718 replies to this topic

[Swanno (Ohf Shore)]

Does anyone remember that fleet of 80 footers that were built in Europe the 90's which was meant to race around the world? I think one of them bacame the first Nicorette. That failed. There was also the Antatrica Cup from the early/mid 2000's which was meant to have a fleet of 70 footers made from Fiberglass to make budgets lower, that failed.


Where did that fleet go wrong? I remember that being put together by Pierre Fehlmann- The boats (designed by Farr?) looked pretty cool and the idea seemed to make sense... What happened?

IIRC the boats (yes Farr Design 309) were a blown up Volvo 60 more or less, water ballasted fixed keel. Maybe 7 or 8 were built?
I think I recall the planned global ocean race being dropped as it couldn't get support alongside the WOR / VOR but I'm a little surprised they didn't get picked up for some sort of Clipper Style race later on - maybe too high maintenance?

Pierre Fehlmann's Grand Mistral organisation went bust & the boats were bought by none other than Ernesto Bertarelli. The circuit operated for a while, before the boats were sold off;

MAXI ONE-DESIGN RACING
(The following is an excerpt from a feature by Barry Pickthall in the December issue of Seahorse magazine.) The world of sailing has had its fair share of big hitters, but none perhaps with the ambitions of Ernesto Bertarelli, the 34-year-old head of Swiss pharmaceutical group Ares-Serono SA, who has taken a controlling interest in developing a Formula One-style world series for an eight-strong fleet of 80ft one-design maxis.

There was Mike Vanderbilt, the American railroad heir whose wealth and drive kept the America's Cup firmly bolted down with the magnificent - and definitive - J Class defenders Enterprise, Rainbow and Ranger. Then there were the British, aircraft manufacturer Thomas Sopwith, with two Endeavours, and tea baron Thomas Lipton, who made no fewer than five (failed) attempts on the Holy Grail with a succession of Shamrocks. But none could ever boast having eight maxi yachts at their disposal.

Bertarelli, the major shareholder in the $5 billion publically quoted Ares-Serono, has no such interest in the America's Cup, but he does have plans to make an impressive splash by taking his fleet of yachts to prestigious corners of the world and put on a headline grabbing spectacle. 'These boats are very exciting to sail, and because they are all equal they can generate extremely close racing. They produce a spectacle, and, with on-board cameras, helicopter coverage and top names at the wheel, it's a perfect sport for TV,' says Bertarelli.

Putting money where the proverbial mouth lies, he paid to bring 100 or more top sailors from the America's Cup, Admiral's Cup and Whitbread Race to compete on five of the Bruce Farr Maxi One-designs (formerly Grand Mistral/Ericsson 80s) at the recent Sardinia Cup series at Porto Cervo. And to underline his own competitive streak, he beat them all in a tightly fought six-race series. It was no walk-over, however, for though his Swiss team won three of the heats, the final result went to the wire. 'The Swiss sailed extremely well. The boats are very close in speed and Ernesto and his crew were simply the most consistent. They deserved to win,' conceded Silk Cut skipper Lawrie Smith, whose British entry won the first race but faded thereafter.

Bertarelli was ecstatic, not only with winning, but with the support he gained during the week for the series of major regattas and long-distance races planned for next year. Having bought the five-strong former Grand Mistral fleet from BIL, the original Grand Mistral bank, that had developed cold feet over another revival scheme proposed by Pierre Fehlmann, Bertarelli has funded the completion of the three boats left part-built near Marseilles and has guaranteed a multi-million dollar world championship series in 1999.

The World Series kicks off with the Caribbean Cup; Key West in January, the 500-mile Montego Bay Race in February, the Heineken St Maarten Regatta, and the Heineken International Cup in Puerto Rico in March . This will be followed by a fleet race to break the transatlantic monohull record from New York to the Lizard in April, when the weather promises its worst.

The new class' world championship, now ratified by ISAF, is made up of the North Sea Race and North Sea Regatta in May, Kiel Week and a 300-mile race on to Stockholm in June - in time to compete in the Round Gotland Race on 4 July. Then, at the end of July, and with a nod to tradition, the fleet will congregate at Cowes for the 220-mile Channel Race and four races within Skandia Cowes Week, before setting off on the decider: the Fastnet classic. The year rounds off with four separate seven-race series, in Lisbon at the end of August, Porto Cervo and Cannes in September, finishing at Monaco in early October. -- Barry Pickthall

For the full story: http://www.seahorse....dec/default.htm

Not around the world but I got part correct...well I was 15 when this was all happening and they were the most spectacular things in yachting mags....floating things that is.

