Volvo Ocean Race- Team Vestas Wind reveal more detail of program

by Richard Gladwell, Sail-World.com on 6 Jan 2015 Last Friday, when it became known that Team Vestas Wind had made a decision to rejoin the Volvo Ocean Race, the team and primary sponsors, Vestas Wind and Powerhouse called an international media conference in Abu Dhabi, with a series of invited international sailing media online.

As has been noted previously the decision to re-enter and rebuild was only taken very recently, the decision having been made after it was realised that so much of the boat was re-usuable. A new build was not feasible for a number of reasons.

Team Vestas Wind skipper, Chris Nicholson confirmed that all the crew will remain on contract and may do some races together, but would not be drawn on when and where, but alluded to the intention to use boats like the Volvo70 for offshore training.
The race team's build up 'will be similar to what the other teams had, except for us it will me a lot more compressed and with more pressure on everyone.'

Nicholson has been tasked to review and assess the team as to whether they have the right team for when they return to the race, as it is now a different race, than the one we set out to sail. Nicholson will report to the team management on that by the end of January, who have said they will fully back his decisions.

After being extracted from the atoll of St Brandon, four weeks after ramming into the reef on Leg 2 of the Volvo Ocean Race, the remains of the boat were hoisted aboard a Maersk ship and taken to Mauritius, where the rest of the salvaged gear, and sails were picked up.

Currently, the team's boat and gear is en route to Malaysia, one of five freight hubs in the world, and will be transshipped to a boat bound for Italy

Nicholson explained that the support crew, including shore manager Neil Cox are in Malaysia.

The team also has some experts in ultrasound along with some people from Persico in Bergamo, Italy, who will do the repair. They are all assessing further the extent of the damage and how best to move forward to repair. As well as a physical inspection, ultrasound is used to look inside the structure and see any invisible damage.

'Since we were on the reef the picture of the repair process has got better. We were able to get the boat off the reef in better shape than we thought. For the next couple of days we will be on the edge of our seats waiting for the emails to come in to indicate what the extent of the repairs is going to be,' said Nicholson.

‘That will enable the builders to start work immediately while the boat is being shipped from Malaysia to Italy.'

Persico to do the rebuild
The boat has a three-week transportation time between Malaysia and Italy. Persico has purpose built a temporary shed and workshop, just for Team Vestas Wind to go into. They are going to be starting the rebuild process immediately.

Persico was one of the consortia of four builders involved in the initial construction of the seven one design, single manufacturer, Volvo Ocean Race boats. Fortuitously the boats had been substantially over-engineered to avoid the issues in the previous editions of the race with boats suffering structural damage during racing, and so that the fleet could be used for a second Volvo Ocean Race - avoiding obsolescence.

The Persico developed facility will give the builders a head start before the boat comes into the shed. Essentially it can be cleaned up and made ready for the splicing in of new parts and repairs of existing parts.

'The timeline is a little unknown because we don’t know the full extent of the damage, but that assessment is happening as we speak. Lisbon is the line in the sand that cannot be crossed. Anything on the good side of that will be extra practice time, or we could bring the boat over for Newport', explains Nicholson.

'We have to see the full extent of the damage. From everything that I could see I would say that 70-80% of the deck is still usable. There is a lot of damage on the starboard side of the hull right forward. The hull is a boat yard question, and also for the ultrasound guys.

'This boat will be one design again as she always was. That has to be factored in as well into the rebuild process.'

'The main purpose of getting the boat to Italy is to re-use as much as possible of the existing boat and structure.'

'The decision to rebuild rather than do a complete new boat came to several areas. Firstly there was considerable parts and structure in our existing boat. Also to build a new boat would take longer. Everything pointed to this being the most cost effective and time effective solution to what we need to do to get back into the race,' he added.

Crew decisions yet to be made
Vestas Wind and Powerhouse will make a decision after this race, and how the boat and crew perform, as to whether they will continue for the next edition of the race.

