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Team Sanya, the Volvo Ocean Race’s first-ever Chinese entry, have announced their official retirement from Leg 1, after sustaining serious damage to the bow of their boat, soon after leaving Alicante, Spain for Cape Town, South Africa. Mike Sanderson, CEO and skipper of Team Sanya, today elaborated on the events at sea on Sunday November 6 and reiterated the team’s intention to get back in the race as quickly as possible.
“We were very happy with our progress, managing the big breeze and waves very nicely. We were not pushing 100 per cent and had decided to throttle back a knot or so given the conditions; we felt we were in a comfortable zone.
“We suddenly felt a very odd lurch, like dragging the keel through soft mud. We could hear the noise of water coming into the bow. The watertight doors were already shut thankfully.
“We got everyone up and into lifejackets. For sure if the watertight doors had not been shut, we would have been sunk. We got the pumps going but they were not really making much difference. After a time, our situation stabilized and we suspended racing and headed to the nearest port.”
Sanderson says Team Sanya now face a major logistical challenge to get their boat to Cape Town and effect repairs before the in-port racing and the start of Leg 2 to Abu Dhabi. “We need to take the time to do some serious thinking and planning, assessing the logistical options and making the right choices that get us back in the race as soon as,. possible. We need to repair the hull perfectly; a rush job is not an option.
“The repair is no small task. We have to chop out a large section of the boat and replace it – normally a two to three week job, we will have to shoehorn it into seven days. But this is the Volvo Ocean Race and we will do what we have to do to make it happen.”
“Our worst-case scenario is that we ship to Cape Town but are not able to fix it in time, meaning we are late starting from Cape Town and consequently miss the ship from our stop point during the second leg.”
In an unrelated incident, bowman Andy Meiklejohn sustained an injury during a sail change in the extremely rough conditions on the first night. Once ashore an assessment at the local hospital confirmed Meiklejohn had broken his foot. Commenting on Meiklejohn’s injury, Sanderson said: “Andy is now in the process of receiving medical advice and will be treated as soon as possible.
He is an extremely pivotal team member and will be sorely missed while he is off. We will assess his recovery time and look at our options for a replacement should we need one.” Sanderson summed up the disappointment that he and the entire Sanya team were feeling after the retirement and reiterated their commitment to return to racing as soon as possible.
“From a personal point of view I have never before retired from a Whitbread or Volvo leg and so it’s a pretty sad moment. We were very comfortable with how we were sailing and so it’s extremely disappointing for the guys.”
“As a team, we can still absolutely achieve everything we have set out to do – win some podium positions and take a few scalps from the other teams – and we fully intend to do that still.
“We have a great bunch of guys here and I have absolute confidence that we will get back on the race track as soon as we possibly can. For now it’s a full frenzy of activity to get our Sanya Lan race boat on a ship this Friday and turn a boat building job of two to three weeks into seven days!”
Team Sanya will release their shipping route and departure and arrival dates as soon as that information is confirmed. • 7-11-11
Volvo Ocean Race - Longer legs with Stealth Play
Until the 1997-98 Whitbread Round the World Race, which became the Volvo Ocean Race from 2001-02 onwards, the fleet sailed over the horizon and had little or no contact with the rest of the world or the boats they were sailing against. Now it is different, with data-packed position reports issued to the fleet and the world every three hours, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, with nowhere to run and nowhere to hide. But today that changes again, as StealthPlay is introduced, giving each boat competing in the 10th edition of the race, the chance to hide once more, although not for an entire leg.
The idea behind StealthPlay is to allow a team to make a tactical break from the fleet without the rest of competitors knowing what they are doing and where they are on the race track. Once a team opts to use StealthPlay their position will not be visible to the rest of the fleet, or the public, and they will ‘disappear’ for 12 hours, adding a new thrilling tactical dimension to the race.
If, having analyzed their own position and those of their competitors from a position report, a team decides to activate StealthPlay, they must call Race Headquarters within 30 minutes of the position report being released. The play will last for the next 12 hours and boat’s position will not be shown on the three scheduled reports normally released within that period. The boat will become visible again at the next position report after that period.
StealthPlay is an option and is not mandatory, and it can only be called on the longer offshore legs. It will be in action for the first time on leg one from Alicante to Cape Town (starting this Saturday) and then on leg two (Cape Town to Cochin), leg five (Qingdao to Rio), leg six (Rio to Baltimore) and leg seven (Baltimore to Galway). If it is not used on one leg, it cannot be accumulated for use on a following leg.
When a boat in play passes a scoring gate and there are seven gates around the course, her rounding time and points scored will be made public. Her position will also be made public when the team is within 50 nautical miles of the finish.
Race Headquarters in the UK will continue to monitor each boat’s progress every 15 minutes for safety reasons, but this information is never made public.
Position reporting times will be every three hours at 1000, 1300, 1600, 1900, 2200, 0100, 0400, 0700 throughout the duration of each offshore leg of the race. Position reports are circulated among the fleet as well as being published on Volvo Ocean Race website along with other technical data.
The Volvo Ocean Race 2008-09 is the 10th running of this ocean marathon. It started from Alicante in Spain, on 4 October 2008 with an in-port race.
