Volvo Ocean Race 2014 - Costs down and teams smaller

by stockmaritime on 27 Feb 2014 Volvo Ocean Race 2014-15 – Dramatic cost reduction but smaller teams for the newest Volvo Ocean 65

Certainly there are some compromises to be made but this a unique boat for a unique race. A new model for the Volvo Ocean Race. A global technological innovation.

A model boat with gennaker, capable to go offshore - remote controlled. With this model boat, everyone can sail his own Volvo Ocean Race. Because the Volvo Ocean 65 is a saltwater resistant ocean-going model boat. On a scale of 1:20, this piece of sports equipment reflects the racy character and the extraordinary seaworthiness of this highly-developed one-design offshore yacht - which came into being after 40 years of experience from this famous race around the world.


The 1.1m race yacht is vacuum-manufactured from carbon fibre and epoxy with a weight of 3.5 kg. Commercial yachts usually weigh twice as much. All blocks with ball bearings are made of stainless steel. The sheets and stays are made of Dyneema or Kevlar. The painting is done with high quality Alexseal yacht coatings. Using a double hatch system to access the technics, the boat is nearly 100% waterproof. The boat is equipped with two servos for the double rudder and the upwind sails, and two sail winches for the gennaker sheets and the gennaker rolling system. In order to sail really fast in all conditions, you can choose between four sets of upwind sails and two different gennakers. Boat and sails can be ordered in your corporate design. For the perfect transport of the racing yacht, stockmaritime offers a fitting carrying bag, a sail bag for the four sets of sails and an airfreight-optimised flight case. Thus the boat is ready to start within 5-10 minutes.

'No more boring upwind courses with model boats.' Hans Genthe, owner of stockmaritime, has done intensive testing of the boat. 'The hardest test was at St. Peter Ording at the North Sea in mid-December. That was great fun to surf the breakwater with that tiny boat. A gybe lasts less than three seconds, the gennaker can be unfurled in less than a second.' This offers for the first time the possibility to train gennaker sailing with a model boat. 'Steering errors are much more obvious from the outside than if you are on the boat.' states the passionate racing sailor. 'I also learnt a lot from the model boat sailing for the real sailing on big boats.'

[Sorry, this content could not be displayed]stockmaritime develops and markets remote controlled sailing yacht models and is - according to its own statement - the only producer of higher quantities of model sail racing yachts in Germany. The model is immediately available, and was presented for the first time at the trade fair boot Duesseldorf in January 2014.

The sailing characteristics of the Volovo Ocean 65 are documented with videos on a new website: Click here