Volvo Ocean Race- Evolution of the Species

by Andi Robertson, Volvo Ocean Race on 10 Oct 2010 Through any round the world race project, from concept to completion, time is the enemy.

But in the rarefied, highly driven atmosphere which prevails in yacht-racing circles, there are few quiet places in this world where some extra moments to reflect are more of a pleasure than the entrance lobby of Farr Yacht Design.

It is an otherwise relatively anonymous steel, glass and concrete building, blessed with a pleasant view over Annapolis' East Creek yacht marinas, but the waiting area, with its dozens of half models and representations of generations of successful Farr yachts, is an instant snapshot of the designers' roll call of race winning designs.

The displays quietly highlight the extraordinary level of domination that Farr Yacht Design have had over many years of the Whitbread and early Volvo Ocean Races, as well as neatly capturing the evolution of the species from ocean-cleaving IOR Maxi giants to the current sleek, full-planing no compromise Volvo Open 70s.

Farr Yacht Design's association really starts from the third race, the 1981-2 edition with Maxis Disque D'Or for Pierre Fehlmann and Ceramco New Zealand for Sir Peter Blake.

These formative campaigns led on to line honours for Fehlman in the next race in the Farr Maxi UBS Switzerland, and then for Blake at the head of an all-Farr top three in 1989-90, when the iconic, all-conquering Steinlager won ahead of Grant Dalton's Fisher & Paykel and Fehlmann's Merit.

On the 1993-4 race, when the new Whitbread 60 class harassed the Maxis around the course, Farr again produced the top three big boats but from the beginning, their W60 programme was so advanced that they proved to be the only firm to work with.

Ross Field's Farr designed Yamaha won the new class. All five top boats were from the Farr office, including second placed Intrum Justitia and third placed Galicia Pescanova.

Farr's Whitbread 60 / Volvo Open 60 knowledge base was unmatched, rolling out successive high level research and development programmes which ensured theirs was the first call for most projects.

Farr's President, Patrick Shaughnessy summed up the keys to their early supremacy. 'We were one of the first groups to seriously look at how the weather model worked for the race, creating a race model to look at the different parameters for boats to go around the world, to do VPP studies and serious tank testing and to bring all these things to bear together as well as being able to take a very scientific look at the boat.'

'That research model and understanding is now pretty well developed by every team that develops a boat. But at the time, that was quite innovative and it was a pretty serious scientific deal.'

'Combining a lot of technology which went back and forth from America's Cup to Whitbread Volvo projects and back, we were able to learn a lot about tank testing and wind tunnel work,' he explained, 'and we could take those learnings from the America's Cup project right back to a Volvo / Whitbread project.'

In the next race the EF campaigns set a new level, using two test-and-training boats as development platforms for Paul Cayard's EF Language and sister-ship EF Education. EF Language triumphed ahead of another all-Farr top five.

Illbruck then took many aspects of the EF blueprint to win the next race in 2001-02, although Grant Dalton took third with his Mani Frers designed Amer Sports One, in a fleet where six of the eight entries were Farr designs.

At the height of the Whitbread 60 / Volvo Open 60 class, Farr could be running up to seven different race projects simultaneously, at once ensuring they could balance the books when it came to the comprehensive R&D programme but also offering their own headaches, protecting the intellectual property of each team.

One foundation for each of Farr's successes has been in setting up self-funded research programmes early in the cycle, offering a set of variants and options from the standard package, with recommended parameter choices.

Farr handled the process carefully, sharing their intellectual property with all the teams equally but keeping each team's design work completely separate. 'That was managed by an individual inside our team which was unique to that group,' Shaughnessy explained, 'and so we made sure that information did not leak between the teams.'

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