Three Stooges


A bit of an IOM cluster fuck at the Quiet Waters Park in Florida at the 2007 Region 3 IOM Championships. USA 29 is Craig Mackey, the only US sailor to compete in the 2008 European Continental Championships in Dubrovnik Croatia, last October. Craig came away from the Europeans with an impressive 5th place finish out of a very strong 70 boat field. Props to anarchist Dick Carver for the shot.

Finally, our long awaited Innerview with the most famous and one of the most successful sailboat racers of all time. Given the amount of crap we have dished his way over the years, many have said that hell would freeze over before Dennis Conner would ever talk to us. Consider the temperature to now be sufficiently chilly. Conner talked with Mr. Clean about his mentors, PHRF rule beaters, the Star Class, Ernesto Bertarelli, and how the economy is affecting racing.  Enjoy this very long, very interesting conversation with “Mr. America's Cup” himself – the first he's done in many years, and a big thanks to you anarchists for contributing some great questions.

SA:  You've had a rocky relationship with Sailing Anarchy over the years.  Has the site been fair to you?

DC:  I don't read it every day, but the overall gist of my portrayal on SA has been negative.  No one likes reading negative things about themselves, especially when they're not true, but I think the Editor just thinks I'm a good topic to pick on and stir up the shit with.  Fair game to him – he can say whatever he wants about me and I never bite back.  Some people like it and some don't, but obviously it sells newspapers and gets lots of comments in the forums.

SA:  But you do check out the site, which is undeniably the most popular sailing site in the world.  Do you think SA is positive or negative for the sport?

DC:  It's definitely good for the sport.  People are looking for as much to read about sailing as they can, and it helps fill a void that otherwise isn't available.  There is a huge volume of information on the site.  The articles are good and the interviews are interesting. 

SA:  Here's a question from one of our Anarchists:  “You're raced against three generations of my family.  How would you describe the overall change in the fun factor and mindset of the average racer between then and now?”

DC: Let's see – that's 50 years ago.  50 years ago, people raced for the fun and enjoyment of being out there – whether for social or competitive reasons, or a combination of both.  But no one was paid, no one twisted your arm, it was generally conceived of as being fun and enjoyable.

Once in a while your sailmaker would come out with you if you begged them.  Usually, to help figure out what kind of new sail to make, but it wasn't part of the deal that if you bought a new sail you expected him to come out with you for five races or whatever.  That slowly started changing, but it was still that way when the SORC was the pinnacle of the sport. Back then, around 150 boats went from Tampa to Cuba every winter, then to Ft. Lauderdale,  then across the gulf to Nassau.  There was very seldom any pay for anyone except the guy who delivered the boat down there – it was strictly amateur.

All the way through the sixties, when competition to get picked for the Admiral's Cup team became the big deal, it was still all amateur.  There'd be ten, twelve, fifteen countries that sent three teams each, and the countries tried really hard – Germany, France, England and the US – a lot of time and effort went into it, and profit had zero to do with it.

In the mid-seventies things started changing.  Sailmakers and their friends started coming aboard big boats to try and make a difference in the competition. This was when North and Hood had it all their own way, but slowly the smaller guys started making a difference.  Tom Whidden, with Love Machine and maybe another boat – he'd bring his local Finn sailors like Peter Conrad – and they'd usually win their class.  It was the best form of advertising for sailmakers, and that was the maybe the genesis of what we see today.   I still won with Stinger with an all-amateur crew, the kind of crew that today, people might call a professional crew – but still they weren't getting paid.  I just always thought an excellent crew was a big part of the equation.  For some of your older readers, these were the days of what I call the 'old guard' - Jack Sutphen, Bob Bavier, Al Van Metre, Ted Turner, Halsey Herreshoff – all great sailors. 

In the late seventies and early eighties, I had a lot of success, primarily by putting more effort into racing than my competition.   People watching us learned that time and dedication really paid off, so they started emulating me.  There's no lock on brains, and when they tried harder, they did better.  When others saw it, they did the same, and the whole thing escalated – not necessarily by hiring 'professionals' but by injecting  more time, money, and effort into their racing programs. In 1979-80, I had a multiple-boat, two-year program in the America's Cup – and it worked.  On an international level, I think a bell really went off in the heads of sailors around the world that effort, sail testing, crew work, and preparation make all the difference.  With that change came more and more paid people in all areas of the sport:  Sailmaking, spar building, boat building, preparation, and crew work.  This happened on a worldwide scale – the whole bar went up throughout the upper levels of the sport.

For reference, when we lost the Cup in '83, there was basically one competitor – the Australians.  Four years later in Perth there were 20.  In 1983 we spent about four million on the entire 2 year, 3 boat campaign.  In 1987 we didn't have the highest budget by a long shot, yet our seventeen million was  quadruple the budget of our previous campaign.  This level of commitment meant that crews had to leave their jobs for a long time to sail with us, but they still had house payments and kids at college.  They had to earn something that would justify the campaign to themselves and their families.  So, in just a few years we went from all-amateur teams at the very top echelon of the sport, to teams of paid professionals earning something comparable to what they might be making at home as a plumber or carpenter or painter or whatever.

SA:  And since then?

DC: Nothing really has changed except that everything is more so - it's all about the money now at the top levels.

SA:  The second part of the question asked about the “fun factor” and how that's changed for the average racer. Can you answer that?

DC: That's really hard to answer unless you tell me what the 'average racer' is.  For anyone making a living as a sailor, it's all about the money.  The guy making $1000/day hiking on a Farr 40 cares about his next paycheck.  For the average guy who's frostbiting his Lehman 12 at Larchmont, it's all about the fun.  There's no such thing as an average racer – the sport is too diverse.

SA:  Between your 3 boat program in '83, and then your effort to win it all back in Perth and subsequent campaigns, many would say that you were the single most important force in the Cup becoming the pro showcase that it is.

DC: The bottom line is that our efforts did change the sport, but that was never our goal. I wanted to win, and to the best job possible -  to have “No Excuse To Lose.”   And certainly the bar was raised in ever way – but realize that even in 1987, the Stars & Stripes team subsisted on room, board, clothing, healthcare, and $300 a month.  Tom Whidden didn't make a dime from the program – he only earned the profit on the sails he sold.

SA:  But they realized they'd be in big demand from other teams if you won, right?

DC: That's how it turned out, but I don't think they knew it at the time.  They were just there for the sport of it, but knowing how to win and how the Stars & Stripes program worked became a big benefit down the road.

SA:  Fast forward to today, when there seem to be a lot of 'America's Cup Sailors' floating around now. 

DC: That might just be my own personal pet peeve, but there really do seem to be a lot of people claiming to be AC sailors solely because of their involvement in the boats on some basis.  But very, very few have sailed in the America's Cup itself.  We used to only have 11 crew per boat – that means only 22 people every four years were actually America's Cup sailors.  Even with a few more crew added to the boats over the past cycles, where do these hundreds if not thousands of 'AC sailors' come from?   It's like showing up at an Olympic trial, and forever afterwards claiming to be an 'Olympic sailor.' It just isn't true.

SA:  What do you think of the current America's Cup mess?  Will it get back on track?

DC: Of course it will.  The reality is that at some point the legal part of the current competition will end.  It's certainly not the first time the AC has been adjudicated or fought in the court of public opinion.  Lord Dunraven accused the NYYC of cheating at the end of the 19th century - he left, quit and went home.  Alan Bond was accused of cheating in 1983 and never signed the consent agreement that said that he wasn't.  What happened in '88 was even closer to what we're seeing today, with a Deed of Gift match, a multi-year court battle, and acrimony across the board.

