Volvo Ocean Race- New support approach to 'Human Edition' + Video

by Richard Gladwell, Sail-World.com on 8 Mar 2015 The egalitarian approach to the new Volvo Ocean Race has extended to more than just the adoption of a one design by Farr Yacht Design, and construction by a consortium of builders.

The between leg servicing is now run a by a Shore Team headed by Australian Nick Bice, a two race veteran of the 40,000nm around the world classic.

Bice runs the Volvo Ocean Race’s equivalent of Pit-Lane. The vast floor area normally houses the main part of a Boat Show, and is covered with a false floor that travels with the support package for the race.

In fact this is just one of two support bases run by the Volvo Ocean Race, the second is already in Itajai, Brazil. This one will be packed up and sent to Newport RI, USA – to ensure that the competitors don’t arrive before the support base.

'No matter what you budget is for a team, you boat gets serviced to the same level,' Bice explains at the start of a tour around the Support facility located on the ground floor of the Events Centre in Auckland’s Viaduct Harbour.

'In saying that there is only a certain number of elements that we service – similar to your car. We look after seven or eight major items, which we believe have an impact on getting the boat to the finish line. They have to do with reliability and safety, as well as performance.

'Aside from those eight elements there are still another 50-60 things that the teams are responsible for. But they are smaller things, and they don’t really they justify flying a technician around the world to service these elements.'

Bice give the example of previous races where to get a canting keel serviced – the team had the option of flying in a specialist from the original manufacturers, or getting a local hydraulic engineer engaged to do the basics.

Now the supplier is flown in and does the service on all boats. 'The suppliers are happier with that approach and they can also use the exercise for their own research, for improvements in future races.'

About 15 shore crew were the minimum number for a team in the last Volvo Ocean Race. Bice says that race winner, Groupama had up to 24 in their shore team. ‘In this edition we don’t think there is any performance gain by having more than six people.’

He explains that he selected his shore team on three factors – experience, enthusiasm and whether they had also worked in the industry. 'The majority of my team are people who have done the race before, but I also wanted to bring in some new blood – who are showing that is you approach it with the right enthusiasm – you can’t beat it, regardless of experience.'

The support teams were allowed to design their own work space within the containers that double as workstations for each service function.

The workstations can also be accessed by the teams support crews, and materials are supplied by the Race for use by the individual shore teams. 'Previously a team might have carried five rolls of carbon fibre and all the resin required. Now we carry all the carbon fibre and resin for common use.

'We have a strict open door policy that any members form any team can come in and use what they want, whenever they want.

'That has opened up the old barriers and created a more friendly race,’ Bice adds.

Bice points out that the teams can have as many shore crew as they like, but there won’t be any performance gain – other than a more shiny boat.

All the major elements are looked after by the Volvo Ocean Race shore team and the suppliers.



The move is cost saving one, with no decrease in service level. ‘For a team, it costs a lot of money to fly 24 support crew around the world. Here we still have a big team, but they come in purely for the maintenance period, and then they all go back to their normal jobs while the leg is being sailed.

Bice claims that if shore crew are fully employed with the teams, then they are working in their specialist capacity for only 30% of the time, and the remainder of the time is spent on base maintenance, packing tents, handling freeze-dried food and other non-specialist activities.

'That is a big burden on the budget, which hopefully we have relieved. Before the race people were skeptical, but as it has turned out we have a team of 15 full-time people who are working inside the Events Centre. Normally we would have a tent 65 metres long, which is built before the boats arrive. We fly the specialist maintenance people in for the week, and then they leave.'

'In Auckland we are up to a team 60 people working on the boats.'

He explains that there is still some discussion ongoing about the length of stopovers and whether the maintenance period can be compressed further. But his view is that currently they are at the short end of the time required to do the job properly.

The functions covered by the VOR Support Crew include electronics (onboard instruments, and strain gauge data recording, plus media), sails – which are all one design and supplied by a single manufacturer, North Sails. The race boats are allowed seven sails on board at any one time. They are allowed to replace four of the sails throughout the whole race – making for a total race inventory of just 11 sails.

A veteran of two previous Volvo Ocean Race, Bice explain that they were allowed 12 sails on board at a time, and in the race prior were allowed 17 sails on board.

'Being one design we can afford to make the sails heavier, so they have a longer race life,' Bice adds.

Engineering covers the canting keel and winch packages, and it is in those two areas where the biggest number of Shore Crew are involved.

The Volvo 65 hulls were built in three different yards and then the components were taken to a fourth yard, Green Marine in UK for assembly and the boats were commissioned in Southampton. Seven boats were built in an 18month period. If the boats were to have been built individually in a single yard, it would have taken 38,000 manhours or 7-8 months. The yards involved were four of the biggest in the world, and all were competitors – getting them to work together in the project was quite an achievement Bice explains.

The tooling for the one design hulls and components allowed a tolerance of less than 1mm to be achieved in the construction – meaning the boats are exactly identical.

All sheets, rigging and running rigging are identical on each boat. And each team is required to carry the same rope from the same manufacturer. Bice says they can predict the usage for a team and the finished rope required is flown in from the manufacturer, rather than flying shore crew in to perform this function. The ropes are load tested before being installed

'To fly someone around the world for a race, pay them, feed them and house them is about 120,000Euros from the start of the race to the end of the race. Here, you can buy a full race package of running rigging for 120,000 Euros. If you have someone on your team full time on ropes, sheets and rigging, then you have already spent the human cost and that excludes any payment for the raw materials to make up the sheets and rigging. That is one example of how the savings are made.':

Structurally the boats have held up well. Using ultrasound the boats were tested while the boats were being built. Two companies were used so that nothing was missed. Bice says it took until Cape Town to be sure they had found all the build issues – that may be as slight as a small air void. Now all that is being found are issues that are race damage. Build issue numbers across the fleet numbered about 50 in Alicante dropped to 20 in Cape Town and were down to just a couple in Abu Dhabi.

On the electronics side, Bice says they had some gremlins that were installation issues, which were largely resolved. Now all they are seeing are genuine wear and tear issues, which are handled by the suppliers who can get on top of a single issue in a boat before it becomes a problem for the fleet.

Component issues on the boats get similar treatment. 'If there is a single incidence of a problem we look at it. If the same issue happens on two boats, we look at it more seriously, and if it happens on three boats there is a fleet-wide change,' Bice explains.

'Sometimes small things can turn into big items – but that is the nature of one-design boats.'

'We call this race the Human Edition of the Volvo Ocean Race', says Bice. 'The boat is one design, gear is from a single supplier, and the service is from the same team. The only way you can win is with a better crew.'

'Apart from Vestas Wind, which was human error, we have had every boat finish every leg - on the last edition three boats didn't finish the first leg. So far we have a good formula!'