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The teams competing this year are Teams News Corp, Team SEB, Assa Abloy Racing Team, Illbruck Challenge, Djuice Dragons, Team Tyco, Nautor Amor Sports One and Nautor Amor Sports Two.
The boats are highly specialised to be competative sacrificing comfort for speed. Each boat is a 64ft yacht with a minimum weight of 29,700 pounds. Every aspect of the design is aimed at saving as much weight as possible, even down to the food eaten by the crew, freeze dried food is the only food on board as it is lighter than fresh food. Some skippers have even been known to insist that their crew cut half the handle of their toothbrushes to save weight!
The balance of strength and weight is the challenge facing the engineers, once the balance is found then an equal distribution of weight is important. The weight must be kept as low as possible for the stability, a lead bulb is attached to the bottem of the keel fin, this is designed to keep the boat up-right in the most adverse of conditions.
Technological advances allow the public to keep up to date with progression of one of the most exciting races in the world. To keep up with the race progression visit www.volvooceanrace.org for up to the minute reports, even crew on board will be e-mailing the site with their own very personal experiences.
Overall Length: |
21.5m |
(70.5ft) | Beam: |
4.7m - 5.7m |
(15.4ft - 18.7ft) |
Draft: |
4.5m |
(14.8ft) |
Mainsail Area: |
172m2 |
(1883.7sq ft) |
Headsail Area; |
140m2 |
(1506sq ft) |
Spinnaker Area: |
500m2 Max |
(5382sq ft Max) |
Mast Height: |
31.5m above water |
(103.3ft above water) |
Weight: |
12,500kgs to 14,000kgs |
((12.3tons to 13.8tons) |
Keel Bulbs: |
4,500kg min |
(4.4tons min) |
Whilst all sports, such as golf with its birdies and bogeys, pars and fores have their own jargon, perhaps sailing more than any has a mysterious vocabulary all of its own, and with the Volvo Ocean Race just over a year away, and the Volvo Baltic Race imminent, explaining Yacht Talk and Sailing Speak may help the armchair sailor keep up with the action.
First, the yachts, the F1 racing machines of the sea, and the all-new Volvo Open 70 is being developed on drawing boards, computer screens and test tanks all over the world.
The definition of the boat is that it is sponsored by Volvo, the class, under the ISAF (International Sailing Federation) is Open, meaning within the basic design criteria there are some areas open to interpretation and 70 refers to the length, 70ft.
The front of the boat is the bow, the rear the stern, the right-hand-side is starboard, indicated by a green light at night, port is the left-hand-side of the yacht, illuminated at night by a red light. Amidships in the centre area of the yacht, the foredeck the area to the front, and afterdeck the area to the rear.
The deck is the horizontal platform surface on the yachts, the beam is the width of the yacht at its widest point, length-overall LOA is the length from front-to-back, 70ft in the case of the Volvo Open 70. The draft is the distance between the deck and the lowest point on the yacht, the keel – on the Volvo Open 70 this is 4.5m (14.8ft) and the net weight of the Volvo Open 70 is 12,500 – 14,000kg (12.3 tons – 13.8 tons).
The helm is the steering station, on the Volvo Open 70 with twin steering wheels, which control the rudder, the steering paddle at the rear of the yacht.
The mast is one of the key parts of a yacht, the large vertical spar that supports the sails, whilst the boom is the horizontal spar to which the lower edge of the sails is affixed. The joint between the spar and the mast is the gooseneck.
The hull is the body of the yacht, the keel the appendage protruding vertically below the hull, generally filled with ballast, which is the weighting device that keeps the yacht stable in the water. This is variable on the Volvo Open 70, with water able to be pumped in and out of ballast tanks to suit sailing conditions.
The cockpit is a recessed and sheltered area in which the crew works, the galley the kitchen and the toilets are referred to as the heads. A berth is a sleeping bunk, often shared by sailors on or off watch, and a watch is a period of duty for a crew-member or group of crew members. The bilge is the area of the hull where the bottom of the structure meets the side, and can also be known as the valve through which waste water is pumped into the sea.
A hatch is a watertight access door from the deck to below-decks and between bulkheads, partitions within the hull installed to strengthen the structure of the yacht and a stairway on board is referred to as a companionway. At the rear of the yacht is the tiller, which a sailor can use to control the rudder.
One of the most dramatic pieces of equipment on board is the Bosun’s Chair, a canvas cradle used to hoist a sailor to the top of the mast, which, on the Volvo Open 70 is 31.5m (103ft) above the waterline. When the mast is broken, which can happen in storms, it is dismasted.
The ropes used to control the yacht’s sails are known as sheets or lines, a rig the combination of sails, boom and mast, the rigging the entire structure of sailing equipment comprising lines, wires and halyards used to keep sails affixed to mast and boom. A jury-rig is a temporary arrangement used to get a yacht back to ports following a dismasting.