Arguing about the interpretation of the Deed of Gift has ALWAYS been part of the Cup – after all, these are rich, powerful, strong, egocentric people trying to win a competition.  It's no different from big business, and now it's gone back to its roots - two billionaires duking it out like Sir Thomas Lipton and Vanderbuilt – nothing new here, and sooner or later it will be over, and someone will go racing.

SA:  Any thoughts on who is right?

DC:  Bertarelli just looks pretty desperate to me.  He's trying to control the whole event, he wants to tell everybody what kind of boats to race, and how they're going to race them.  He wants both sides of the deal. This is a big change from the way it was always done. The Challengers used to work together to beat the Defender.  Now he wants to be the Challenger and the Defender by sailing in both sets of trials.   It's no surprise that Oracle has a problem with the 33rd protocol, and this time Bertarelli wasn't even subtle – his “Challenger” holds their annual regatta in Optimists.  Optimists!

Part two Monday. Photo by Da Woody.

You’ve got to hand it to those Green Dragon boys. Despite not having a boom, they crossed the scoring gate in third place, behind the Ericsson twins. If you’re thinking “so what, they were sailing downwind” think again. Navigator Ian Moore explains the problem “We still haven’t worked out how to reef, which means we have full main in the 45 knot squalls and when they hit, what do you ease. If you ease the main sheet it just gets rounder and fuller and makes you heel over even more, so you ease everything else and hope that the puff dies out before you wipe out completely.”

What of Puma? Amazingly, despite the serious structural damage, in terms of distance to India they are holding onto third place, behind the two Ericsson boats. They’ve been pretty silent today, regarding the repairs, so fans are just as in the dark about what’s happening as the other boats are. Bouwe Bekking said today “We are a very happy bunch, having passed both Puma and our team mates. I think Puma simply just forgot about the scoring gate, why would you otherwise give these points away?”

One skipper who isn’t worried about his boat is Andreas Hanakamp, who said today “We had lots of discussion during the preparation period about the concept of the boat and, to be honest, it feels very good to sit on a solid boat in the midst of the Southern Ocean. I would be surprised if we were the only boat that broached heavily and certainly not the last.”

“Of course, there is a certain luck factor not to break anything, but a solid boat helps as well. Also, during some of the bigger leaps with the A6 and the Q9 we did in the bigger waves, there were no scary noises from the structure of the boat, just the big bangs when you slam on the water with 30 knots, which is scary and deafening by itself.” Pic from Green Dragon, more here and of course all the stories are on SA Sailing News.

Water Colors

The Ruskie VOR team showing just how things can go wrong, and quickly when sailing in big breeze and big waves in these beasts. It must be mentioned that these guys are having a good leg, sliding through the scoring gate at longitudinal 58 in fourth place.

From Nick Bubb, Watch Leader on Kosatka, Team Russia:
My personal highlight of the race so far was the other morning; big rolling seas, overcast sky, freezing water, 40 knots of breeze, A6 (fractional spinnaker) and 2 reefs, fully stacked aft, Mikey on the pumps Jez trimming, me on the wheel. We were just blasting along with prolonged periods pf over 30 knots boat speed and a max speed of 34 knots. However this was then followed by near disaster as soon after the watch change, Mikey and I were in the bow bailing out when we heard the boat take off, down what must have been a huge wave, as we hit the bottom, with nowhere to go, the boat had to either roll into the breeze and broach or Chinese gybe (an accidental gybe). Unfortunately the helmsman was powerless to control her and we ‘chinesed.’ There was carnage on deck and down below. Sail stack in the water, keel on the wrong side, crew clipped on half underwater, runners on the wrong side, boom in the air, spinnaker in the rig, boat half under water, kit everywhere down below as various missiles launched themselves at the off watch. After what seemed like an eternity we sorted the keel out, completed the gybe, got the kite down and gybed back to our proper course, all very relieved still to have a rig in the boat!!

11/21/08

How To Be Cool

1. Your boat and spars must be at least 47 feet long of autoclaved carbon. No timber, even balsa core, is allowed. Fibreglass, even only in a radome or satellite phone cover, is not allowed.

2. All metal on board is Titanium, even your electrical wiring and propeller. The two exceptions are your engine, which is ridiculously large because as your explain, otherwise it stalls because it can't provide enough power to your hydraulic winches when you Gybe. Your keel bulb is depleted uranium.

3. The boat has Two Wheels anad Two rudders. You are in serious discussion with ***** design office about fitting a Third of each.

3. You employ a full time computer science graduate to look after the boats electronics, Wi-Fi network, Ethernet and six laptops. You always use the boat's satellite phone to order Pizza.

4. Everything that can be hydraulic is hydraulic, preferably computer controlled and, of course, made out of Titanium.

5. The standing rigging is cobalt rod, all of your running rigging is made of such an exotic material it looks too flimsy for a Sabot main sheet. Nothing is connected by shackles, it's all connected with little loops of spectra, tiny titanium bobbins and velcro.

6. Down below, you carry an unusably small full carbon toilet and titanium micro stove. The titanium bunk frames carry laminated 4DL covers individually built to the reclining profile of each crew member. They are never used. The crew sleeps on the rail.

5. You have a database of sails. The collection is added to on a weekly basis. All of them except the spinnakers are laminated funny computer generated patterns of kevlar or carbon string. You are in serious discussion with North Sails about experimental laminated 4DL one piece spinnakers.

6. The sails all have names like " Inshore half blast reach X259 A" or "Heavy lightweather upwind Code 37". "Jib" and "Mainsail" are so passe.

7. Your crew has shaved heads but for some reason they always have hair all over their faces. They all have one syllable unintelligible nicknames like "Grud", "Snork", "Bol" and so on. You require a minimum of Five nationalities on board, and at least one must have a foreign accent.

8. Crew are barefoot or in Dubarry sea boots shoes are not allowed. All clothing is colour coordinated and matches the boat colour scheme. First job on race day is to decide which rig is to be worn: formal racing or casual racing, inshore/offshore and tropical or Arctic.

9. You have not Two, but Three crew members wearing climbing harnesses at all times. In port you have races with other boats to see whose hydraulics can get a guy up the mast fastest.

9. You carry a magnetic compass because the rules require it. It is one inch in diameter and mounted Eighteen feet in front of the helm.

10. Your food and drink is stored in custom designed Pelican boxes. One for each crew member.

11. On the water, the crew are expected to communicate quietly by a sixth sense punctuated by occasional grunts...until the prawn trawling starts. Please add to this list.

From anarchist Walrus.

The controversy over whether kite boarding is sailing has been settled; it isn’t. At least that's what the ISAF decided at its November Conference. So, although the World Speed Sailing Record Council today ratified Sebastien Cattelan’s record of 50.26 kts, set at Luderitz on October 3rd, it points out that this is cannot be recognised as the World Speed Sailing Record. got that?
So, right now Antoine Albeau keeps the outright record, with his 49.09 knots on the St Maries de la Mer speed canal this summer and it is beginning to look as though Alain Thébault could be the first sailor to break the 50 knots, with Hydroptère.

The flying trimaran is now (subject to ratification) the fastest sailing boat on the planet over 500 metres, having dethroned Yellow Pages and her 1993 record, last week, with an average of 46.88 knots.  What is even more significant is that Thébault and crew are getting closer to the absolute speed record, having recorded an average of 52.10 knots over 100 metres and a peak speed of 53.69 knots, which – if sustained – would bring it very close to the 100 km/h barrier. This photo from the Hydroptère team. More right here.

Sailor Chick of the Week


This from the last day off China Cup 2008. Overall winner in Benettau 40.7 class, the most competitive with 30 boats, was KARATSU Team Japan, second Team NOMAR from Norway and third KOFU JP with NZ skipper and helm.