Leg One from Alicante to Cape Town will start on 11 October and the course will, for the first time, take in Cochin, India, Singapore and Qingdao, China before finishing in St Petersburg, Russia for the first time in the history of the race. Spanning some 37,000 nautical miles, stopping at 11 ports and taking nine months to complete, the Volvo Ocean Race is the world’s premier yacht race for professional racing crews.• 7-10-08
Arriba - Portada - Contenidos de ocio, cultura, deportes, sociedad en Facebook y en Twitter •
Volvo Ocean Race
Adam Binns (35) is the latest new recruit to join the Volvo Ocean Race, which starts its 11th race around the world from Alicante, Spain, in the autumn of 2011.
Binns, formerly Commercial Director of Dutch television and production company, Off the Fence, takes up the Director of Television role for the 37-year old premier ocean race. Binns’ professional background includes senior positions at ITV, BSkyB and TWI.
Binns has worked in the television and film industry for 14 years on a range of projects including Formula One, UEFA Champions League and the Rugby World Cup. He has extensive experience in commercial broadcast negotiation and will be responsible for devising and implementing the broadcast strategy for this ocean classic.
In hiring Adam Binns, Volvo Ocean Race CEO Knut Frostad continues to follow his significantly different approach, by recruiting the most forward thinking and highly motivated candidates from outside the sailing world.
Commenting on his new position, Binns said: “I am thrilled to have joined the young, agile and dynamic team at the Volvo Ocean Race. We have a great heritage to build upon and Knut’s vision for the event is a real step change. From our new home in Alicante, I look forward to engaging a wider audience with the Volvo Ocean Race than ever before.”
More announcements are expected this spring as Frostad continues to build his team to deliver the next race. • 3-2-10Volvo Ocean Race – Onshore and handheld
The Whitbread Round the World Race of 1997-98 pioneered the use of the internet for global communications and was considered the benchmark of its time. Its ‘total immersion’ strap line is a guiding philosophy that echoes to this day, as that site changed not only the way the story of ocean racing was told but also set the tone for how future global sports were covered online.
From that proud heritage of cutting-edge communication, comes the re-launched Volvo Ocean Race website.
Developed in partnership with digital agency twentysix London, the new site boasts a number of design features and improved navigation which will enhance user interface and usability.
The site is filled with all of the news and feature stories one would expect from a major sailing event website. But among the biggest advances with the new site is the Race Data Centre. Here, for the first time, the race organisers will share insider information from the fleet’s on-board telemetry.
During racing, the Race Data Centre’s unique features include predicted positions based on weather routing, a form guide that builds performance tables for the boats as the race progresses and historical data graphing.
Volvo Ocean Race CEO Knut Frostad has been the driving force behind the Data Centre in conjunction with author and professional navigator Mark Chisnell, who will provide tactical analysis and commentary throughout the race.
“I was keen for the web audience to experience the race as the sailors do – at least as much as possible. With that in mind, we’ve shifted the focus more towards ‘what happens next’, with predicted positions, and on tactics, as well as developing an understanding of which boat is faster. The Race Data Centre is a big step towards that,” Frostad said.
“This has never been done before. We are creating an online environment where users can immerse themselves in data and put themselves in the place of the skippers and navigators as they take in all the available information and decide what to do next. Hopefully, it’s a window into the mental side of the race as well.”
The race data will also be used to drive Virtual Spectator, the 2D and 3D animated race tracker, which will enable users to follow the progress of the fleet along with the predicted positions. Virtual Spectator will run inside a web browser, meaning it is available for both Mac and PC users.
Other innovations include a fully interactive 3D tour of a Volvo Open 70 that shows in graphic detail the inner workings of the boat as well as the key design features of these groundbreaking yachts. Upgraded image and audio galleries including regular podcasts and live on-board interviews round out the package.
Volvo Ocean Race TV, launched earlier this year, will show video content including news, features, on-board footage and interviews when the boats are at sea. Volvo Ocean Race TV will also show live coverage of all in-port races.
Fans will also be able to follow events on the race’s mobile channel so there’s no excuse for ever leaving the race.
“Having done the race myself I felt that there were a lot more stories we should be telling about life on board via our web site,” said Frostad.
“As a race organisation we have an embarrassment of riches when it comes to content generated by the race particularly the material which comes directly off the boats – from the front line.
“And now, with the Media Crew Member on board, our ‘embedded reporters’, we now have the ability to play to our strengths in capturing every ounce of the action, the sheer speed of the Volvo Open 70s, as well as the emotional highs and lows endured by the guys on board.”
“It is how we package that material that matters most both for avid followers of the race and those who are new to it. With that in mind, the new site will serve both audiences.”
The official website will be available in four languages, reflecting the diversity of the new race course along with the eight teams. The Spanish version of the website will launch later this week, with Chinese and Russian editions to follow in turn.
The Volvo Ocean Race 2008-09 will be the 10th running of this ocean marathon. Starting from Alicante in Spain, on 4 October 2008 with in-port racing, it will, for the first time, take in Cochin, India, Singapore and Qingdao, China before finishing in St Petersburg, Russia for the first time in the history of the race. Spanning some 37,000 nautical miles, stopping at 11 ports and taking nine months to complete, the Volvo Ocean Race is the world’s premier yacht race for professional racing crews. •
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