Volvo Ocean Race boats at the Lorient stopover in 2012. Image copyright Volvo Ocean Race/Ian Roman
by Anne Hinton
Lorient
Grand Large was set up to organize the centre for offshore racing
that is based in Lorient. It was set up for nautical creativity in
Lorient by Lorient Agglomeration Partners and others in the
surrounding community, to support everyone who wants to base their
sailing project and related activities in Lorient. It is run by
Christophe Baudry and his team from offices near the Base des
Sous-Marins, main sailing team bases, and BSM marina, in Lorient.
This
means that Lorient Grand Large helps the 80 skippers who train from
Lorient on a daily basis, but also develops the nautical side of
Lorient; i.e. Lorient Grand Large acts to organize everything
directly in relationship with local businesses and the community and,
side by side with that, to encourage events and international sailing
projects to be based in Lorient. At the same time, Lorient Grand
Large was set up to coordinate the Volvo Ocean Race stopover in
Lorient.
Knut Frostad (Volvo Ocean Race CEO) and Norbert Métairie (President of Lorient Agglomeration and Mayor of Lorient) sign the agreement for two Volvo Ocean Race stopovers in Lorient in
March 2010. Image copyright Volvo Ocean Race
In
March 2010, Lorient signed an agreement with the Volvo Ocean Race for
two stopovers in the town for both the 2010-11 and 2014-15 races. “I
wasn’t directly involved with bringing the Volvo Ocean Race to
Lorient, but the people in Lorient asked me if it would be
interesting to have the Volvo Ocean Race here and I said ‘Yes, that
is interesting. If you go there you should not sign up for just one
edition, because if you do that you will have put in a lot of work to
ensure that the Volvo Ocean Race returns to France, and after that
they can choose again between La Rochelle, Le Havre, our town or I
don’t know where for the next edition, so you will have put in a
lot of time and energy for repeating something and you won’t get
the rewards and benefits, so it is not my advice that you sign for a
one-off event’, so that is how it happened,” said Christophe
Baudry. “They [the Volvo Ocean Race] found that the French market
was very important for the identity of Volvo – the cars and the
trucks – and so after that they said, ‘Yes, we will return to
France’.” The Volvo Ocean Race had not been to France since La
Rochelle in 2002 prior to this.
The
2011 Lorient stopover cost 3.2 million Euros, financed from public
funds, private partners and commercialization in the village
(hospitalities, exhibitions, food and beverage, etc). The economic
impact of the Volvo Ocean Race stopover in 2011 was 22.6 million
Euros. There were 250,000 visitors including 7,500 school children,
and 12,500 corporate guests, with 3,000 corporate guests attending on
the water racing (in-port and departure of the last leg from Lorient
to Galway), and 7,500 people sailed on the mini-VOR boats [actually
boats from the Tour de France à la Voile]. There were 2,500 people
involved in hosting the stopover over the seventeen days, with a
large proportion of these being volunteers. Lorient Grand Large has
just four employees.
Volvo Ocean Race off Lorient in 2012. Image copyright Volvo Ocean Race/P.Guiguenot
The Volvo
Ocean Race is important for Lorient as it strongly develops the local
actors in sailing, and strongly develops the Base des Sous-Marins.
There are important annual benefits, including development of a
brotherhood, tourism and international development. “Lorient is to
sailing what Barcelona is to football”, commented the President of
Lorient Agglomeration and Mayor of Lorient, Norbert Métairie,
recently. “The Volvo Ocean Race stopover helps Lorient to gain in
notoriety, provides internationalism for businesses and develops the
region, providing an indispensable notoriety. There are direct
benefits and also indirect longer term ones. Above all, the Volvo
Ocean Race provides Lorient with external visibility,” said Norbert
Métairie.