The main attraction was the above Bethany from GBR Team. Our Team DXG Taipei (Corum Team Taipei) completed 13 from H.K. to Seng zeng and we fail the inshore races, overall not to mention!!! There’s an interesting clip of the third day start, Lots of “F…you-F…you!!!” and three general recalls. The movie was done by Simpson Marine Team H.K.

The were three Aussie Teams: Absolute Aussie, Vicsail Team as well last year champs -Quantum Racing Team who got Fourth Place overall. IRC Class had only 15 boats. IRC Class, Men At Work (Hong Kong) won the champion, Whiskey Jack (Hong Kong) came second and Microlab Moonlight Shadow (China) came third overall.

Made in the USA

Almost 6 years ago the Open 570 came out in France. and the Finot/Conq architects continue to show great vision with respect to the future of keelboat sailing. The Open 570 is an awesome boat, completely unsinkable and self-righting, ideal for day sailing or one design racing. The Open 570 has a planning hull and is set up to be fun. The boat makes good use of modern technology including: a rotating rig, twin rudders, lifting keel, retractable bowsprit and asymmetrical spinnaker and a huge cockpit for more comfort!

With 300 boats around the world, the Open 570 is one of the largest one design keelboat fleets in France, ahead of the well known Melges 24 and J80. In 2009 the Open 570 is set to become ISAF certified and all the Open 570 owners are already excited about the prospect of a Worlds.
First imported from France, the Open 570 is now being made in the USA. Columbia Yachts, in association with Open Sailing, is now starting the production of the Open 570 in Santa Ana, CA. If you'd like a taste of new modern but safe sailing, check this video: single handed in 12+...hiking is optional!"

As do boats made of anything, at least for the month of October. Sales of all fiberglass boats (and this might just be power boats) for the month showed a drop of 40.5 percent. We weren't math majors in college, but we don't think that is good. This report is based on 29 states, including California, Florida, North Carolina and Texas. All marine categories are down, and be sure to check out RV sales - the land yachts are really hurting!

Foreigner

From Loick Peyron to tenth placed Jean Le Cam (VM Matériaux), the distance is still less than 90 miles, but the only foreigner in that group is Mike Golding on Ecover, 55 miles behind. The gap between Golding and the next foreign sailor, 11th placed Swiss, Dominic Wavre, is almost 140 miles tonight, but the racing within this next bunch is pretty close and 11 of the rest are not French.

Brit, Brian Thompson, is in the throes of a marathon repair to his main utility A3 gennaker, which split from front to back some days ago. He still has many hours of sewing to complete, but managed to pass Sam Davies to take 12th place on the standings and has had the highest average speed over the last sched of the Top 15 boats.

Brian may have got past Sam whilst she was asleep, for she admits to having forgotten to put on her alarm, so she slept for 5 hours instead of the intended 1 hour. It may have done her good, in the longer, term for she certainly looks less tired and drawn.

Dee Caffari has had problems deciding on the best route, with weather models that didn’t agree, and can’t be too pleased at being in 16th place, 90 miles behind Sam. On the other hand, Steve White, on Toe in the Water, must be delighted to be just one place and 10 miles behind Dee, even after autopilot problems that he has now sorted. He sure is putting up a damn good show in an ancient boat that only got a sponsor at the 11th hour and is 40 miles ahead of 19th placed Johnny Malbon.

Behind Malbon, Basque, Unai Basurko, is happier now, saying “The first three or four days I was not so happy with my tactics, but after a few days we get racing and now I am happy with the boat. I study my meteo and the timings and I hope that we have an open gate in the Doldrums, more east than for the fleet. I hope to try some different things.”

There’s a gap of almost 100 miles to American Rich Wilson, handicapped by what he suspects is a cracked rib, and then comes Austrian Norbert Sedlacek, followed by the charging Swiss Bernard Stam and Canadian Derek Hatfield, still almost 1500 miles behind after his late restart. Pic from Sam Davies. More here plus audios, in English, from Seb Josse, Unai Basurko, Brian Thompson, Steve White, Rich Wilson, Norbert Sedlacek and Mike Golding.

"I Will Blow It Up!"


An unidentified Puma crew member is shown here holding the il mostro crew hostage, threatening to blow the boat up with his battery powered grinder and traveling coffee cup,which is apparently full of the lethal brew. Thought to be frustrated by the potential race-ending damage to the boat, the crew member is demanding not only 2 million dollars ransom and a helicopter to Belize, but that his story be covered "Only by Mr. Clean from Sailing Anarchy. I trust no one else and I demand that he be airlifted here immediately."

The situation on board seems to be worsening as another crew member was seen attempting to cut his leg off in a move of solidarity while other crewmembers engaged in some unidentified hooded ritual in the background. Developing....(and kidding). Thanks to Rick Deppe/PUMA Ocean Racing/Volvo Ocean Race for the pictures.

Sailors for the Sea certifies Clean Regattas around the World

Clean Regattas, a third party certification program established by Sailors for the Sea, helps regattas, yacht clubs and sailing programs voluntarily commit to activities and actions aimed at improving the environment. Participants can choose a Bronze, Silver or Gold level of engagement, and work to fulfill each of that level's certification requirements. Sailors for the Sea provides support, materials and the final certification that a club or event has achieved the criteria.  The program provides guidance for clubs and events attempting to lessen their environmental impact, as well as recognition to those already taking action on their own. 

The benefits of Clean Regattas certification range from local environmental improvements such as reducing marine debris and toxins in the water, and possible economic advantages including reduced reliance on and costs associated with plastic bottles, fossil fuels and disposable products. By anticipating environmental regulations before they become law, Sailors for the Sea helps clubs and regatta organizers save money by reducing the costly expenses often associated with abrupt, mandatory change.

  What once was limited to the Northeast, Clean Regattas is now gaining international recognition as 2009 will see Clean Regattas taking place on the east and west coasts, the Great Lakes, and the Caribbean. Becoming a Clean Regatta is a simple process.  For more information, and to take a look at the certification checklist and supporting materials, please visit www.sailorsforthesea.org/clean.  If you would like to make your club or event a Clean Regatta, please send Sailors for the Sea an email at cleanregattas@sailorsforthesea.org

Wu Wins

Match Racing came alive on the waters off Wu Yuan Bay in Xiamen today during the finals to select the challenger for the China Club Challenge Match. The second day of racing saw a much improved performance due in no small part, I am sure, from the coaching of International Umpire Nev Wittey the day before.

Race 1 and 2 saw penalties handed out for start line incidents, one against SBYC for not keeping up just after the gun with both boats on port at the pin end and Wu Yuan bay SC pushing hard. The other saw SBYC to leeward of a stalled out Wu Yan who couldn’t prevent their boat drifting down on them. Honour equal in both start line penalties and also races 1-1.

The event really lit up in race 3 when with the Yu Yuan team a little eager and into the box a few boat lengths early. They didn’t allow this to cramp their starting style and went after SBYC and started clearly ahead, albeit carrying a penalty. They generally sailed better choices than their opponents from up the coast and built themselves enough time to comfortably unwind their penalty although they were aided in this task when SBYC went fishing with their spinnaker. The Score 2-1 in Wu Yuan’s favour.

In the 4th race honours on the start line again went in favour of the local team, nothing about knowing the boat or the waters better, they simply out-maneuvered their opponents although both missed killer blow opportunities.
The committee boat was used as an obstruction at one point, moments later boats were pirouetting like a couple in a square dance getting more and more down speed and finally Wu Yuan headed for the line with a boat length advantage.

Teams threw themselves at each other up the first beat with about 4 or 5 crosses or bounce offs up towards the weather mark with honours being even and distances not changing much. This race hinged rather on one thing, SBYC the whole event had consistently sailed very deep downwind, too deep as the boats approached each other with Wu Yuan a little behind, spinnaker powered up while the SBYC kite flopped and shook, clearly not drawing as hard as it should in the prevailing conditions.

