Photos: L © Paul Todd R © Oskar Kihlborg

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Fri, 16 Jun 2006 18:00:00 UTC

A rousing final finish to the 2005-6 Volvo Ocean Race is in prospect. Already the extensive race village area based around Lindholmen area of Gothenburg is thronging with visitors enjoying the pleasant Friday afternoon sunshine and plenty of attractions.

Afloat on the river there are all manner of craft, from the ferries linking the local areas, to one design sailing racing seemingly endlessly off the dock fronts.

Ashore there is constant entertainment on the main stage. The Volvo Ocean Race Club, which overlooks the six expectant pontoon berths, is awash with VIPs and guests. On the edge of the village the Blo-Kart fleet (Little land yachts) zip back and forth in the modest breeze.

The four day festival which marks the end of Life at the Extreme and the beginning of Back to Reality, the final conclusion of more than 31,000 miles of demanding ocean racing, opened last night with Sweden's popular proto-metal band The Poodles, who finished fourth in their nation's quest to find a Eurovision representative, belting out the tunes.

This harbour festival runs simultaneously on both banks of the City's main waterway and also helps celebrate the opening of a tunnel which now links both sides of the city. Last night more than 3,000 people watched Sweden beat Paraguay 1-0 on the big screen – they won’t tell you how many watched Trinidad and Tobago hold them to a draw. . ..

The climax of the whole weekend is, of course, the arrival of the Volvo Open 70s. But when will they arrive. It’s a headache that Race Director Andy Hindley has to resolve.

Trying to get models to do what you want in Sweden is a problem we have all faced – or wish to. But it is the challenge of deciphering the seemingly conflicting meteorological computer predictions and routing models which is causing Mr Hindley the biggest challenge and not, sadly for him, dealing with recalcitrant, leggy, Scandinavian blondes.

Hindley's headache is when to end the race to get the fleet in on time. Gothenburg awaits but the wind predictions differ from model to model.

Indeed the earliest opportunity presented by the flexible courses would have current leg leading ABN AMRO TWO finishing first in just four hours time.

The challenge is not just to bring the boats in on cue, somewhere as close to 1400 local time, Saturday, as possible, but to ensure the race remains equable for all the competitors. The boats need sufficient notice as to where the race will finish to plan their final strategy.

As it stands, it seems most unlikely that the course will be one of the longer options, using one of the additional circuits offshore from Gothenburg. The fleet has made better progress than first expected but, at the moment, there is a big difference in wind speed between the boats on the left of the course and those on the right.

On the other hand, doomsday predictions of early Sunday morning finishes have hopefully passed, for the moment.

"It's pretty frustrating but it is one we will just have to sit and watch. Some of the models say it will get lighter, but then none of the models predicted how much wind they had yesterday. Life would be much easier if all the models agreed. But at the moment we have four boats doing 12 knots and two doing four." Confirms Hindley. "My best guess at the moment is that we will fine tune it by where we lay the white finish mark."

The race village is in the heart of a modern dockland development, a high-tech business park which houses one of the main Swedish offices for Ericsson and the head offices for Semcon in Sweden. In total more than 10,000 people work daily in the offices’ complex which offers a pleasant waterfront location.

When Gothenburg hosted the final stopover last year more than 100,000 people turned out to witness the final send off en route to Kiel. This time local estimates expect somewhere close to double that number to see the real finish. Between Volvo and Ericsson alone, 20,000 guests have confirmed their attendance. The village will become a metropolis.

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