Franck Cammas' Groupama, form the BSM in Lorient, team won both the leg into Lorient and the Volvo Ocean Race in 2012. Here they are on stage near the Cite de la Voile. Image copyright Volvo Ocean Race/Paul Todd
Crowds in Lorient at the 2012 Volvo Ocean Race stopover. Image copyright Volvo Ocean Race/Ian Roman
Bruno
Dubois, on behalf of North Sails, commented that they had made
developments with Groupama for the last Volvo Ocean Race, and things
had become very complex very quickly in discussions with Franck
Cammas. They are at the leading edge of design and all the sails for
the next Volvo Ocean Race, for the new VO65 boat, are being made at
the loft in Vannes. In addition, they now do the sails for the MOD70
class, which is an international one design 70 foot trimaran,
developed for ocean racing and Grand Prix events.
Lorient 2012 Volvo Ocean Race stopover. Image copyright Volvo Ocean Race/P.Guiguenot
The
one design aspect of the next Volvo Ocean Race will not change
anything for the public. Subsequent to the last stopover, Multiplast,
locally, is building part of the new VO65 boat – so they already
have an order of eight of these, with eight new boats being built for
the next race, and are currently [as of July 2013] building number 4
In
the case of 727 Sailbags, they received the sails from Camper ETNZ,
Telefonica and Puma from the last Volvo Ocean Race and turned these
into obtaining international press. The contacts and contracts
established are continuing in the long-term and 727 Sailbags will
have distributors across the globe soon. Azimut was not present in
the offshore market until the Volvo Ocean Race stopover in Lorient,
They provide internet and other solutions for boats. Now they are in
the markets of the MOD70, Mini Class, Class 40, IMOCA, etc, and can
work on promoting their brand.
“Beyond this,” commented Christophe Baudry, “there was an additional impact of Groupama Sailing Team, based at Lorient for two years for preparation, and that is 15 million Euros, and then an impact on the region from building new things due to the Volvo Ocean Race, such as North Sails building a loft in Vannes. This impact is worth a further 15 to 16 million Euros. Those were the identified benefits. There are others, for example, our partners who come up with internet solutions, who sold good interactive software, so there are a number of benefits, as also in the spirit of the Anglo-Saxons who came to Lorient for the Volvo Ocean Race. Like the City of Sails in Auckland, we have the Cité de la Voile in Lorient.
Patrouille de France over Groupama off Lorient during the Volvo Ocean Race 2012. Image copyright Patrouille de France
“Beyond this,” commented Christophe Baudry, “there was an additional impact of Groupama Sailing Team, based at Lorient for two years for preparation, and that is 15 million Euros, and then an impact on the region from building new things due to the Volvo Ocean Race, such as North Sails building a loft in Vannes. This impact is worth a further 15 to 16 million Euros. Those were the identified benefits. There are others, for example, our partners who come up with internet solutions, who sold good interactive software, so there are a number of benefits, as also in the spirit of the Anglo-Saxons who came to Lorient for the Volvo Ocean Race. Like the City of Sails in Auckland, we have the Cité de la Voile in Lorient.
“I
have worked for the Vendée Globe, and I was responsible for
communication for the 2008-9 edition. For all races, one makes
benchmarks and one can see what works, etc. This may be a bit
pretentious, but for the public I have never seen a sailing event
that is also as good for the public as was the Lorient stopover of
the Volvo Ocean Race. For example, I don’t know another sailing
event that gets 7,500 people sailing on the water. We made the Cité
de la Voile completely free for the public. The Vendée Globe does a
great deal and also has things free for the public, but we are
further on from that. I don’t know an event where one is open to
the public for such a long time – 17 days! That is very long and
very expensive, from cleaning to events,” said Christophe Baudry.
Smaller boats with the same sponsorship paintwork as those competing in the Volvo Ocean Race were used to get spectators afloat at the 2012 Lorient stopover. Image copyright Yvan Zedda.
“Last
time we had 1,900 sponsors or partners and we had 1,700 of these
businesses involved in the stopover, to develop all that we could in
terms of the hospitality, for the businesses and their clients, in
the best possible conditions, because there are plenty of options to
take up the experience of the Volvo Ocean Race, while there are no
parameters by which to measure the Volvo Ocean Race experience and
getting something back from the race. Now, we are looking at what
worked the last time and what worked well and from that we will learn
from our errors and improve for next time,” explained Baudry.
To be continued...
