Shape of next Volvo Ocean Race revealed at Southern Spars - Part 2

by Richard Gladwell, Sail-World.com NZL on 5 May 2016 Continuing the update on Volvo Ocean Race from a media conference at Southern Spars with Race Director Jack Lloyd and Shore Manager, Richard Mason on the 2017-18 Volvo Ocean Race.


Despite some stopovers being announced, the actual course for the 2017/18 Volvo Ocean Race is yet to be determined.

“We’ve given Norths all the routing we have done on both of our routes,” says Lloyd

“They have had that now for a couple of months. We will tell them what the route will be. We want to know what sails will work best for each option and then we will make a decision on the final route.”

“We don’t want to run with what we have had before if it is not ideal, and we don’t think it was ideal last time.”

“It is important that the rigs are all identical, as what we want to be able to do is offer teams the option of buying a new rig - we will buy back the old one, and keep that as a spare. The spares will be shipped to various ports around the world – which saves us half a million Euros to fly a mast from Amsterdam to Brazil. There will already be a rig in Brazil, and that will leave on the ship out of Brazil, which takes the rest of the stopover gear.

The routes given to North Sails are two distinctly different options for the complete race.

Lloyd says they have run the polars from the last race hundreds of times against the options and historical weather data extending back 25 years. The routing is done using an ideal month for a particular location and then looking at a month either side as well.

“Certainly we are not going into the light conditions that we did in the last race, and will reduce the amount of time that we spend crossing the Equator so many times.”

The hardest conditions we experience are in the Straits of Luzon out of China, says Lloyd.

“That North China Sea around Taiwan is easily the worst weather I have ever seen,” say Mason a four times race veteran, before he joined Team SCA as Shore Manager for the last race.

“The previous race 2011-12, we were all signing our Wills before we left,” he adds. “It had been blowing 50-55kts there for a week!

“It certainly felt like it when we were sailing through. The Southern Ocean is a dream compared to that place.”

The changes to the sail inventory are not expected to be significant – aside from the altering the shape of the sails – fuller or flatter, and maybe swapping in a new sail for one of the existing standard inventory.

“The outrigger was a major problem that we never got sorted, “Lloyd explains. “Now the sail will be designed to suit the outrigger in its proper position, and be in the safest place. In the last race, some crews were using the struts as a barber hauler, or downhaul, and they were never designed to do that. And they broke. Now they will be rigged using fixed strops, so there will be only one position.”

“Dipping the strut in the water at 30kts didn’t help either,” Mason chips in. “It was amazing how inventive some crew got on their rigging. They were quite expensive as well.”

There has been a lot of debriefing with the teams and companies since the race.

“The evidence is that the sails and rigs were very good despite the pushing from some crews to be allowed to replace gear claiming it was damaged.”

“In the last race there was a lot more information sharing going on between the crews with The Boatyard and sharing of spares,” says Mason.

“There will be even more focus on shared resources in the next race. All the teams technical areas will be in The Boatyard. There will be a pool of spare mast which we will place around the world – no more teams owning their own spare masts.

“Same for all key components such as rudders and daggerboards, which will be owned by The Pool, and funded by the teams.”

“Navigators won’t be sharing information. But in the last race, we had an online Q&A system which everyone could see. So as Team SCA, if I wanted to ask Jack a question, I would log on as Team SCA, ask the question and all the other teams would see his reply. Everything was a completely open book. All commercial and racing questions were asked through this one media document,” Mason explains.

In 18 months the teams will start looking forward to the 2020 Volvo Ocean Race, as the current boats will be at the end of their current cycle.

“When we come to Auckland in 2018, we could be looking at new boats, new courses and a lot of other new challenges. Companies like Southern Spars will be showcasing what could be the future of the Race,” says Mason.

“The race will never be cheaper to do for teams than this coming edition,” he continues.

“The cost has reduced massively. I have been involved in some of the bigger campaigns in the past and we were looking at budgets of $50-60 million Euros in Ericsson days for the sport side of the campaign. You can certainly be competitive in this race for between 12-15 million Euros.

“If a top line team started this month, they would probably be spending 18million Euros.

“The beauty of the one design is that you can come in quite late and be very successful if you have the right guys and the right knowledge. It has changed the playing field.

“Volvo have made a big step up from the last race, employing a lot of guys from the teams in key positions. The idea is that we can work a lot more on the synergies and what we can share with the teams.

“We are trying to reduce the number of containers we ship around the world, and other logistics, which is a big cost reduction for the teams over the period of the race, as they don’t have to handle those issues within the team itself.

“We are even looking at doing one-design team bases – so that the same company that puts up all the other structures, just works for a couple of days extra and does all the team bases using an identical kit for each. Then they can brand them however they like,” explains Lloyd. “That save having a couple of guys per team for base assembly. It is a matter of driving the costs down, or at least holding them at the same level as for the last race.”

“Back in the Ericsson days, we would build two or three boats for the one team. We bought the old ABN Amro boat, then we built one Ericsson 3 boat, and then we would build the next generation boat, and we would run two teams around the world. The idea was that one team would push the other. But we ran three boats and four masts and a huge sail inventory. At this stage of that race, we would have had a massive team of designers working for nine months. So buying a one design boat, rig and sails literally off the shelf, is a totally different beast.

“Costs in the previous race reduced 50% for some teams that took it all the way. But we should be able to get another 15% on top of that for the 2017/18 race.

“There are teams that claim the one design ay is more expensive than before, but we have validated our numbers. Now with the budgets that we share with the teams and sponsors, we can validate the budgets and say that this amount of money will give you a winning campaign – if you do it right.”

Mason points out that the return is significant. “Some teams were investing 16million Euros but getting a marketing return of well over 40million Euros.

“The per team average was over 40million Euros of Brand Exposure and the top teams were getting over 60Million Euros of exposure.

“A team like Team SCA had met all their KPIs before the race had even started!”

“It is important that people clearly understand that the Volvo Ocean Race clearly works commercially. It is a viable product.”

Mason says that 70,000 top corporate guests visited the bases, and 5,000 corporate guests actually sailed on the boats during the last race. “You are delivering the experience to that number of corporate guests of being aboard during the In Port races.'

“Compare that to the America’s Cup! We are an ocean-going event, and yet we have a minimum of six or seven races in each stopover.

“At Gothenburg in the last race, we got 350,000 people through the Race Village in just four days. The TV reach is in the billions of viewers.

“It is still a People’s race. That is why it connects so well with places like Auckland – because it is a fans and a sailors race.

“But you still won’t win unless you have the right people.


To read Part 1 of this story click here