Volvo Ocean Race 2014-2015 -Nick Bice on the Build and the Boatyard

by Saiil-World.com on 3 Dec 2013 Few things are finer in life than discovering your passions and then finding a way to support yourself doing the things that you love most. For Australian Nick Bice, 36, the Volvo Ocean Race (VOR) has long been his passion and his profession. Bice first became involved with the race as a boatbuilder for the Amer Sports campaign (2001-2002 edition), before signing on to both 'ABN Amro Two' (the 'kid’s boat') for the 2005-2006 race and 'Delta Lloyd' for the 2008-2009 race as a sailor. Bice then returned to dry land for the 2011-2012 race, where he served as Team Sanya’s shore manager, and now, for the 2014-2015 race, Bice has been appointed manager of the race’s shared Yacht Maintenance Center, which will look after the fleet of Volvo Ocean 65 One Design boats that will be used to contest the next two editions of the race.

Sail-World caught up with Bice to learn more about his new VOR gig, and to hear his thoughts on the race’s new format and about the changes to the design, build and upkeep of the new VO 65s.

Can you tell us about your background?
I started sailing in the schools teams, sailing in Australia and then from there I met Jimmy Spithill and joined the Young Australia (2000) campaign. Prior to that I did an apprenticeship as a shipwright in Adelaide. From the Young Australia campaign I did a bit of match racing with [Spithill] so it has been interesting to see a lot of those boys go very well in the last [America’s Cup].

Then, I joined the Aimer Sports Team as a boat builder in France and built the two Aimer sports boats for Grant Dalton and joined his team as an onshore boatbuilder. From there I went on and worked with one of the boats when it got sold after the race and then [for] the ‘05 campaign with the Volvo 70s, I joined the 'ABN AMRO Team' as the shore manager knowing they were building two boats, knowing that one of the boats had potential to be a youth team or a under 30 team and at the time I was 27 or so. I thought if I get in now there is a potential there because I had always wanted to sail in the race ever since watching the boats come into Sydney or [Fremantle] as the case may be.

As it turned out I ended up being a watch captain on 'ABN AMRO two', the kid’s boat. I had a successful race. I had some ups and downs and allsorts. [After the 2005-2006 VOR] I [then] sailed the ['ABN Amro One'] in the Sydney Hobart with [skipper] Mike Sanderson and since then worked with Mike on many projects including Team Origin. I ran the 'Speedboat' for a while and quite involved with the actual building of them as well as the sailing of them. When Team Origin took its first dive down I then joined Team Delta Lloyd as a watch captain. I joined in Rio and finished the race off. After that re-joined Team Origin for what we thought was going to be the America’s Cup and built the TP52 and did the TP circuit and a few other regattas around as a team. Then, unfortunately, the way it went the owner decided to pull the pin on the America’s Cup. Then I went to work for Bob Oatley with 'Wild Oats'. Did the modification of putting the daggerboard in the boat. I worked for them for six months for that modification and at the last minute joined 'Team Sanya' as the shore manager for the last edition of [VOR].

Then once again another campaign that had its ups and downs. [It was] an old boat and [we] had a few good legs and a few not so good legs. I almost think I spent more time or did more mileage on a ship than actually racing so we got pretty good at putting it on and off the ships which was a real eye-opener that actually after the first night when the boats left here and they hit something and the bow basically imploded we all went down there and I sat all the shore crew down and said this is going to be the most exciting part of this race because it does get quite monotonous. You go to a stopover, you pull the rudders out, you work out the rudders, you repaint them. You do pretty much similar things.

But little did I know that we would be putting a whole new bow on the boat, we go to Madagascar, the boat returns in New Zealand, we put it on another ship, we do a full refit in Savannah, and then it made it through the last bit of the race. That by all means wasn’t the most exciting part of the race after the first night. It was quite an eye opener.

During the race there was chat with various people and [I] had an idea of this whole boatyard idea concept was looking like it was going to take off and then I joined Volvo Ocean Race this time last year and ever since have been working on the boatyard concept. Now it is coming into reality and we are starting to employ guys, starting to purchase materials and selling the concept to the teams which has been quite a success so far.

So you had some late nights watching AC34?
Yes some very late nights. You get hooked. Anyone who started watching the America’s Cup and with the coverage was hooked instantly, anyone I spoke to. It was fantastic.

And do you believe everyone is going to leave it to you guys?
Logistically it makes sense. It certainly aimed, by all means it is not aimed towards the big budget teams. What aims towards is the middle budget teams and shortening the performance gap between the guys who can buy the best service providers in the world and what we can do is we can help manage that and ensure that all the boats are on the start line in the exact same conditions. We are trying to [do that] by having a lot more money lessen the performance gain on that side of things. It is probably not looked at from the big budget teams as an advantage as they could potentially employ those same guys but certainly for the middle of the road or the lesser-budget teams it is a big advantage and it is a lot less money. It is going to be a lot less money to have your boat serviced around the world [in this next edition of the VOR].

