Shape of next Volvo Ocean Race revealed at Southern Spars - Part 1

by Richard Gladwell, Sail-World.com on 3 May 2016 Southern Spars has been confirmed as the supplier of spars for the 2017-18 Volvo Ocean Race.

The World's predominant carbon spar builder is the only non-European manufacturer to be selected as a supplier for the round the world classic.

Southern Spars will be designing and producing masts for the fleet of VO65s for the second running of the race sailed in a one-design format.

In mid-April, Race Director, Jack Lloyd and Stopover Manager Richard Mason outlined the changes expected for the 40,000nm Race during a tour of the 10,000sq metre specialist spar construction facility, in Avondale, West Auckland.

A total of up to seven boats is expected to enter, but time is running out for the construction of any new boats.

Already the deadline has passed for the construction of an eighth boat unless builders were to work on an accelerated program with overtime. Organisers are not encouraging any more late entries like Team Vestas Wind in the 2014-15 edition of the race which sailed her 2000nm qualifying leg en route to the start in Alicante, Spain.

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Almost all the boats, spars, and gear will be re-used during the coming edition of the race, and with new shore support arrangements, campaign costs are expected to drop a further 15% over the previous race, which was 50% drop over the 2011/12 edition.

The spars will all be re-used with a couple of enhancements and modifications – minor changes, plus refurbishing for wear and tear.

“We have two upgrades or service periods coming up when we will work on the rigs,” says Southern Spars Lance Manson, the mast suppliers Project Manager for the Volvo Ocean Race.

“The masts will be upgraded and bought up to as new standard. There will be some cosmetic changes, plus a regular service, as we do between legs.

“Some of the sails could be used for training,” says Richard Mason. “It is worth remembering that those boats went around the world on just one mainsail. In the old days of the America’s Cup, you’d be lucky if a mainsail lasted a week.”

The boats used a total of 11 sails in the last edition, covering 40,000nm in the race itself and training.

“I think it is important to note that Brunel is still actively campaigning in the Caribbean since the last race finished, using the same sails. She will return to Europe and then do two months solid sailing in Gothenburg – where Volvo themselves will conduct a four-month program where they will take every one of their staff sailing on the boats. That program will include Team Vestas Wind at the start, then Dongfeng, and Brunel at the end – all using their original race sails.

“That is probably the equivalent of twice around the world with the same set of sails,” he added.

“When we took the mainsail off Team SCA in Alicante at the end of the last race, it had done 66,000nm, and we were still pretty happy with the shape of it,” Mason, formerly Shore Manager for the Women's team, chimes in.

“For us the match between Southern Spars and North Sails is important, “Lloyd continues. “The ways the two companies work together is vital.”

“They have both embraced from Day 1, our concept of one design – which means that all boats are the same, and if we change one boat, then we have to change all seven boats.

“For me that is where Southern stepped up. We didn’t have a lot of warning on some issues, but it was taken seriously at Southern Spars, and Lance would turn up with enough components for every single boat, plus a plan and every single boat was handled the same.

Rig enhancements will protect one-design ethos
There will be some changes to the rigs for the next race, but the refurbished and new masts will all be identical.

“There will be no temptation by anyone to say that it is not the same,” says Lloyd.

“Just to keep the whole ethos of one design going we have had complete buy-in from everybody. That makes our job easier because we have credibility with everyone.”

“We often forget what a huge hill it was to climb to make the sailing world believe that one design was the way to go, Lloyd explains. “Some don’t understand the implications of not going one design, because if we didn’t, we wouldn’t have a race.

“We challenged the industry, and I think the marine industry have done a great job in giving us a one design boat – and a lot of that has come out of this Southern Spars facility.”

“The race is heavily rooted in the New Zealand marine industry, and business like Southern Spars have grown out of the race,” says Richard Mason, a four race veteran.

“It has a far reaching thing other than just being a yacht race. We export a lot of sailors as well!”

The company is now located in a specialist facility in Avondale, west of Auckland, where 85% of the world’s superyacht masts get built. About half the Grand Prix racing yachts masts also come from Southern Spars in Avondale. The company has built spars for Emirates Team New Zealand since their 1995 campaign, including their Millenium rig – several features of which have crossed over into the superyacht spars, and also the wingsails used by the New Zealand and Italian teams at the 2013 America’s Cup.

“This is a classic case of a Kiwi business that has become a niche specialist. They pick something that is very tightly defined and absolutely own it. Like making the best possible rigs on a global basis,” says Mason.

“It is important to realise the synergies between successful companies and the Race because it extends way beyond the race itself.

Jointly owned by North Technology, both Southern Spars and North Sails have interfaced their sail and mast design programs ensuring a perfect match of sails and spars.

That relates into savings and efficiencies in a lot of ways including reduced commissioning time and “surprises” ahead of sea trials.

Fleet reliability forces re-think
In the last race, a big change from the 2011/12 and earlier editions of the Volvo Ocean Race was that with one exception (Team Vestas Wind) every boat finished every leg. Only two suspended racing. It was not uncommon starting with the finish of Leg 4 into Auckland for the fleet to finish within four hours. In fact in Auckland four boats finished within 15 minutes, after racing from Sanya in China.

That change in reliability is forcing further changes in thinking in the way stopovers are managed, and taking the sharing of maintenance tasks and parts to a new level.

“Previously people like Richard in his old job (Shore manager with Team SCA) would have taken the opportunity to pull the rig out at every stopover,” says Lloyd.

“The plan now is not to pull the rig out whenever possible, and we have an agreed method with Nick (Bice, Volvo Boatyard Manager) as to which stopovers we will pull the rigs out, and on the others we will not allow the rigs to be pulled out.

“It shows that everyone is becoming more comfortable with reliability, and it helps us because we have less space at each stopover.

“It is just not possible to pull seven rigs out at once and put them on the ground for a week.

“We have the confidence now to go forward, and that is driven by the manufacturer,” Lloyd explains.

“In Cape Town where previously we had two weeks to build the race Village, we will now have just four days, and using less space.

“So we certainly need to have new ways of doing things, and not pulling all the rigs at every stopover is going to be a huge help.

Rigs are visually checked, sonically checked and tested with NDT (non-destructive -testing).

“There will be certain levels of service at a certain amount of sailing miles. The teams will do their own visual checking and then depending on how The Boatyard is set up; we will come in as well. The rigs are ultra-sounded at every leg as well. The visual thing is still a big part of it, but ultrasound is the way we roll along now.”

“We still use dye penetrant testing on fittings as well,” he adds.

A meeting took place in late March at Southern Spars for a couple of days with the three key Volvo support crew involved to work through the stopover program, in conjunction with Southern Spars.

“Every component on the hull and boat is NDT tested by the same company, and the hulls and certain components are tested at each stopover and bench marked with the original test results. It is also part of our insurance requirements,” Lloyd adds.

“There was also a lot emphasis on the one design aspect of the rigs when they were sent out of here,” says Southern Spars Lance Manson.

“They were checked for weight, bend and centre of gravity. There was 1.6mm of difference between the rigs. But we will do all that testing again.”

The old rigs and the new rigs will be put through exactly the same tests and measuring process.

There will be some restrictions from last time on the amount that the teams can over-bend rigs. Reaching struts will be another area for change with some teams not breaking a single strut last time and one team breaking 14 of the carbon struts used to hold the clew of the massive Code Zero headsails clear of the boats.

Part 2 of this story will appear on Sail-World tomorrow - covering the route selection process and budget costs for the 2017/18 Volvo Ocean Race