COMMENT
COULD A SHORTER SERIES OF ATLANTIC RACES ATTRACT YOUNGER OFFSHORE TALENT TO THE OCEAN RACE ONCE MORE?
According to the winner of the last Volvo Ocean Race, Charles Caudrelier, skippers for the current Ocean Race had little trouble in finding crew that wanted to do the race, they just didn’t find many that wanted to do Leg 3, which should be finishing just about as you read this.
Despite the appeal of a fully crewed ride aboard an IMOCA, it seemed few fancied a 13,000-mile 30-plus day Southern Ocean sleigh ride from Cape Town to Itajai. Which is strange – normally there’s a queue as long as one outside a UK passport office for those keen to send a 60-footer offshore.
It’s true that Leg 3 was the longest in the history of this fully crewed race, but it’s also far shorter than a solo lap of the planet in the Vendée Globe, so surely it can’t have been just the distance that was putting sailors off?
The problem is that the latest generation of IMOCAs takes the class into largely unknown territory with boats that are much more powerful and way faster. With a full crew they’re heavier too, more highly loaded and likely to be pushed far harder. Despite testing, no one really knew going into the stage how the boats and crews would cope. The start wasn’t auspicious. Before the fleet had even fully exited Cape Town’s notorious bay Biotherm broke its mainsheet system in a gybe and 11th Hour Racing Team had broken battens. Three days later and Guyot Environnement was returning to Cape Town having discovered a structural problem with the hull. Worrying stuff. Shortly afterwards Team Malizia reported a big split in the top of their mast.
Crews have been making creative repairs to keep their boats going on this super long leg, and the racing has been knife-edge close. But whatever the result Leg 3 looks set to define this edition of the Ocean Race. If the remaining four make it intact to Itajaii the future of the IMOCAs in this race looks bright. But if any more teams have to pull out in Brazil due to structural failures and the race could be reduced to a game of last man standing.
It strikes me that there is another way in which this race could redefine and reinvent itself for the better.
Just before the race kicked off in Alicante the organisers had to perform a frustrating U-turn in withdrawing the VO65 fleet from a full lap of the planet. Instead, the fleet of six VO65s would do the first leg and the last two, basically a handful of legs in the Atlantic Ocean and North Sea. The climb down became the elephant in the room.