The SBYC spinnaker (windward) touched the Wu Yuan rig and SBYC raised the flag. SBYC obviously assumed they were luffing. However the opposite was true, Wu Yuan were sailing their proper course and SBYC were clearly sailing below theirs as eveidenced by the floppy kite. Score 3-1 to Wu Yuan Bay SC who move forward tomorrow as Challengers to the holders of the China Club Challenge Match, Hansheng yachts.

For my part, I had a blast – and learned a lot – as assistant umpire along with Li Li for the whole day alongside Nev Wittey. His experience is vast and his knowledge and fairness excellent and it was noticeable that after each race he took the time and trouble to inform each yacht of the reasons for the penalties.

The evening following racing the competitors received the benefit of Nev Wittey’s observations of the video footage shot through the day. As Nev has more than the odd world championship win and America’s Cup experience it was, as far as I was concerned a must see item.  Questions were asked, fielded and fully explained through Li Li’s translation skills and everyone felt the evening a more than worthwhile investment of their time.

Sunday dawned with wonderfully clear visibility and a wind that initially had one boat reefing and the other with equipment problems. It was decided to return both boats to Wu Wan Bay and replacements made ready.

In the final Wu Wan Yan really took it to the holders and defenders of the trophy giving some exciting prestart action. WU Wan Bay SC led off the start line in each of the first three races and although holders Hansheng often had superior basic speed they spent too much time in dirty air before tacking off in each of the first windward legs giving the challengers the luxury of unimpeded hoists at each windward rounding and the holders could never get back from such a deficit.

While it may not have been the America’s Cup, the observations of some that it wasn’t much of a match race shows a lack of understanding of how far this event has come in just 3 short years. 3 years ago it was a challenge in beat up J24’s between Iron Rock SC (Xiamen) and Zhuhai with club officials and this year there being 15 challengers, and of course the defender taking part with standards dramatically increased.

Many factors have assisted in this development. Firstly Rick Qu, president of Iron Rock has been tireless in his efforts to grow the event. He has gathered round him some good and enthusiastic people. The infrastructure has been put in place, a first quality PRO and race management team and for this year’s finals an International Umpire in the shape of Nev Wittey has taken the event through the sound barrier.  Next year the event should be even better – and probably bigger. China is slowly – but surely – coming of age in sailing terms. Photos courtesy Iron Rock Sailing Club. - Alistair Skinner.

George Olson

We're sorry we missed this and are sad to hear of his passing. We loved his boats, particularly the 30, and truly a part of west coast history as moved on...

George Olson, iconic boat builder and boat designer, considered by many to be the father of the Santa Cruz ULDB's, died of cancer last week at age 69. Olson, a longtime surfer and surfboard maker in the early days of Santa Cruz ultralights, was the creator or co-creator of such designs as the Jester Dinghy, Moore 24, Olson 25, Santa Cruz 27, Olson 29, Olson 30, Olson 34, and Olson 40.

In 1969, starting out with a masthead maxed out Cal-20 plus named SOPWITH CAMEL, George Olson set out to create the longest boat for 2,000 pounds displacement he could. The result was the 24 foot GRENDEL, a 24-ft fiberglass rocketship built over a male mold. GRENDEL proved a terror on the water, winning the 1970 MORA season championship and that year's 500 mile MORA Long Distance, which finished in Ensenada.

Ron Moore rescued GRENDEL's mold from a canyon behind a burned out barn in the Santa Cruz hills, and a partnership was formed between Ron and John Moore and George Olson to create the ultimate Wednesday night race boat for Monterey Bay. By jacking GRENDEL's mold apart with 2x4's at Moore's Reef(boat shop) in Santa Cruz, a foot more beam was added and the glass and resin started flowing, ultimately creating the Moore 24 prototype, SUMMERTIME.

Wednesday nights would never be the same again. (Today, GRENDEL sits in a slip on "O"-dock, and with a casual glance, you cannot tell her dark green hull apart from a nearby Moore 24.) George Olson's other finest design was the Olson 30, a boat he designed in 1978. On a delivery of Bill Lee's MERLIN back from her record breaking '77 Transpac , Olson came up with the idea while sailing with Denis Bassano and Don Snyder, who lent their initials to the prototype's name, the SOB 30. The resulting boat was christened PACIFIC HIGH, and was launched in 1978. Photo from Erik Simonson and you may post your comments here.

It's The Economy, Stupid

So we all know the economy is sick and doesn't exactly seem to be getting much healthier. With so many of the basic economic foundations in trouble (stocks, banks, housing, auto industry, etc.) some are looking to see how our industry, one built almost entirely on discretionary dollars, might hold up.

So, the question of the week is exactly that: How do you see the sailboat industry weathering this economic storm? Do you see major fallout in the builder/dealer arena? Custom boat builders closing their doors? Sailmakers downsizing and perhaps some not making it? Regattas, participation and other activities declining? Or do you see a general belt tightening without too much damage? What's your prediction: Doom and gloom or cloudy with a chance of sunshine later in the day? Curious to hear your thoughts and please post them here.

This week's Question of the Week is brought to you by Forespar - Marine Products That Perform.

On Wednesday morning Anne Quéméré passed the symbolic 2000 kilometres mark of her journey across the Pacific. It’s hard to imagine what it’s like to helm for 20 hours a day, live in a one metre cube, eat only freeze dried food, wake up knowing you’ve gone backwards whilst asleep, get second degree burns from the sun and sometimes be near paralyzed by the cold. What motivates this woman?  This pic from dad, Ronan Quéméré. More here.

Full Trucker Effect


What’s this pic got to do with sailing? Well it seems that when the crane fell in the water it was attempting to lift a yacht out of the Kinnickinnic River in Wisconsin. Doesn’t seem to be much sign of a yacht, except for that torn off fender.... Photo USCG. Story here.

SA Deal

A special offer from Mauri Pro Sailing to all and only Sailing Anarchy fans. Act now and receive 10% OFF on all Harken, Facnor, Gill, Henri Lloyd and SLAM hardware and gear. Don't wait until "Cyber Monday", start your shopping now and benefit from this one time special offer for all Sailing Anarchy readers. Offer ends Nov. 30th - so get on it!.
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Slow N' Go


The Green dragon soldiers on with their broken boom in the VOR. Despite the broken boom, 3 knock downs and a leaking daggerboard case,not to mention colds and sore throats, Green Dragon is positively charging towards the scoring gate. Skipper Ian Walker, confessed to feeling a bit nervous this morning, but added “We now have about 400 miles to the scoring gate and we lie in 3rd position (in terms of Easting) with a slender 25-mile lead over Puma and about 40 miles over the Russians. Our aim is to defend this as best we can and over the last 12 hours we have done just that. One of our challenges is going to be gybing - we are still discussing how we are going to do this - if at all - maybe we will granny round. We are also trying to sort out how we can reef if we need to. Tom Braidwood is itching to get going on fixing the boom, but for now we are focusing on sailing fast to the scoring gate. This focus on racing hard is great for moral and everybody is determined to make the best of what we have." More pix here.

No suck luck for Puma however...

Greetings from the Monster Hospital Ward.  And the hospital is not necessarily humans.  Just for our beautiful boat. At 4:30 GMT this morning we flew off yet another nice little wave and came down to another loud CRACK.  This time the crack came not from the bow section but in the main section of the boat, just behind the keel frame.  Three of us were having breakfast at the time and there was a bit of a stare into each others eyes.

"That didn't sound good" said Justin.
"Nope"...I said.
Nico added, "maybe it was just an unloaded sheet snapping up on deck?"
Justin looked down and said "or maybe it was this large crack splitting the main longitudinal frame?"  The master of understatement, old Justin is.

