Photos: L Sally Collison R David Branigan
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Tue, 01 Aug 2006 16:04:30 UTC
'From The Cockpit' provides an insight into the triumphs and travails of the seven entries in the 2005-06 Volvo Ocean Race from the men at the sharp end - the skippers. In the first of a series, Aussie Grant Wharington, hands out the herograms to the backroom boys (and girls) who kept the Premier Challenge/Brunel campaign on course while waging a race-long battle to keep the sponsorship coffers afloat
And there it was, all finished! What a journey we have had with our Premier Challenge for this edition of the Volvo Ocean Race.
It is no secret that we had difficulty getting our funding in place and I am sure most other teams would have called it a day, but we said “never say die” and we stuck it out ’til the end.
The project brought us its share of successes and I am glad that we kept going. We ended up with about half the budget of the second lowest team, and less than a third of the other teams, which gives you some idea why our campaign was somewhat unorthodox.
We completed legs one and two, then withdrew and re-entered for legs six to nine. This was the only way forward for us as we had real upwind speed problems which could only be fixed by replacing our single fixed dagger board with twin retractable ones which all other teams had.
This change was scheduled to happen three months prior to the start in Spain, but lack of funds precluded us from carrying out the work.
The Volvo Open 70s are fantastic boats to sail, very challenging with the limited crew numbers, and exhilarating performance. The next race will be a much different game with the speeds of the different boats much closer as the designers find the right corner of the box to be in. Our designer, Don Jones, for his first attempt at these boats, did a wonderful job and our boat is very strong. Some may say that our keel rams were heavy, but no structural failures in the six legs we completed is to be commended. Our upwind speed in the end was at least mid-fleet, however we did suffer downwind.
Would I do it again?
After a rollercoaster, “on again, off again” programme, it is very frustrating knowing how much better we could have done it with the right funding. It would be my wish to have another 12-month push for proper funding so we can show our full potential next time around.
And last, but not least, a huge thanks to all my team for all your hard work in difficult times: to our shore team Alex and Charlotte (yes all two of them); to GT (Graeme Taylor) my right hand man; to my stand-in skipper Matt Humphries and our sailing crew of 10; to Don Jones for tireless design of all things; to Brunel, ING Real Estate, Wallenius Wilhelmsen, the Victorian Government, Sunergy and our sponsors; but most of all to Bindy Lockhart, project director, for keeping us all in line with the limited resources we had. In the end, we started and finished the Volvo Ocean Race 2005-06, and we hope to see you all on the start line in November 2008.
Grant Wharington
Coming Soon : Mike Sanderson
Part 2 : From the Cockpit: Neal McDonald
Part 3 : From the Cockpit: Seb Josse
Part 4 : From the Cockpit: Torben Grael
Part 5 : From the Cockpit: Paul Cayard
Part 6 : From the Cockpit: Mike Sanderson
Part 7 : From the Cockpit: Bouwe Bekking
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