Nicholson was questioned on whether Wouter Verbraak, the navigator would be continuing with the race crew for the remainder of the Volvo Ocean Race. Nicholson was a little more guarded in his response. 'At the moment I have been tasked to undergo a process where I have a look at every place on board the boat. That will happen in January. We have already had discussions. We are where we are today from a navigational error, in the end, and obviously that is an area we have to look closely at.'

(It should be noted that Telefonica Blue hit a rock at 14kts as the fleet left Marstrand, Sweden in the 2008-09 edition of the race. The navigator, Simon Fisher stayed with the program for what was left of the race, and is now navigator on one of the race leaders, Abu Dhabi.)

Race and training program
On the race training program, Nicholson said he would prefer offshore in other boats, with the inshore being more specific to actual Volvo 65’s. 'We would split it up into a two-tier attack. We would go offshore in the next few months, and then inshore when we get our boat back on the water.'

'The boat should arrive in Italy on January 26. In terms of show-stoppers, it could come down to issues in the build, or we have more damage than we thought. I am not trained as an ultrasound expert, but Neil Cox and I have a good idea of what can be reused in the boat. The experts are there to back up and advise on the finer detail.

'Of course, there are always show-stoppers, But there are a lot of stakeholders involved, and there is huge goodwill for it to happen. I think it is quite amazing that we are where we are today. If there are problems, then I think this group can overcome them.

Big tide helped?
Nicholson was asked whether the bigger than usual tide was the key factor in getting Team Vestas Wind off the reef at St Brandon.

'A bigger tide on the reef was an extra 150mm which did help us get the boat out through the lagoon. But that wasn’t the trigger to the success of the salvage. We had good weather, calm winds, and relatively small seas and a very skilful salvage crew. Plus a lot of preparation that had been done beforehand. It had all to be done to plan, but the guys had worked very hard on that plan,' Nicholson explained.

Due to the very limited facilities that could be taken to the atoll for recovery. It was not possible to save the mast in one piece, and that was cut down. The keel bulb remains on the reef for the time being. Some hours after the initial impact it detached from the boat - causing the boat to be lifted high onto the reef by the tide. The keel bulb is assumed to lie in the pounding surf line of the reef.

Other teams assist
Thanks to the generosity of other teams, sponsors Vestas Wind and Powerhouse will be able to keep up their sponsor and client commitments at the various ports, through being allocated substitute places on other boats during the In Port and Pro-Am racing.

There will be some representation from crew members at the stopovers, but it is expected that most will engaged in the re-build program in some way.

Report made public
Turning to the debriefs and investigations into the incident, Nicholson said that a full team safety debrief was completed a couple of days ago. The focus was on how all the gear used worked in a crisis and that report has been filed.

The full investigation by an independent group established by Volvo Ocean Race is expected to be released at the end of January (originally set down for the Auckland stopover in March). But Nicholson noted that he wasn’t sure of the release date. 'That shows you how independent the inquiry is, ' he quipped. 'I don’t actually know the specific dates for that release.'

Capturing value for sponsors
Responding to a question from Sailing Scuttlebutt's Craig Leweck who noted that while no-one would purposely run into a reef on purpose, but given the immense media coverage that the incident had obtained, asked whether from a sponsor’s perspective there was value in such an incident.

Team Vestas Wind CMO Morten Albæk responded: 'If the story of Team Vestas Wind and the story about Vestas Wind, ended on that reef, there would be no value. But now that we are striving to get back into the race, and make a comeback that many people doubted in the hours and days after the 29th of November, when it was clear how severe the incident was, but now there is now a lot of reputation and brand value to be captured. But I must emphasize, and this is to put my skipper under some pressure, any great comeback is a comeback that occurs when nobody believes you can get back, and you do well.

'For us to make this into a great branding success, we need to get back, no later than Lisbon. We need to sail fast, and give the other teams a tough race to Gothenburg the finish. If that is achieved, then whether you are Powerhouse or Vestas, you have a lot of value to capture. But if we didn’t make any comeback, then having a team with my brand name on it that was more known for hitting a reef than for sailing, would have no value.

'But now we have a lot of value to capture because we are going to make a comeback that has not been seen in the sport of sailing for decades.'