So we are busted...again.  This time a bit more serious.  After final an analysis on the first break to the longitudinal frames in the bow a couple days ago, it took 7 hours and about 56 miles to fix.  Sounded like quite a bit at the time but we had enough pace to keep up with the leaders after the fact and still were in a reasonable position for the scoring gate and the leg.  This one may be a bit tougher to work around though.  Not only is this break in the central structure for the entire boat, but it will take quite a bit longer to put a fix on- maybe as long as 24 hours, and this time the actual fix may be a bit more of a band-aide rather than the fairly solid splint that we could put on the broken front longitudinals.  If the fix takes as long as we think we will have to re-route to Cochin- missing most of the points that we could have gotten at the scoring gate and having to bypass the next low coming our way.  Simply put, this is not good.

Capey and I are hard at work trying to see if there is a tactical solution around this in order to stay remotely in the race.  We shall see.  First priority is the safety of the boat and crew and because of that we are looking to get away from the next low pressure that is coming in from behind, which doesn't give us many options while trying to get through the high pressure to the north.  The whole reason for riding down into big breeze in the Southern Ocean was to hook up with that second low pressure and getting around the high.  With our current situation we may be forced into the high.  If that is the case it is time to start talking about rationing food!

Not only is this a bummer for the team, but a let down for all who have worked on the program so far.  Please understand though that we have not given up hope on board.  Stranger things have happened.  We have thousands of miles to go, and we have the most resourceful guys aboard and on shore trying to figure out the best way to tackle our situation.

There are a couple of bright spots.  It has been reported from the bow area of the boat that using the toilet while going this slow is a much more pleasurable experience.  Also, Ricky got a hot cup of coffee into several of us which was a very nice treat.  Especially considering the fact that for the first time in days I didn't spill it on myself or burn the crap out of my mouth.  And finally, the boys on deck report tons of huge Albatross circling around the boat giving a fantastic show for all.  Just hope that Albatross aren't the vultures of the high seas.

Will report more soon.
- Kenny

Snow N' Go


So while we were racing Flying Tigers this past weekend in 80 degree weather in San Diego, the significantly tougher midwest sailors were out on the Detroit River- Bayview Yacht Club's Fall Frostbite Series. 15 knots of breeze, snow squalls and very cold Detroit River temperatures won't keep some dedicated sailors off the water. Impressive. Props to anarchist Kevin Schrage.

How much do we love this: The largest group, by far, participating in the VOR online game is team Sailing Anarchy with 1,000 members! Hell we're larger than the Netherlands who is next with 694. Represent! And where is the rapidly fading Scuttlebutt? They clock in with a whopping 29 members. Oh how the game has changed, in more ways than one....

I found out about the VA's National Summer Sports Clinic for recently injured veterans in San Diego while doing some research for a sailing non-profit I planned to start that would offer recreational and training opportunities to the kids who ended up residing in Walter Reed or Bethesda after returning from far away. I finally decided that as there were groups doing just that, it'd be senseless to start another; I'd help out the ones already there. For the record, the similar local group here in the mid-Atlantic region is Chesapeake Region Accessible Boating, or CRAB for short.

As I had some personal contact with the VA (a disabled vet myself) I wrangled an invitation to volunteer despite getting involved a bit late. I only had to get from DC to SD to make it happen. Filing paperwork and getting set up was made easy with the aid of Bob and Urban from Challenged America, and with my company generously granting me community service time, it was pack the seabag and hop on the plane.

Arriving in SD that Wednesday (cuz I'm cheap and that was the lowest fare), I obtained rental car, GPS and a room at the BOQ and proceeded to go on a 15 year reunion with the town. She's all grown up now, and the vista that used to be desert scrub have sprouted houses, everywhere. Damn, I shoulda bought in '88/'89... Spent a couple of days catching up with old friends, wandering around and gathering Sailing Anarchy swag from the HQ itself. Had a great chat about everything and nothing with Scott in his garage while picking up my stuff.

Finally, it was time to sail. Saturday the 30th the volunteers gathered at Shelter Cove Marina, where Keith and Bob, and Bob's wheelchair showed us around the boats we were to use. An eclectic group of mariners, there were locals, not-so-fars and really-fars (me); the self employed, between-jobs, teachers, geeks and looking; twenty somethings to would-of-retired-if-it just-wasn't-so-much-fun...

We were introduced to the boats- Martin 16s-fin keels and bulbs, with a unique control console and whipstaff-tiller arrangement. Not really fast, nor terribly lively, they are fairly simple to trim, require little physical strength to operate, are unsinkable and uncapsizable. Strapped in low to the water, there is a feeling of speed. Coaxing good performance out of them requires some skill, and they prefer to sail full rather than pinched. All in all, the central operating console makes them darn suitable for the intended use.

The gaggle went out all week- 4-6 16's, Bequest and a host of chase and safety boats with medics and family of the sailors aboard. Most of our guests had no experience in a small boat, so the trip was part teaching, part letting them do it themselves. Generally the breeze was light; one afternoon it blew a gear buster, and I had to strap down the jib boom with a belt. This led to an informal modification of the boats for the next day, as we removed the asso prods, which ended up in the way of the self tacking jibboom tack, fatiguing the fittings. My driver for that one, Robert, did a great job while I danced on the bow jury rigging.

I can't speak for my fellows, but sailing with these guys was an immensely emotional experience. Sometimes disabilities are obvious; other wounds leave no scars. Every one of the people I went sailing with that week taught me things I knew I should have known;lessons in tenacity, determination; focus; motivation; joy; dignity; and, truly, grace. I can only hope that given the same circumstances I would have the strength of character to rise to the occasion the way they have. I would like to think it'd be so; having met them, I sometimes wonder...

Props to all involved, the Challenged America crew put on a super display of running a professional program, and had great stories- Bob driving to Hawaii till his fingers blistered; Urban's joining us one day and spanking most of us-oh, yeah, he's blind; Lunch with Bo Derek (THAT Bo Derek) who happens to still be smokin', and is also a genuinely warm and nice person; Keith's herding us volunteer cats and ensuring that all the pieces went together again; The VA for picking SD as a venue to kick off this sort of thing; the rest of the volunteers for donating themselves; Ken G and Da-Woody for their support.

As for me, I brought home some ideas, and connected CRAB with several regional VA medical centers. I'd like to get a team of disabled vets doing the Newport or Annapolis/Bermuda race. Urban mentioned he'd always wanted to go to Bermuda. I've got a few other ideas kicking around as well. Anyone wanna loan an acceptable boat? I promise you'll get it back.

Combat Wombat- Out

It's On

What an exciting race it is! Since Sunday night Loick Peyron and Jean Le Cam have each held the lead 5 times, though it now looks as though Peyron might have escaped from the rest.  Behind Peyron and the other two leaders, the fleet is bunching up, as the east-west options converge before the Doldrums. Dominique Wavre, for example, who distanced himself around a hundred miles offshore of the Cape Verde archipelago, succeeded in limiting the impact of the wind shadow from the islands and gained 80 miles on the leader in 48 hours is still hanging onto wind in his sails. Meawhile Roxy, which sailed around sixty miles from the islands, got trapped in its throes and dropped back in the ranking.

Those favouring an E’ly option, such as Akéna Vérandas, seemed to have been benefiting from a steadier wind, but it seems likely that they’ll have to shift over to the west sooner or later, as they line up for the Doldrums, and concede some precious miles to the rest of the fleet. Meanwhile, near the back of the field, Bernard Stamm has been the fastest boat in the fleet for 24 hours and is making inroads into the huge deficit he built up, whilst back in Les Sables after a collision with a cargo vessel. The stories are on SA Sailing News and the pix are here.

Part II of our InnerView with VOR CEO Knut Frostad

SA:  What team that has been a standout over the last few editions would you like to see back in the event?

