Hello? Calling the Volvo Ocean Race? Anyone there?

by Robin Antonsen on 10 Dec 2002 What on earth is going on with the Swedes? It's been many months since the finish of the last race, and they commissioned a huge study, at great
expense, to tell them what they did right and what they did wrong. And yet it is now nearly the end of the year, and there is no news of what the next
race will look like, when, what stopovers, what boats are proposed. Dead silence.

The last mention of anything from the organisers stated that the
next edition would be in the Autumn of 2005. That release was made on the
5th of July. Nothing since.

Meanwhile the world moves on, and there is
widespread belief that the VOR is essentially dead in the water. By the time the preliminary NOR is published in the spring of 2003 (nearly a year after the finish of the last!), big budget sponsorships may well have moved elsewhere. Perhaps even to other sports.

VOR got the best and the brightest when they hired Glenn Bourke, but I fear that not even Glenn will be able to stop the hand-wringing and what have to
be endless strategy meetings. Meanwhile, in typical French flamboyant fashion, but with considerable preparation and foresight, Bruno Peyron
announces The Race Tour, after taking advice from a group that includes Frostad, Field, Norberg, Dalton, Salen, Cayard, MacDonald and Nilson -- ALL
from the last VOR! These fellows concluded that big multihulls would be a far better draw for sponsors than big monohulls, and Peyron has vast
experience in this field.

If I were Glenn Bourke, I think I'd reserve a table at a quiet French restaurant and invite Bruno to dinner to discuss a joint venture with Volvo
as the main sponsor of The Race Tour.

Volvo Race Tour has a nice ring to it.

Or just call it the Volvo Ocean Race again but partner with Peyron. Good luck getting Volvo's marketing people to eat that much crow, but without an immediate bold move from them, if Peyron succeeds with his vision, the VOR is history.

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