Volvo Ocean Race 2008/2009

Brian McVickers

Administrator
Staff member
Just when I thought I had forgotten what it feels like to push someone over the line, take the inside at a mark rounding, navigate with no sleep, perform ballet on a wet and moving floor, wear the same clothes for several days at a time in a wet, windy, cold, exhausting and pounding environment, pushing your whole self against the forces of nature - someone reminded me that this was going on!

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www.volvooceanrace.org
During the nine months of the 2008-09 Volvo, which starts in Alicante, Spain in October 2008 and concludes in St Petersburg, Russia, during late June 2009, the teams will sail over 37,000 nautical miles of the world’s most treacherous seas via Cape Town, Kochi, Singapore, Qingdao, around Cape Horn to Rio de Janeiro, Boston, Galway, Goteborg and Stockholm.

Each of the seven entries has a sailing team of 11 professional crew, and the race requires their utmost skills, physical endurance and competitive spirit as they race day and night for more than 30 days at a time on some of the legs. They will each take on different jobs onboard the boat and on top of these sailing roles, there will be two sailors that have had medical training, as well as a sailmaker, an engineer and a media specialist.

During the race the crews will experience life at the extreme: no fresh food is taken onboard so they live off freeze dried fare, they will experience temperature variations from -5 to +40 degrees Celsius and will only take one change of clothes. They will trust their lives to the boat and the skipper and experience hunger and sleep deprivation.


Enjoy,
Brian
 

bigreen505

Expedition Leader
It's been a pretty rocky ride. They're not seeing the kind of keel and rig failures like the last go around or the Vendee, but a lot of structural failures in the hulls and minor rig failures. One the first leg, one of the boats three new 24hr monohull speed records in a 48 hour period. This leg should be a little mellower, up wind and relatively light air.

This year the experience is better distributed among the boats and we don't have any real run away winners like we did with ABN AMRO 1 and 2 last time. I have to admit and much as I am a VOR fan, I think the Vendee is more interesting and certainly more extreme, though this year I think the winner will be the last boat standing, not necessarily the fastest.

Lots of updates and discussion on sailinganarchy.com
 

jcbrandon

Explorer
So, besides adventuring around the world with guys who haven't showered, there is another ExPo connection. All the sails (except the spinnakers) on all the boats in the Volvo Ocean Race are built up here in the high desert of Nevada, 200 miles from the ocean and 4,800 feet above sea level. The skipper of the Puma team, Ken Read, is a vice president of North Sails, who I work for. I manage the training program for the people who build those sails.

We also built the sails on the BMW Oracle Racing trimaran that is now being tested in San Diego. There was a nice piece of video on this effort on ABC over the weekend:
http://abcnews.go.com/video/playerIndex?id=6455028

And if you'd like to see how we mold composite sails for racing yachts, spin up:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7451642631334471231&ei=za5JSbDGAZn-qAPCxKjaBQ&q
 

articulate

Expedition Leader
mcvickoffroad said:
. . . life at the extreme: no fresh food . . . live off freeze dried fare . . . temperature variations from -5 to +40 degrees Celsius . . . only take one change of clothes . . . trust their lives to the boat . . . hunger and sleep deprivation.


Enjoy,
Brian
I have to say Brian, that there's very little there that sounds enjoyable, even as a full casserole in one plate. But I believe in the if-you-try-it-you-will-love-it notion. No doubt this would be thrilling.

And I raise my glass to it, and them
 

Guinness44

Adventurer
As all other extreme sports, thats insane. The coffeegrinder handlers....being cooped up for so long....(My brother sailed around the world single handed, the wrong way round, now that would be an expedition...:). Those pictures are super. The comparison to an expedition? Dont we shower/spongebath/wash hair, cook steaks, eggs, pasta....? Have cold beers. :).
 

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