KF:  I don't personally hink about a specific team, more about some personalities that I'd love to see involved.  I'd like to see Grant Dalton, for example – he'd be a great person to be back in the race.  I'm pretty keen to get a French team back in the race.  It would be great to see a strong French team back in the race.  They know the boats, they know the routes, it would be exciting to see France represented.

SA:  What stopover port are you most excited about, and why?

KF:  I'm pretty excited about India, in Cochin.  The reason is that I feel that it's something new for sailing.  I think it's really healthy for the sport, because the sailors and the teams and the whole race is  too used to going to great yacht clubs and marinas where everything is in perfect shape – travelifts and cranes and everything you need.  Here we're going into the terminal in Cochin, a place where the people have never seen a modern sailboat in their life. 

SA:  What's Cochin like?   Is it a typical dirty, sandy, third-world port?

KF:  It's really India, and it's a real city.  It's dirt roads and it's elephants – you don't feel as if you're in some kind of tourist destination or something like that – you feel like you're in the middle of India, really.  I think it's going to be a lot different that what everyone is used to, and I think that's healthy.  It makes the race global, and the pictures and images we'll get from India are going to be pretty cool!  I think it could change the sport a bit - I hope.

SA:  Me too.  We're big on change in the United States now, haven't you heard?   Let's move to something else – piracy.  There was a piracy briefing, there have been a couple of alarmist stories written in the mainstream press – do you anticipate any real issues with piracy for this part of the race?

KF:  We've done so much to both limit where the sailors can go and also to motivate them to push so far East.  I don't think you can ever take the risk totally away, but by taking the Somalia part of it out of the equation you eliminate most of the risk.  It could be trickier the next leg when they're going around Sri Lanka and through the Straits of Molucca.  There is still a risk and there it's more difficult to limit what the sailors can do.  We're looking at putting some kind of coastline limitation in where they cannot go closer to the land than 20 miles or 30 miles or something like that.  So that will help with the risk.  Obviously the Molucca Straits is more controlled by the Malaysian and Indonesian Navy, but you can never eliminate it.  I've talked to Ellen Macarthur and others who have been in the area, and the biggest  challenge in this area is with fishing boats rather than anything else.

SA:  And what's the big danger there?

KF:  There are huge fishing fleets, especially close to the Southeast coast of China where they have all these old wooden 40-50foot boats without proper nav lights, no radios, nothing – trawling around the coastline.  So that's going to be a challenge. 

SA:  And obviously something that not only could hurt either a sailor or a fisherman, but the race itself.   That biodiesel motor boat that killed the Guatemalan fisherman a few years back was not only a tragedy, but a PR fiasco for the boat and its sponsors, and the skipper even ended up in jail for a little while.  What extra equipment will the boats have to deal with this?

KF:  All the boats are carrying an AIS now, but they mostly use them to receive, because they don't want to transmit their position to the other Volvo boats.  Part of this leg they will be required to transmit via AIS, which will help with the commercial shipping at least.  As for the fisherman, radar is getting better and better – the radars in use now do a much better job of identifying objects then they did even three years ago.  We are also working very closely with the governments to identify exactly where the highest densities of fisherman are – we could actually end up putting waypoints in to keep the race boats away from the bulk of the fleets.

SA:  What about night vision/infrared devices?

KF:  We haven't put it in the rules, but quite a few teams have them that I know of.  I'd always be carrying it myself on a race like this – even a little light on a fishing boat stands out with the proper equipment.

SA:  Another question from our readers:  “Can we see more stories from the shore crews?”  That's got to be pretty interesting stuff, the logistical challenges are probably easily as difficult as the racing itself.

KF:  It's something that we're just starting to do now – we'll keep listening to your readers' criticism, because they are coming up with just the kind of thing that we need to accomplish.  So the answer is that it's coming, not soon enough perhaps, but it's coming.

SA:  An unrelated question that is looking more to tap into your substantial knowledge of every level of the sport.  “Being a pro sailor for years and involved in so many levels of the sport, do you feel that the sport of racing has become an elitist one?  With big business getting involved in multimillion dollar campaigns, long gone is the day of the privateer.  Everything I used to love about the sport has become tarnished by money, court, politics, and huge egos.”  What do you think about that?

KF:  Well, to some extent I agree with him.  At the same time, that's one of the reasons I'm involved in this part of the sport now.  I believe we need to encourage the less less well-funded teams to compete in this kind of event.  It doesn't need to be that expensive – when it is, you only have winners and the race is only for winners.  I'm really pleased that we have Delta Lloyd in the race – a mostly amateur crew with a moderate budget.  And I think you'll find they do better and better as well, throughout the race.    My hope is that we're going to see more of that kind of campaign in the future.

We know that if we are to grow this event further we need to lower the entry level for new teams.  We also need to set a limit on how much teams can spend on the race.  And that limit should be significantly lower than what the best teams are spending today.

SA:  And what has the reaction been from the teams when you floated this proposal by them?

KF:  We actually just started having the conversations in Alicante – it's part of the long term strategy we've had for the race, but this is the first time we've had a chance to talk with them about it, and the initial reaction has been really positive.  You could argue that with today's economies, you'd have to be pretty extreme to not agree with cutting costs.  At the same time, we've proposed some dramatic cuts so that you can compete at a very high level with a second-hand boat and a modest budget.  And it's been positively received by all the teams.

SA:  Anything else you want to let us know that we should be excited about over the next few weeks?

KF:  I've been playing with the weather and routing myself and I think people are going to be a bit surprised to see where the boats are going to end up sailing to get to India.  I would never say that a Southern Ocean leg is boring, because it's hard and cold and full of icebergs – but to me, the leg to India is so fascinating!  The weather routing suggests that you sail such a long way around in this big curve to get up there.  Some of the routing actually took the teams to 40 degrees South.  What's cool about that is that we don't force them down there – they can go where they choose, cut the corners, whatever – and that changes almost everything.  I also think that the 3-hour reports keeps the boats closer together, which makes things more exciting for everyone on the water and off.  Plus the battle between Torben and Kenny Read might just be getting started.

SA:  What about the Volvo Ocean Race game?  The interest level seems to just keep growing in it.

KF:  I think it's great!  I think we're up to 53,000 people playing now, and we have a lot of feedback from it.  There are Scandinavian sailors teaming up with Chinese sailors so that they both can get some sleep and keep sailing the boat to the best potential 7 days a week.  One guy just sent me an email the other day saying that he was going to put his virtual VOR boat up on E-bay when he was in the top ten.  He was racing three boats so he would keep sailing two and see if he could get some money turning the third over to the highest bidder.  The guys who provide wind files - like UGrib and some of the others – are telling us that they are gettign more customers from sailing games than from actual sailors.

SA:  Who wouldn't expected that!

KF:  We're meeting new people – and this game is bringing the race itself to a new audience – and that's what sailing needs. 

SA:  Well thanks, Knut – we really appreciate your time, and hopefully one of us will get to Singapore to see the next in-port race.  How about this – if I get there, you put me on the air to help commentate on Volvo TV?

KF:  Absolutely – that sounds great.  Come see us.  And thanks for your interest, and for helping to spread the word about the Volvo Ocean Race.

First Soloist

The Cape Doctor welcomed single handed Belgium sailor Michel Kleinjans to South Africa as he stormed across the finish line to win the single-handed division of the Portimão Global Ocean Race. The Cape Doctor is the name given by locals to the gale force winds that blow down the backside of Table Mountain. The strong southeasterly wind propelled Kleinjans and his Open 40, Roaring Forty into Cape Town right the way up to the finish line. Michel, looking worn and tired, raised his hands in salute clearly relieved to have finished the leg with his mast still intact, after the rigging problems that led him to drop from second on the water, to fourth boat into South Africa. Full story here This pic from Global Ocean Race and more here.

