine winning teams in the Whitbread/Volvo Ocean Race it is surely no exaggeration to say that winning teams choose Southern Spars! So how is one company so successful in an event in which, before the advent of the VO65 one-design in 2012, teams were each pouring tens of thousands of dollars into developing their own technical innovations to give themselves a small competitive edge wherever it could be found? ‘We understand this race,’ says company founder and director Mark Hauser – who sailed on the winner of the 1993-94 Whitbread Race. ‘If you look around our offices, so
Above: Dongfeng was first
afloat of this year’s Volvo fleet and
remains one of the main favourites to win an event that she
threatened to take on the team’s debut three years ago. But on Leg Zero Dongfeng faced serious challenge from Spain’s Mapfre – also a repeat race entry. Mapfre, however, has flattered to deceive
before in this event – is this the race in which that all changes?
many of the people here have a history with it. That understanding of what the people and the boats go through is instrumental in helping us work with the teams to produce a mast that is not only fast, but will get them around the track in one piece.’ Following the 2011-12 race,
where Telefónica and Camper were the only Volvo 70s to lap the planet without a major rig failure, and were also the only boats to have a full Southern Spars mast and rigging package, Southern Spars were selected to supply the one-design masts for the 2014-15 VO65 fleet. The one-design nature of the
new yachts would mean that the absolute strictest of design and manufacture parameters would have to be maintained to make sure that all of the 11 masts supplied to the race were identical. For two masts to be the same, exactly the same, there are many things to consider. The most obvious and easy to control is of
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