Jordi Calafat and Pable Arrarte repairing the mainsail, on leg 5 of the Volvo Ocean Race, from Qingdao to Rio de Janeiro. Image copyright Gabriele Olivo/Telefonica Blue/Volvo Ocean Race.
by Bouwe Bekking (skipper)
Another day in paradise. It could have been so nice, if we had some boats around us. Actually, even that we are so behind right now, we have noticed a couple of real interesting things.
The new rudders have giving us more control, the splash rails, which we mount on deck one we start sticking our nose in, are doing their job really well. Thanks Russ (Russ Bowler – Farr Yacht Design) for the good design.
But above all, we are happy with the development of the new spinnakers, they have given us exactly what we wanted. We can see it on the performance and have made some interesting gains there; it’s just a shame that we can’t measure it against a boat in close vicinity. Boat work wise, we are fine as well, no issues at all, so that will be good for the shore crew to know, as the time in between arrival and the Rio in-port race will be way shorter than we would have liked it.
Jordi Calafat and Pablo Arrarte prepare a patch for the mainsail, on leg 5 of the Volvo Ocean Race, from Qingdao to Rio de Janeiro. Image copyright Gabriele Olivo/Telefonica Blue/Volvo Ocean Race.
Jordi (Jordi Calafat/ESP) is now hoping for one thing: to see an iceberg, and asked if we couldn’t gybe over to the position where the Dragons were last night. Cape Horn and seeing an iceberg will make this trip around the world for him complete; otherwise he reckons he has to do another one. Welcome to the club, already talking about a next race. Someway, somehow, this race is like a magnet; you hate and you love it, but love is winning nine out of the 10 times.
Talking about the next race, it will be interesting to see what format it will come back in. We know it is going to happen, so new teams can work already on getting sponsors/partners. It will be a harder nut to crack to find money in this economic chaos, but I am sure there will be more boats in the next edition, as this one is hugely successful for all involved. It will be great to see more design offices getting involved, and to see what they will come up with.
The Volvo Open 70 is a development class and we should keep it that way, in my opinion. Of course, a one-design will save design costs a bit, but it means as well there is no afterlife for the current fleet of boats. You could see this time that there is one boat from the last race, and I can see more boats from this race entering in the next one, as it will reduce the overall budget costs a fair amount.
Volvo Ocean Race
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