The biggest battle is guys who have been involved in the race before and they always say but we never used to do it like that. In reality they did. They had the Harkens there servicing half the fleet. They had the Cariboni’s there servicing half the fleet. All I am helping do is helping manage that and actually splitting the price up between seven or eight boats whereas previously if it was left to the teams it was organized at the last minute and people weren’t buying in bulk and so what I am helping to do it just manage that. We are not introducing something new. It has always been there but we are focusing on the elements where we think there are big gains to be made. If there is an element where small gains can be made, we are not going to worry about it. If there are places where big money can be gained and the performance is going to stay exactly the same we are going to go down that path and offer it to the teams. We will not offer it because it is mandatory.

The fact that this is a one design boat makes it all possible.
Yes, absolutely. And not only just the servicing but another big saving is the spares and the pooling of the spares. Instead of each team having two spare daggerboards, we’re going to have four spare daggerboards for the whole fleet. Instead of each team having one spare rig at €750,000, we’re going to have two that can suit the whole fleet. That’s a huge, huge advantage there. Then obviously the two-race cycle [using the Volvo Ocean 65s, will also help to save money]. Those spares can also be sold for money, so you are going to get a refund or they stay within the pool and they can be sold with the actual boat or they can be sold to boat number nine and boat number 10.

What can you tell me about the new boats?
[If you’re coming] from a Volvo 70, you walk down onto [a Volvo Ocean 65] and you know it is strong. Being on a Volvo 70, they were always pushed to the limit and every gram you saved up here [in the rig] you got to put down there [in the keel]. Not necessarily in the last race but in the editions beforehand, and that’s what we wanted to avoid. We needed to ensure that the boats can do two races, which [as] we saw [with] the whole bow situation with 'Sanya' (in the 2011/2012 race) whether that was caused due to the boat being old we never really know but we need to tick that box and make sure we do as much as we can to ensure that doesn’t happen again.

Coming from a Volvo 70 the structure, [there’s] extra laminate in various areas. We didn’t have to skimp and we can add a bit more weight because we are all on the start line being exactly the same. It has been proven now that we have weighed three of the boats and they are all within a minute percentage of weight. We are talking 10kgs difference between a 12 ½ tonne boat so it’s a huge, huge difference and the tolerances are so tight so we are ensuring that the One Design element is kept as well as ensuring the boats will get through two cycles of the race, which I am very confident they will. The other element also with the boats is a lot more safety factor as in personal safety has been added. Like with the bigger coach roofs. It’s a bit of combination of what we had.

The Volvo 70 wasn’t safe to be standing in the cockpit for example or sitting up on the stack. An [IMOCA] Open 60 would be considered very safe to be sitting in the cockpit. Here we have a bit of a combination [with the new boats]. You still need to manage yourself to make sure you maintain your personal safety, but there [are] elements on the [new] boat that can help you out a lot more. A bit of a deeper cockpit, obviously you have got that new coach roof which can deflect a lot of the water. We saw from the last race, especially the leg going into Lorient [France], the amount of waves that we were hitting like that footage of Nico getting swept off the wheel. That element has gone, not completely but a lot of it has gone now.

What sort of ratio of deck thickness to hull thickness do the new boats have?
The hull would be 45mm and the deck would be 30mm but the difference is the actual skins themselves are a lot thicker. All below the waterline is foam on these new boats, whereas previously [it had] been nomex or you had the choice. A lot of boats in the slam areas had the foam but the complete below-the-water line is foam this time with nomex top, nomex deck so it is still utilizing a lot of the technologies and the advancement that have been made with products but just adding a bit more safety factor for things that we know, and the actual structure inside the boat is hugely different.

So you’ve taken away each team’s ability to gamble with construction?
Absolutely. There was a lot of secondary bonding issues in the last race for something that maybe saved five kilograms over the whole boat and we just don’t need to gamble that [way] anymore. Everyone is going to be on the start line with the exact same product so why not add an extra five [kilograms] and why not put five more on.

Is iceberg impact is the scariest thing to contemplate?
Yes, I would say so but there have also been [safety] elements put in place there, knowing where the ice is, [so] there will be ice gates. Hitting something [is something that] we can never avoid [on the design side], whether it’s ice or a log floating in the water or a shark, that’s something that’s always going to happen, but in saying that there [are] no exotic materials put into the hull. For example, on the Sanya boat there was a unidirectional on the outside skin, and if you picked off a little bit it would just run the whole way to the back of the boat, whereas here we have got a woven cloth which help to protect the outside skin so if you do get a little bit of impact you are not going to lose one layer of carbon fiber on the skin itself. That does add a little bit more weight but once again we are all in the same boat.

