Editorial- Volvo OR arrives..Rainbow II wins again..NZ sailing roundup

by Richard Gladwell/Sail-World.com on 5 Mar 2015 Editorial from Sail-World.com’s New Zealand e-magazine for March 4, 2015:

If you did not receive this newsletter click here to read to see the whole Archive click here to receive our Free newsletter

On Saturday evening Leg 4 of the Volvo Ocean Race came to a remarkable end, with the three leading boats arriving within six minutes of each other - that's after three weeks of very intense racing.

New Zealand is still coming to grips with the new Volvo Ocean Race.

No New Zealand boat.

One design fleet.

Campaigns now run by sports management companies, rather than iconic team heads out chasing the sponsorship dollar.

For those who have followed the fleet and the last leg, in particular, the intensity of the racing is over-powering.

How often do you hear skippers talk in the post-race media conference after a 5,000nm plus Leg of how they lost a lead, and a leg, though being in the wrong place under a couple of clouds?

Or that a lead of a mile is now seen as significant, and three miles is comfortable - which is quite different talk from the days of boats being designed for anticipated conditions, and where one competitor usually performed differently from the others.

Gone are the days when you had the choice of going with the fashionable designer - usually of the last race winner. The options were to try someone new and either be buggered after the first day or so of Leg 1, or have a chance of finding a new edge in the rule that others overlooked.

As we were told in the tour of the Boatyard yesterday, some of the boats had done 60,000miles already. To our eyes they looked as good as they did on their launch date. The talk is of the fleet certainly being used for the next race, and maybe a third.

[Sorry, this content could not be displayed]
New Zealand has missed the boat in this race - literally. Maybe Emirates Team New Zealand had been too wrung out financially to be able to take on this project. But that should not have stopped others.

For sure there are some very experienced Round the World sailors who are outside the Team New Zealand fold, who could put a team together in conjunction with a sports management company. For sure the country is not short of sailing talent. The problem is that we are becoming risk-averse.

No better evidence of that than in the One Ton Cup Revisited Regatta currently underway on the Hauraki Gulf.

Currently, Rainbow II is giving the other seven boats a sailing lesson.

Her skipper, Chris Bouzaid was just 24 years old when he launched Rainbow II and took his first tilt at winning the One Ton Cup in Germany. He sold his house and boat to finance the new project.

Would that happen now?

But back to the Volvo Ocean Race - there is a different atmosphere amongst the skippers. Everyone seems to get along. They have to with shared facilities ashore and sharing support teams to get the basic servicing done.

The niggle that is often present at most sailing events, and America's Cup, in particular, is not there.

Listening to the skippers and crew talk after the Leg, there is no doubt that the racing is intensely competitive once the boats leave the dock, and the one-design fleet has made that even more so.

In this edition, we bring you reports on the Leg finish, the Boatyard and interviews with two New Zealand sailors still in the race. Plus Race Director, Jack Lloyd gives his thoughts on the race so far.

We'll have more to come in the coming days - but if you, your mates, or your club want to kick off a project to be part of the next race, then get down to the Viaduct and have a look and a talk before the pre-start panic starts next week.

[Sorry, this content could not be displayed] Follow all the racing and developments in major and local events on www.sail-world.com, scroll to the bottom of the site, select New Zealand, and get all the latest news and updates from the sailing world.

Good sailing!

Richard Gladwell
NZ Editor

sailworldnzl@gmail.com

Please forward news stories and images these directly to Sail-World NZ using our new very easy to use submission system, or forward to the email address: sailworldnzl@gmail.com as text in the email and attach images in the standard way for emails.

To subscribe to Sail-World.com's NZ e-magazine, published two or three times weekly goto www.news.sail-world.com and click on Newsletter and Subscribe. You can see previous newsletters by clicking on Newsletter and then Archive from the drop-down menu.

If you are a potential advertiser and want to understand how Sail-World can work for your company, website or product, then drop a line to Colin Preston at nzsales@sail-world.com

If you want to contact Richard Gladwell directly email: sailworldnzl@gmail.com or call (+6421) 301030

Don't forget to check our website www.sail-world.com, scroll to the bottom of the site, select New Zealand, and get all the latest news and updates from the sailing world.

[Sorry, this content could not be displayed]