One of the most important pieces of equipment on board given Volvo’s commitment to safety is the lifeline, cables that are fixed to the stanchions, vertical fixed poles around the perimeter of the yacht and are affixed to the sailors safety harness to prevent crew going overboard. Most ocean-going sailing suits have integrated safety harnesses. Another key safety feature is the Sat-phone, which allows the crew to communicate with their land-base or with the emergency services.
The winches on board are mechanical devices on board to make the raising and lowering of ropes (lines or sheets) the transom is the vertical rear panel of the yacht, to which the backstay, a wire support to the top of the mast is attached. The forestay is the wire support running from the top of the mast to the bow or front of the yacht.
The Volvo Open 70 is a mono-hull, namely a yacht with a single hull; other types of craft are the twin-hull catamaran and the triple-hull trimaran.
Having dealt with what is where on board, the name and purpose of the various sails on board the Volvo Open 70 is the next important piece of information.
A major change from the first Volvo Ocean Race and the V.O.60 class of yacht (Volvo Open 60ft) is that there are fewer sails permitted per yacht, down from 38 to 24 in total and just 11 sails per leg of the race, of which there are nine.
The mainsail is the lowest square sail on the main mast, and the Volvo Open 70 rule allows a maximum size of 172m² (1,884 sq ft). The headsail is the sail flown between the mast and the bow (front) of the yacht, and the maximum size is again specified, at 140m² (1,506 sq ft). The spinnaker, also known as the kite or chute is the large ballooning sail seen blowing evocatively from the mast, again regulated in size to 500m² (5,832 sq ft).
A foresail is the generic term for any sail flown between the mast and the forestay; a gennaker is a foresail that is a cross between a genoa, a large foresail used for sailing upwind and a spinnaker. A jib is a foresail that fits between the mast and the forestay, a staysail is a small sail flown between the mast and the inner forestay, whilst a trysail is a triangular loose-fitted sail fitted aft (behind) the mast and used in heavy weather.
Most sails are made of the tough and light high-tech polyester material called Dacron although such are the stresses and strains in high winds that they can frequently tear, and a sewing machine is one of the most important pieces of equipment on board.
The sails are the natural powerhouses of a Volvo Open 70 yacht, utilising a free and environmentally-friendly fuel, the wind, and the people who operate the yacht, the crew are amongst the toughest and most resourceful sportsmen on earth.
This Who’s Who of the Volvo Ocean Race is a guide as to who does what on board a Volvo Open 70 whether in the warmth of the Caribbean or the freezing storms of the Southern Ocean.
Another significant change from the inaugural Volvo Ocean Race is the size and composition of the crews. An all-male crew will consist of a maximum of nine sailors; a mixed crew will be a maximum of 10 or whom five must be women, whilst the all-female crew will consist of 11 female crew-members.
The skipper is the yacht’s captain, the man or woman in overall charge of his or her yacht, frequently highly-experience sailors with hundreds of thousands of miles of deep-ocean sailing on their personal log, a firm grasp of all the key positions on board and, invariably, a highly competitive streak.
The watch-leader or watch-captain is the person in charge of the yacht during a particular watch or period of time substituting for the skipper during his / her rest periods although on board a yacht of 21.5m long and around 5m wide, the skipper is always on call and available.
The bowman (a generic term also covering female crew) is the person on board who is in charge of sail changes, of which there can be hundreds in a day, and also for the key safety aspect of lookout at the front of the yacht.
The helmsman is another key position on board, the man or woman who actually steers the yacht, frequently also the skipper; it is also one of the most exposed positions on board where the ‘freezing fire hose,’ the ice-cold water that cascades on deck frequently hits its mark.
The trimmer is the person on board in charge of sail repair and maintenance and can often be found below decks working away on an on-board sailing machine, mending rips and tears to keep the sail inventory ship-shape.
The mastman is responsible for working the lines (ropes) on the mast when hoisting sails and he / she also assists the bowman with work on the foredeck and the pitman is responsible for the controlling the halyards and winches and assisting the mastman.
One of the key people on board is the navigator, the person who monitors the yachts position and progress relative to the race course and the opposition, and the navigator can make the difference between winning and losing by advising the skipper of an optimum route to follow to gain the most favourable weather, currents and tides.
Although neither are formal positions on board, there are inevitably crew members with special responsibilities as tactician, someone who takes a broad view of the race as it unfolds and the opposition and advises the skipper on tactics that would steal a march on rival yachts, and a meteorologist, someone who plots the weather and plots the most advantageous passage relative to the prevailing climate.
Two other key responsibilities on board are the media operator, a specially-trained person who knows how to operate the leading-edge camera and communications equipment on board and the medic, sometimes but not necessarily a qualified doctor, whose job is to patch-up injured and sick colleagues.
Most sailors, in addition to their key on-board role bring a range of additional skills to the party, from cooking edible meals from the freeze-dried powders used to save weight to radio communications, mechanical skills and even makeshift dentistry, chiropody and even hairdressing.