So it’s easier to insure the new VO65s than the VO70s?
Yes exactly. You wonder why people want to insure the boats again especially with the life at the extreme which is actually now another element we have worked on with an insurance company. Six months ago when someone said they wanted to insure a new Volvo Ocean Race boat not a chance. No one in the world would do it. Given we have implemented the boatyard with the servicing by the actually suppliers, the actual auditing that goes on with the boats, the NDT testing that goes on during the build phase, the NDT testing that we are going to offer during the race, the insurance companies have seen it is a lot less risk so [they] have come to the party and offered substantial packages to the teams, which probably we haven’t seen in line since maybe the 2000 race. If it is in their eyes a lot less risky, that’s ticked another pretty good box on our behalf.

And probably in terms of the crews selling the idea to their families has also probably improved.
Yes, 100%

You’ve got seven boats in build. If you’ve got a run on them what is the output time for boat eight, for instance?
For any custom build it is seven months from ordering the first bit of material to putting it in the water. 37,000 man hours so if we had a run on and/or we don’t have a run on ad someone says they want they eighth boat, [we’d] start building it in March [and] we could expedite it for sure but obviously there would be a cost attached to that but we would be expediting it, ensuring that the quality doesn’t go out the window. I think to make a call on boat eight we are pretty much [within] a few weeks of that [decision time] so we need to assess here where we are sitting with teams [and how] we’re feeling.

The trouble is now you used to launch a boat to work on your sail program for a race whereas that is all gone now. You used to build the boat at the very last minute so the designers can spend as much time as they can refining the hull, refining the rig, refining everything to ensure that it’s the best product they can put out whereas [now] you don’t need any of that. All you need to is turn up at Green Marine, jump on your boat and go sailing. It just gets a bit more expensive the longer a campaign goes [on] for. You need to weigh-up whether it’s worth being out on the water learning to sail the boat, or if you want to save more money and get on the water at the last minute. There is a bit of management needed there. The girls [on Team SCA] are doing a great job at the moment. They will be more prepared than anyone has ever been in a Volvo Ocean Race in the knowledge of the boat and how to sail them fast. Guys who have sailed similar boats will be able to jump on and [will] be able to get fast quick, but maybe you need to spend that extra time to refine that last few percent.

So time on the water is key for the 2014/2015 race?
Absolutely. Time on the water is such a key especially in One Design. The Volvo 70s you can argue that it was probably 80% of it was the design of the boat and the sail side of the program. That’s why [with the ABN Amro campaign both boats] were so far in front of everyone else until their sail program caught up with [ours]. ABN AMRO one was still so quick because it was such an advanced design, so it is a lot about the design. Or [it] was. Now it’s all about the sailors.

Can you tell me about the sails? Who built them?
North Sails. Just One Design, so every boat will be delivered [with a] full [set of] race sails. So there are seven sails on board and there is a choice of four extra sails that can be used around the world excluding the mainsail. So it is going to be one mainsail that starts here in Alicante and finishes in Gutenberg. All the other sails they can have a choice of four extras but that call needs to be made before the start of the race also. During the building of the mainsails, with the 3DI [material], they’re going to build all of the mainsails at the same time so that the mold does not change one iota. They are going to build all the code threes, all [of] the masthead zeros, all the jibs, everything on the exact same mold. Anything we can try and keep within our control to keep it One Design we are going to do as hard and much as we can.

What about the mast?
The masts are all Southern Spars and that is a fantastic process that they have. I don’t know if you’ve seen their new factory but they have the mast laying out and they have these huge jigs that just clamp around. Every hole is in this jig, so every single mast is exactly the same. I was there between the weighing between mast one and mast two and it was less than .5 kilogram for an over 525 kilogram mast. The science behind it is working, [and] when you see it in actual numbers you know that it has been a worthwhile process.

This was a collaboration between Southern Spars and North Sails, correct?
It has been a successful combination in the past so why try and reinvent everything? In reality, [the new boat has] a different hull but all the systems on board are probably like the fourth-generation Volvo 70 [equipment]. We have gone with a keel system which we know is reliable. There have been different keel systems around but we know the Cariboni system has been proven to be reliable. We know Southern Spars rigs have proven to be reliable. North Sails have been the dominate systems within the race previously, so we don’t want to reinvent… If it costs more money and the product is what people know and people trust, then we’re just going to go with it as that is part of these boats as well.

