Volvo Ocean Race- Vive la Difference!

by Bob Fisher on 13 Nov 2014 The Volvo Ocean Race Fleet winner arrived here just seven days ago and the other six boats finished within 48 hours. That, in itself, was remarkable, but what has happened in the meantime is quite staggering.

All seven boats have had their rigs removed, taken out of the water, had their rudders and centerboards removed and their hulls polished on the outside, thoroughly cleaned and inspected inside. In addition, all electronic equipment has been checked, repaired and checked again before replacement, and then the rigs have been returned after a major overhaul and the boats re-launched to sit in a line in the V&A Harbour here.

The sailing crews have had little or nothing to do with this complete overhaul and service – many have returned home for a couple of days to see family and friends while the rest have imported family and are touring the hinterland of Cape Town, gasping at the sights and getting familiar with the products of the local wineries and reminding their stomachs what good food tastes like. All the work has been in the hands of their shore crews – handpicked teams capable of handling any emergency or problem.

There are several old BNs in this city who cut their teeth on earlier Volvo or Whitbread races, men for whom sailing was only part of the equation. Their story is very, very different as Richard Bertie, better known as Thirsty Bertie, remembers: 'It were nothing like this. We got off the boat as soon as she was moored and the sails secured so they would not blow away and we would jump ashore and as a force head straight for the nearest bar. There we would stay as long as they would serve us (and most were delighted to do that) or until the funds ran out. We would go on and on until we were comatose.

'The next day there was an amnesty, until we were clearheaded (make that a couple of days), then we would go back to the boat and recover our gear before beginning the painful duty of cleaning the inside of the boat. The skipper, who had been very much part of this drinkathon, would make the arrangements for getting the boat out of the water and removing the mast – he was the one with the chequebook.

'If there was a lot of work, we would have to moderate our behavior in the bars, but if the weather and the crew had been kind to the boat, we would go back to attempting to drain the stopover port of alcoholic refreshments until 24 hours prior to the start of the next leg, but nevertheless many men started the race still feeling the effects of the stopover. Of course we didn’t have families back then and some of the boys tried to emulate real sailors with a girl in every port – there were even those for whom one, or even two, was not enough, and one had to keep a weather-eye out for them.

'I’m not suggesting today’s sailors have it easy. The commercial pressure on them is far greater than it was on us, and that brings a different responsibility.'

For one who remembers the 'old days’, there is little similarity between those who sailed in the first couple of Whitbreads and the current Volvo Ocean Race, except they were and are in in to win it. It’s just the way they went or go about it that is different. For both eras the storms and calms are still the same, as is the cold of the Southern Ocean and the heat of the Tropics. Both presented Life at the Extreme.