J/ob Opening?

Longtime lurker Jim "Jimmy J" Johnstone gave us a call the other day to tell us that he'd be leaving J/Boats, effective December 23rd, after 15 years with the business founded by his family.  When we asked him why he was calling us, he said, "you'd find out before everyone else anyway, so I figured I'd call you first."

Jimmy wore about a dozen different hats at J/Boats.  At various times he was production manager, sales manager, class coordinator, and his face has been a regular and welcome fixture at hundreds of J/Boat events.  When asked the reason for his departure, the former Laser Radial World Champion said, "With three kids in private school, it was time to think more long-range, and J/Boats didn't offer me the kind of opportunities that my new position does, though it's been a great ride with some of the best people in sailing." Johnstone will now be working with the insurer Gowrie, Barden & Brett in their marine insurance department, so long-time J/Boat suppliers and customers can find him there - or expect a cold call soon. Jimmy added one thing he was very excited about:  "Hopefully in the near future I'll get my Cat 1 status back, so I'll finally be able to race in so many classes that I've been excluded from - classes that include many of my friends."

Sodeb'O Go


Thomas Coville and his maxi trimaran Sodeb'O take off this morning on his around the world solo record attempt. The weather conditions enabling a descent from Brest to the equator in less than 7 days looks possible, but there is still some doubt as regards the strength of the wind between the Canaries and Cape Verde. thanks very much to A.Courcoux / Stichelbaut.com for the shot.

Things are Breaking

Update from onboard the Green Dragon
Position: 39,41.17S , 40,28.73E
I am sorry to report that we have just broken our boom in a 50 knot squall.  We are in the process of recovering the parts. The situation is under control with no harm or risk to anyone. We are carrying on downwind.

Speak soon,
Ian Walker, Skipper Green Dragon

From Puma
Leg 2 Day 4

Not to sound like I am whining, but I think I will anyway.

Last night sucked...or it was great- if you are a boat builder or a sailmaker looking for work.  Yikes!!!  The proverbial "you know what" hit the fan when we got about as vertical in a sailboat as you ever want to be going down a big dark wave that sort of snuck up on us, and when going straight down a big wave the inevitable bow crash is coming into the wave in front...but this time was different.  Not only did the bow crash into the wave but the prod, the bow pulpit and about 15 feet up the Asymmetric Spinnaker we had up at the time.  BANG!  Spinnaker in many pieces and a long night for Justin Ferris.

Fortunately we had the broken sail down and a new sail up in about 10 minutes.  And we tweaked our angle and were going faster so all good right?  WRONG.  About an hour later after a watch change we found another beauty of a wave except this one had no face in front of it and WOOSH.  Take off!  The inevitable silence of a boat that feels like it is literally flying, followed up with a massive SMASH into the not very soft Indian Ocean.  But this one was different than the other 10,872 smashes that have occurred over the past 48 hours or so.  This one had a horrid CRACK along with it.  I was working with Justin on the sail at the time and had on my headlamp and ran up to the bow to quickly find several cracks in our longitudinal frames in the bow section.  And for those laymen out there, essentially these frames are the spine of the boat which does not allow it to fold in half, and they also don't allow the bow to cave in when we hit waves-  kind of an important piece to the puzzle.

Well, we are better now-  7 hours later.  Bow repaired thanks to Casey and Michi, and the kite back in one piece thanks to Justin.  All the rest of the team filling in with sailing duties and helping repair when asked.  Big effort and a feeling of complete exhaustion as well as satisfaction that we are back in the game and going full speed again.

Distance lost is always painful but I think it could have been much worse.  We are still in the hunt and thanks to the effort of all the boys we are whole again.  We aren't exactly in the position we want to be on the race track any more but time will only tell how much it costs us.  I figure it cost us only about 30 miles.  Another painful part of this escapade is that we happened to be lit up when everything went pear shaped.  We had been the best boat in a few position reports in a row and were feeling really good about our spot on the track.  Oh well, part of life.

So I am looking for anything lucky at this point to kill the breakdown curse.  Brought out my lucky rock, looking for a lucky dolphin to escort us and there is a lucky albatross that has been following us for about 2 hours.  I don't know if there is such a thing as a lucky albatross but I just invented it so it must be true.  Very cool.

So my whine is over.  Sorry you had to be a part of it.  I feel better getting it off of my chest.  The competitive side of all of us HATES to lose miles...time to try and make them back up.

-  Kenny

What Is It?


It has been a while since we've done one of these and this one might be tricky. The first correct "who what and where" gets something good from our friends at Camet, who have just signed up for another year of advertising here at SA. Be sure to check out their new banner ad on this page - now that's good advertising!

VOR CEO Knut Frostad talked to us after the Cape Town restart of the Volvo Ocean Race.

SA:  So you must be pleased with the extremely exciting start that we watched online on Saturday.  You were on the water – what did you think?

KF:  I think from the racing side it was as good as it could be, with close racing, five different boats leading the first part of the leg, constantly fighting for position - I can't recall that happening before.

SA:  I can't recall seeing boats set off at 25+ knots and then 20 minutes later sitting totally becalmed.

KF:  No, that was pretty amazing, that's for sure.  We have good race going on and we hope it will stay that way.

SA:  It seems like the teams are just more competitive than the last time – the field is deeper.  Do you agree?

KF:  Definitely.  All the teams are better prepared, they have been sailing more, they have the boats in better shape.  I think you'll find that the best crew from the last race, the ABN guys are spread among four or five boats I think, so that really brings the new guys up to speed quicker, which is pretty good.

SA:  What about the shore side activity for these stopover events?  Compared to other events and this race, which you saw as an outsider last time, how do you compare what's going on now in these race villages?

KF:  I think Alicante was a great success – the most successful stopover that the Volvo has had so far. We got close to a million visitors to the race village over the two weeks.  We had really high averages for visitors too, not only on the weekends, but actually people traveling just to see the boats, have a cold beer, watch model Volvo boats racing.  They went to the racing simulator, and went to the cinema to watch the film about the race.  I think we're starting to learn that we have to educate people more with the race, not just racing, but for people to see the boats racing at the cinema, learning about the race, and being able to walk over and actually touch the boats afterwards.

SA:  What about Cape Town?

KF:  It's a bit different here, because you're kind of integrated into the waterfront – part of the city and more spread out, but it was still great - I mean we had a lot of people here.  The race villages are growing.  The difficult part is for the shore crews.  They want to talk to people but they have so much to do and they hardly have time to do it. 

SA: Spectators are always a pain in the ass for the actual racing, and you seemed frustrated at times during your webcast from the re-start.  How can spectators better accommodate the racing, yet still be close to the action?

KF:  In Cape Town we had a problem – but we really didn't inform the public well enough.  Normally we have a start line and then they head offshore, but we had a triangle course at the start and it was a bit confusing I think.  We had a lot of spectator boats all around the turning marks, and that could have been really dangerous.  Having said that, I also really enjoyed these spectators being out there – we want them to be able to get closer to these boats.  As you know, the closer you get to them, the more awesome they are.  Look, watching a yacht race for a half a mile before they disappear is no fun at all, and we really don't want to be shouting and scaring the spectators – that won't leave a good impression at all.  A lot of the spectators came in with huge wide eyes saying things like, “that was the scariest thing I've ever seen, and it was pretty cool!'  Seeing a fleet of Volvo 70s hitting 27 knots will do that.  So I think we want to keep the spectators out there, and get them very close to the action, and this requires that we have good communication and that we plan it well, so that everyone knows where they can and can't be.

SA:  How will you handle the next stopover in Cochin, where the spectators are going to want to see what you've got, but they really don't have a clue what they're getting themselves into?

KF:  We need to do more research and more outreach that educates the people on what they're going to see, what these boats are capable of, the kinds of speeds they do.