So we’re not going to see a rash of issues from the new design or its equipment?
We hope not, and if there is an issue, we hope that we can find the anomaly somewhere. There are so many processes that everything goes through to ensure that when they are on the line that nothing has crept in to produce that anomaly.

Are you pleased that the girls are out there?
Yes, the more boats that are on the water; the more communication between the suppliers and the boats, and the more communication between us and the suppliers and the boats is the better, so we can all hit the start line basically knowing the product we’ve got. Plus, also [for] the teams that come late, [we can share] what we’ve learned in the meantime, and if we need to refine a few little systems here and there we are certainly more than open to [doing] that. If the girls come to us with a good idea then yes why not change it? Of course it has to be unanimous amongst all the other teams to ensure that it is not [a] one-sided [change]. We haven’t nailed every single thing 100%, so if we need to refine anything just before the start to make anything better, we will definitely do that.

What kind of performance do you think the new boats will have compared to the older VO70s?
Upwind you won’t know the difference [between VO70s and VO65s] because performance is being enhanced with water ballast, [namely] side ballast tanks plus a tank in the bow. Maybe a tick slower but to the average yachtie I don’t think you would notice at all. The Volvo 70s were extremely powerful two-sail reaching where I think that would be the bigger difference, but downwind I think these boats have the potential to be even quicker than the Volvo 70s. A bit more [user-friendly] and you could probably push them a bit [harder]. The Volvo 70 you could never, in real 30/35 knots, you could not push the boats 100% because the boats were either too flat or they were nose diving too much or a few different elements, but I think these boats have enough rocker in them. They are a lot safer. They have got the same volume as a Volvo 70 but [in] a 65 footer.

We don’t know yet, but we like to think you could push these boats as hard as possible and they will still survive. You never know-it could be another 24-hour record if you get the correct conditions. The Volvo 70s were the ultimate monohull boat. They are the perfect size. Having been involved with [the Juan k-designed] 'Speedboat' [100-footer], it was just too big. It was super-fast, super-exciting, super-everything, but it was just that click too big. The Volvo 60 is obviously the predecessor to the 70. They were a bit too small. Indestructible. You could take them anywhere, do anything, but were just maybe a bit on the smaller side whereas here hopefully you have just got the right combination where you don’t need to back off as much as you did on the Volvo 70 just because they [were] so powerful. These [VO65s] are still powerful but more in line with a Volvo 60, rather than a Volvo 70.

What’s the story with crews and teams coming to Alicante? When do you expect teams to start arriving and what’s your plan once they arrive?
The assembly period commences [in] early September so we would envisage that all of the boats would be here [by] the beginning of September, at which stage we then have a two-week period, all the boats will be lifted out and what we are going to call ground zero, all the boats [will] come back the exact same. [It] doesn’t matter how new or how old the boat is. All the boats will get serviced to the exact same spec. Not because one has done more mileage or less. They all get here, and they leave on leg one knowing that everything has been done exactly the same to all boats. If boats wish to come here earlier, [that will] depend [on] how the setup here is. I mean, being based in the Mediterranean is probably not ideal for VOR preparation, but as far as this office or what we can provide, our doors are open to host anyone and we will have quite a substantial set-up here by August.

Will your workshop be housed in containers that can be shipped around the world?
Our actual setup consists of seven workshop containers. A huge tent [that’s] 60 meters x 20 meters. A sail loft floor that’s 600 square meters. We’re going to have a separate boat-building facility that all the teams are welcome to use so they don’t have to have any boatbuilding facility or any boatbuilding materials, any resin, any carbon fiber. We will have [all of] that. The teams are allowed to come in and use all that stuff if they want, but being One Design there is a limit to how much you can [change]. A lot of the jobs last race were [about] optimizing, trying to make things better, trying to make things faster but you’re not allowed to do that now, so [this change] actually brings the numbers [of shore crew] down a lot.

Which has a significant impact on the budget because one of the biggest elements are staff and logistics so, like I said at the start [of this interview], if we can reduce that performance gap between having five shore crew and 25 shore crew in providing the contractors to do all the service work, then that is what we’re trying to achieve and trying to offer to the middle-of-the-road teams to give them not an advantage, but to bring them up to the same playing field.

It does enable teams to come in assuming that there will be boats for them, and it does enable teams to come in fairly late.
Yes, if you are ready and an established team like [Emirates] Team New Zealand for example, if you have got a very well established team and have got a great sailing base and you have got a great morale amongst the crew, you know if they would just press the ‘go’ button you know who their crew would be and they have sailed together for years and years and you can’t beat that sort of experience so they would be the exception to the rule of being able to be able to jump on a boat and go pretty much straight away. That’s up to each team to manage it, [as] they see fit.