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VOLVO OCEAN RACE
Capt Auke Palmhof
When Sir Robin Knox-Johnson became the first person to sail non-stop, and single-handedly, around the world in 1969, he couldn't have foreseen how his daring feat would become the inspiration for the planet's premier yacht race, as well as one of the most emotionally and physically demanding sporting events in the world.
In 1973, a mere four years after Sir Robin Knox
Johnson's incredible accomplishment, fully
crewed yachts participated in the inaugural
Whitbread Round the World Race. The contest was so perilous that three sailors were lost after being washed overboard in storms.
This race has since become known as The Volvo Ocean Race and is held every four years.
The contest involves sailing teams made up of 11 professional crew members racing around the clock for up to 20 days at a time on certain legs of the race. Apart from their roles as sailors, two of the crew must have had medical training. There is also a dedicated sail maker, engineer and media crew member on board each yacht.
During the course of the race, crews experience the ultimate in extremes; they eat only freeze- dried food, endure temperatures that range from a numbing -5 to a searing +40 degrees Celsius, and undergo prolonged hunger and sleep deprivation.
The last gruelling race, which started in Alicante, Spain in November 2011, lasted nine months and covered over 39,000 nautical miles. Crews encountered some of the world's most treacherous seas en route - around Cape Town, Abu Dhabi, Auckland and Cape Horn - before finally reaching the finish line in Galway in early July 2012. (Galway was also a stage start in 2009). The route was:
Alicante - Capetown - Abu Dhabi - Sanya - Auckland - Itajai - Miami - Lisbon - Lorient - Galway.
Amongst the 11 crew members on board each of the six Volvo Open 70s were the world’s best sailors including Olympic gold medallists, world champions and America’s Cup winners.
The sailors represented 15 nations -- New Zealand, Australia, France, Spain, United States, Great Britain, Ireland, South Africa, Sweden, United Arab Emirates, Germany, Norway, Brazil, China and
Belgium.
The 11th edition of the race brought many firsts, including the first sole Chinese entry, Team Sanya, and the first United Arab Emirates entrant, Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing.
The French have also returned after a long hiatus since Eric Tabarly skippered La Poste in the 1993-94 Volvo, with multihull champion Franck Cammas leading Groupama sailing team.
Ultimately the winners were the GROUPAMA sailng team followed by CAMPER with Emirates Team NZ. PUMA Ocean Racing by Berg third, Team
Telefonica fourth, Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing fifth and Team Sanya sixth.

While Groupama sailing team were celebrating overall victory in the eight-month round-the-world race, they were denied what would have been a unique double as PUMA held on for the win they needed to win the inshore series.
Ireland SG?

Competing teams design and build boats within the scope of Volvo Open 70 rule to try and come up with the fastest boat for the expected conditions of the race. The rule book indicates very broad limits for various parameters and to a degree focuses on what cannot be done and so the possibilities are far more open (hence the name of the class, combined with the approximate maximum loa) than normal restricted classes which are much more prescriptive.

The preamble to the rule states “The Volvo Open 70 Rule is intended to produce fast, single mast monohull keelboats, suitable for long distance racing offshore at the highest level of the sport. The need for safety and self-sufficiency is paramount. The Rule is intended to foster gradual design development leading to easily driven, seaworthy boats of high stability, requiring moderate crew numbers. Any development that is contrary to this may give rise to a Rule change. “

Any dimensions quoted are going to typical, although after many years of development of this via the smaller Open 60 class (first used in 1993), the boats will all look superficially much the same (much as Formula 1 racing cars do). The class was first used in the 2005-2006 race and is notable in using hydraulic rams mounted inside the boat to cant keel up to an angle of 40 degrees. Crash gybing is not recommended therefore. The keel accounts for about 50% of the displacement. The previous class had used water ballast - which increased weight and thereby reduced performance.

Volvo Open 70 boats can readily achieve 500-mile days with an average speed of about 21 knots and peak boat speeds of around 35 knots. In October 2008 the yacht Ericsson 4 travelled 596.6 nautical miles in 24 hours, establishing a 24-hour monohull record, averaging nearly 25 knots, as yet unsurpassed by a monohull. By contrast the winner of the 1973 Whitbread Race averaged just under 8½ knots.

Typical dimensions are 70.5 ft loa, beam 18.7 ft, draft 14.8 ft. Displacement 14 tons, about half of which is in the keel. Mast height is 103ft with a mainsail of 1,883 sq ft, largest jib 1,011 sq ft, and the largest masthead spinnaker 5,381 sq ft (roughly the size of two tennis courts). Sails are kevlar laminate, with carbon fibre spars supported by Kevlar and polybenzoxazole rigging. All of this saves weight aloft; the leverage of every kg at the top of the mast requires an extra 10kg in the keel. The hull is similarly made of exotic materials; 7 tons for the hull plus everything else but minus keel is remarkable. Standard construction would be at least five times heavier.

When it comes to developing power, beam is one of the fundamental keys. More beam means more righting moment, albeit with the penalty of greater drag. Hence, the compromise between righting moment versus the beam and wetted surface area lies at the heart of the design. Narrow hull entry with a flat run aft helps promote planing but the rig forces tend to push the bow down and there is little buoyancy here, making it more difficult and dangerous to steer at speed, although small ballast tanks are allowed in order to help trim. The preamble quoted above in the end inevitably contributed to the death of the class where performance and victory is king; for the next race in 2015/16 there is a new one design class, the Volvo One Design, intended to rein in the spiralling costs and to address increasing safety concerns with the limits being pushed - some would say irresponsibly - by the Volvo 70 designers.

From Phil Hanley