SA:  How will you do that?

KF:  The interest level in India is just amazing.  I was there a few weeks ago, and everywhere we went we were followed by 10-15 journalists from morning to night, wondering what's going to happen.  So we have a good way to inform the people.  We're planning to finish the leg outside the entrance of the harbor there, but we're going to start the next leg inside the harbor, which is a quite crowded waterway.    So we'll probably have to keep boats away from that part of it, but once outside they will hopefully get to see everything.

SA:  Do you have anything else planned for Cochin besides the finish and re-start to try to engage some of this massive population with other kinds of sailing?

KF:  We don't have anything yet, but in talking to a few people locally, we learned that there is really no sailing other than the wooden fishing boats with small square sails.  We've had some of the shore teams sailing the Volvo model boats with their canting keels in the port, and there's quite a crowd to watch them every time.  What we've done with the Race Villages is to really try to build them around sailing.  Before there was lots of wine and food and that kind of thing, but we've tried really hard to add real sailing attractions to it.  We've got the Southern Ocean simulator where people can feel a bit of what high-speed racing is like, and we've got this huge dome that we set up that is the High Definition cinema showing the clips from the previous leg.  I think we had 300,000 people go through the cinema between Alicante and Cape Town.  You might teach people more with an 8-minute movie than with hours of sailing on the bay.  The combination of a short movie and then being able to actually walk up to the boat really does a lot.  In Alicante we saw lots of kids leaving the Cinema and then running around for autographs having realized that the team members were right there next to them.

SA:  You and I spoke about what you were going to offer back in May in Porto Cervo.  You promised some really great stuff from these Media Crew Members (MCMs) on board, but a lot of us are wondering just where are the great stories?  Where is the footage?  Will we continue to just get a half hour of sailing shots mixed with intense music, or will we see stuff that will really draw us in?

KF:  Obviously the MCM role is a big learning experience for us.  We've just done one leg, and when we started this we didn't even have all the technology working.  Right or wrong, we've gone down the High-Definition route, and some of these countries don't even have the ability to see it.  But when you do see it in HD, it's just incredible, and the feedback from the weekly programs has been really positive compared to the last race.  So we've made a huge step forward already, but what we have missed out on is really the online content.  Unfortunately we were struggling big time on our website in the beginning, for many different reasons – everything from the site itself to the tracking, the whole thing.  So that was a huge disappointment, but something we've been working on all the time.

SA:  It just seems like you missed a great opportunity to present some of the most insane Southern Ocean racing that's ever happened, and I don't know how you easily recover from that.

KF:  I agree with you, but what can we do about that now?  You'll see now that we've changed race viewers, and the entire way that we're managing content of the videos.  People were complaining that they hadn't seen a new video for a couple of days, and it was actually there, but it wasn't loaded in the right place!  So we know, we haven't been good even at making sure that people can actually access what we have for them, but I think you'll see it working much better from this leg on.  We've for sure had a focus on the weekly program and the weekly news production, which is something that millions of people don't have access to anyway.  The whole YouTube thing was neglected, but now you probably know that we've got every video on YouTube, and hopefully that helps.  Did you see the link I sent you?

SA:  We did, and it was great.  But we don't think that's really what everyone wants.  Even 25 knots gets boring without any character development, and your weekly show doesn't even put the sailors' names in a caption so we know who to cheer for.  Where are the personal stories?

KF:  I think you're right.  We had a huge debrief with the whole media crew, and the biggest thing we learned is that we need to have a much stronger interaction with them than we had in the first leg.  We spent quite a bit of the leg just getting the technology to run – but its obviously very important for those guys to hear from us what we want.  And the timing of it is also really important – it's not just like they press 'transmit' and we get video.  It takes time to fire the antenna up, they want to run the generators at the same time as the navigator gets the weather, the combination of the competition and the media element is very interesting.  Even for the crews, it takes time to accept that this is part of the game.  I guess the biggest lesson from the debrief is that we definitely need more human stories.  Even the sound is a problem – in the first leg we found interviews where we can't even hear anything.  These boats are incredibly noisy, and you just couldn't hear what the guy is saying.  Hard to bring the stories to light when you can't hear them. 

SA:  So what exactly will we see change on this leg?

KF:  I hope we're going to take a big step forward on this leg, because we'll be able to be in much better touch with the MCMs.  Not just to give them feedback on what they send, but also to ask them for specific things.  There's another issue, which is that the Volvo Ocean Race is so very competitive, and it's not going to be easy to get the kind of emotion that you get from Ellen Macarthur crying during the Vendee Globe.  That's part of our challenge, and we realize that we just have to work on this and work on this and it will slowly happen.  For some teams it will take a long time and some shorter, but you can also see the differences in the boats.  For example, I've found Green Dragon to show us quite a bit of a human story, while some of the other boats are just a lot tighter.  It's just very different from team to team.  Hopefully you'll find that everything will just keep getting better and better.  For the MCMs, they will have seen the coverage from the first leg and all the news stories and realize what they did well and didn't do well.

SA:  Now for some questions from the SA'ers:  DaveS asks “Are the MCMs shooting for the fans, or just for better footage for some end-of-race video that you sell?”

KF:  We don't sell anything!  We give it to everyone for free.  But I do understand and accept the criticism that the whole concept of the Volvo Ocean Race footage has been driven by the regular TV program – that was the whole backbone of previous editions.  In the meantime, something called YouTube and internet TV has developed, and we have probably been too slow to adapt to it.  We are definitely working really hard to adapt to it now.  The guys on the boat are just trying to tell the story of what's going in.  We need a combination of MCMs who can get those stories, and get them to us – that's been our challenge so far.

SA:  How much of the actual footage are we seeing?  There doesn't seem to be much of it, after all.

KF:  I'm not sure actually.  As I've mentioned, the on-line content side is something we're definitely working on.  Each MCM has to send in 20 minutes per week on average – that's 160 minutes per week.  But that's total – not necessarily what we can use. But I think you know that we want more of what you and your readers want more of.

SA:  I can look at 5 videos from today from the Vendee Globe.  Sam Davies sitting on the cockpit sole eating cheese while sailing 18 knots – obviously it's a different race, but where is that kind of stuff?  The Volvo footage is all about the race, while the Vendee clips are about the race and the people.  Compare the Vendee Globe site with the VOR site on Alexa, you'll see that the Vendee has significantly more hits than yours.

KF:  I went through the whole Vendee site yesterday, but I didn't think it was that impressive to be honest – but I see your point that there is much more personal stuff there.  That has partly to do with the personalities themselves of course, but still, our ambition is to get those human sides of the Volvo.

SA:  Why are the numbers so much better for the Vendee?

KF:  I don't know – but how many of those views are French?  Our Chinese and Russian website have massive numbers and I can tell you that in Germany or in Scandinavia or in Holland that those numbers will be much better for the Volvo.  But for sure when it comes to online coverage the Vendee's personal stories are made for that kind of coverage.  We're striving for the same thing, and I think we have it, we just have to present it in a way that makes sense.

SA: A longtime reader says of your clips, “Everyone hates sanitized PR. You can smell the BS factor miles away... we are highly trained consumers these days. We've been advertised to our whole lives, it's easy to be cynical. Even if it is interesting, we get bored in less than 30 seconds.” He wants to know how we get the more raw footage.

KF:  We know we have a ways to go to make our content quicker and easier to access, and maybe it's a bit too edited, I don't know.

SA: What about stamping the race viewer with linked videos to that part of the course that the boats are on?

KF:  We wanted to have that ready from the beginning, but it's coming in two months!  We've got that coming with Google Ocean, and you'll be able to see everything that comes off that boat, integrated with the viewer. Part two tomorrow. Photo Meredith Block / Blocksail.