| |
  Gearing up for the 2017/2018 VOR—Sailing news from the U.S. and beyond
 | | Alicante stopover. MAPFRE In-Port Race Alicante. Photo by Pedro Martinez/Volvo Ocean Race. 14 October, 2017. © Pedro Martinez / Volvo Ocean Race |
For fans of offshore sailing, these are exciting times as the 2017/2018 edition of the Volvo Ocean Race is poised to start on Sunday, October 22 on the waters off of Alicante, Spain, and will take the fleet of identical, 65-foot, fully crewed boats on a series of stage races that will girdle the planet en route to determining the winner of what is widely regarded to be one of sailing's three hardest accomplishments (the two others being the America's Cup and the Olympics). Make no mistake: the Volvo Ocean Race is a high-stakes, high-dollar event that can test each crew's-and each sponsor's-commitment to winning on a daily, if not hourly, basis, and while the top step of the winner's podium must be a heady summit view, reaching that airy pinnacle is no easy feat.
This year, seven teams will be on the starting line, representing seven different international flags. Unlike Volvo Ocean Races (VORs) or yore, female sailors will factor far more prominently in this year's race than in previous editions, with at least one female sailor on each boat. While Dee Cafferi, who made her name on the IMOCA 60 circuit and as the first female to circumnavigate “the wrong way”, is skippering Turn the Tide on Plastic, which will fly the United Nations flag, there is not an all-female entrant in the race, as we saw with Team SCA in the last edition.
And while the Volvo Ocean Race has a strong heritage of delivering fantastic racing to the sailors, great entertainment to those of us who follow from ashore, and great ROI for the sponsoring teams, this year's race has been marked by some pre-start controversies.
 | | Mark Turner - Volvo Ocean Race Volvo Ocean Race |
For starters, word hit the docks on September 26 that Mark Turner, the event's relatively newly named CEO, would be stepping down from his duties as a result of some complications related to the 2019/2020 VOR, which was originally projected to employ foiling 60-foot monohulls for the offshore legs and foiling trimarans for the inshore events. While details are murky, the race has said that Turner's role was primarily involved with the 2019/2020 race, which has now been shelved, and that his departure would have little impact on the 2017/2018 event, which was already well down the track in terms of preparations.
It will be interesting to see who the VOR's new CEO will be, and what this person's vision will be for the next edition of the VOR, whenever that will unfurl.
 | | Team AkzoNobel skipper Simeon Tienpont inspects his new Volvo Ocean 65 boat, being built at Persico Marine for the 2017-18 edition Giovanni Malgarini|Team Aksonobel |
Unfortunately, the last-minute personnel issues go deeper than just the CEO, as word broke over the weekend that Simeon Tienpont (NED), a two-time America's Cup winner (Oracle Team USA...keen America's Cup students will remember Tienpont as being one of the sailors who was allegedly involved with Oracle's “kingpost” cheating debacle that preceded the 34th America's Cup) and VOR sailor, was being replaced as skipper of the Dutch-flagged Team AkzoNobel. While Team AkzoNobel cited a “contract violation” as their reason for canning Tienpont's management company, the Dutch sailor has strongly rejected this claim.
So, as of this writing, Team AkzoNobel has no named skipper (however the team has Brad Jackson [NZ] as a watch captain and Jules Slater [UK] as navigator, and both of these sailors are highly experienced offshore sailors and leaders, so the team is hardly decapitated) and the Volvo Ocean Race has no CEO sailing into Sunday's start, less than six days from now.
 | | Team AkzoNobel's Volvo Ocean Race boat christened in The Hague Team AkzoNobel |
Still, given the amount of sailing prestige and corporate dollars that are fueling this race, you can bet your last roll of duct tape that all teams will be working hard to deliver tight, highly competitive racing action, irrespective of onshore shenanigans.
A far weightier question, however, pertains to the race's next edition (e.g., when it will start, what kinds of boats will be used, how many sailors will be involved, where the course will physically go, and what ports will it visit), but, for right now at least, it's best to focus on this edition and the great racing that's ahead.
 | | Vestas 11th Hour Racing racing along the shore in Alicante – Volvo Ocean Race © Pedro Martinez / Volvo Ocean Race |
For North American fans, Americans Charlie Enright and Mark Towill are back in the fight, leading Vestas 11th Hour Racing, which will fly American and Danish flags. While the team is rumored to have a much leaner budget than some of the other, higher-profile teams such as MAPFRE and Dongfeng Race Team, Enright and Towill are both some of the best offshore sailors of their generation, and they bring much more experience to their sophomore attempt at this race than they did in their freshman showing (the 2014/2015 race), when the two co-skippered Team Alvimedica to a fifth-place finish in a fleet of seven boats.
And for anyone looking for some insight as to how the cards may fall come June's finish in The Hague, the Spanish-flagged MAPFRE, skippered by Xabi Fernandez (ESP), captured the first points available in the Alicante in-port race, where they proved dominant. MAPFRE was joined on the podium by Dongfeng and Vestas 11th Hour Racing.
 | | Dongfeng - Alicante stopover. MAPFRE In-Port Race Alicante. 14 October, 2017. © Pedro Martinez / Volvo Ocean Race |
Racing starts in Alicante, Spain, on Sunday, so please stay tuned to this space for the latest VOR news, both from the 2017/2018 edition and beyond.
May the four winds blow you safely home,
David Schmidt, Sail-World USA Editor
A QandA with John Craig about the Extreme Sailing Series San Diego event
David Schmidt, Sail-World USA Editor, 
Now in its 11th season, the Extreme Sailing Series's calendar features eight different Acts set in Muscat, Qingdao, Madeira Islands, Barcelona, Hamburg, Cardiff, San Diego and Los Cabos. I caught up with John Craig, Race Director of the Extreme Sailing Series, via email, ahead of the San Diego Act to learn more about this high-octane event.... [more]
|
|