[Swanno (Ohf Shore)]

For those who don't know what the 80's are, you can but one for 300K EUR

http://au.yachtworld...n-2077662/Italy

[josselin]

I agree with Dick Dastardly: living in France in the 70s and 80s you would hear all these sponsor names on the main evening news on the radio or TV. Some were the weirdest names: Lada Poch (Russian car imports), Bagages Superior (luggage). More recently: PRB (building materials), Cheminées Poujolat (chimneys!), Vibrac Paprec (recycling and animal feed) etc. How else would these small companies reach wide audiences and build a positive image?

the orma imoca are still open to relatively small company.
If you look at the new sponsors for the vendee globe, they are clearly targeting the french market : maitre coq (chicken food), Saveol (tomatoes) And I do rememeber reading the sponsorship succes made by Fleury Michon ( precocked food, family size company) with Philippe Poupon, the added value of this sponsorship has been just tremendous! Sodebo are the same since they joined sailing sponsoring they just built a huge business.

Groupama clearly stated that they wanted Cammas to move to more worldwide sailing to reach other markets. For next year they said " less money and back to the french market& french public"
To come back to the original question of design : I am very impressed by the performance of "Cheminee Poujoulat -JK" in the warm up race...
And the choice of JK for cammas was a safe choice, I would have loved to see a french architect signing their VO70

[Heriberto]

Like I said, question your assumptions. I suggest that the public doesn't actually know who is sponsoring what, and that the name on the side of the boat is often a small part of the story.

You don't need to take too many orders for 100 giant dump trucks to make just about any sponsorship agreement pay. Same with Berg Propulsion, who I think will likely be back for the next race with or without PUMA. Know what a new ship's propellor costs? Somewhere between say 500k and a million. You know how many ships the average Berg hospitality client owns or manages? 200.

Note something: I do not believe that the B to B/hospitality part of the race is the more important part - quite the opposite. I think the race MUST focus on building its fan base while maximizing stopover footfall and mainstream exposure. In my eyes, if you focus on only the corporates and the experience for the wealthy, you lose the fans and the general public. Once you lose them, it stops being one of those "must-do" events, and instead of feeling special, the VIPs start feeling like pampered fools, paying attention to something no one else is. If you focus on the fans, the media, and getting max crowds, you create the kind of atmosphere that everyone - the poor and rich alike - want to get in on.

Clean, you make zero sense.

Sure propellers cost a bomb. So do big fuck-off dump trucks. Who buys them? Engineers, Executives, Naval Architects and Procurement folk in major Corporates all over the planet. These people are in western markets held accountable for purchase decisions and need to demonstrate to their bosses that they selected what they purchased for squillions using some sort of objective fact based assessment process deliveringvalue for money, safety, good environmental outcomes, whatever. Corporate hospitality has limited influence on these decisions in mature markets. In less mature markets where accountability isn't so strong, sure, it's effectively bribery and it works. So, there has to be a bit of B22B largesse at play.

But none of this has anything to do with building a "fan base" in the broader general public. They have no input to any of those purchase decisions, so what the fuck is the point of getting them engaged in your sponsorship of a sailing race if you sell propellers for Oil Tankers? Please explain. Is it really all about your VIPs feeling more special because instead of 10 people outside who can't come into the corporate hospitality tent there are 10,000? That's rich, dude.

I think what Berg and Volvo and others are selling by being part of this and other marketing efforts is their position as stable, innovative, and dynamic companies. Market leaders who have horsepower. The people making the decisions to buy a Volvo off-road dumper over an IHI or something iike that see added value in the company as well as the product. When you want to know you have warranty support for your million-dollar peice of equipment, it gives you more confidence if the company you are buying from is in it for the long haul. Everybody knows Caterpillar, Volvo is trying to project more of that market leader status, but it isn't only heavy equipment, it is also cars, and China and other markets are exploding with demand for personal vehicles as their middle-classes expand.

It matters.

[MR.CLEAN]

Jesus Clean,

I don't exactly know why your default mode is to be a pompous ass but you've been that way toward me since the first time I met you, when Petey hooked you up on my powerboat for the NCASA and you didn't even bother to thank me for ferrying you around and letting you burn my fuel.

What you said was exactly my point and I've said the same thing about India and Mumbai, where I'm sure Volvo and other sponsors would also be highly interested in having a stop. And yeah, I know what heavy equipment costs, because I buy this stuff for a living. I even know how much propellers cost. So no, that wouldn't "surprise" me, because that is exactly what I wrote.

We have a lot of mutual close friends Alan, and I'm trying to sell someone you DON"T know that the VOR and other sailing and sport sponsorship is a good deal for him. He is head of the push to expand his $30billion corporation in emerging markets like China, India and SE Asia. Being tied in with one of those teams, at least, I think would be great marketing for them and God knows they have the money to burn. Hell, a few years ago they spent $100million on one fucking domain name. I'm not sure what genius decided that was a good idea, but it gives you an idea, if you didn't already have one, of what corporations are willing to spend if they are sold on the value.

So I asked one our mutual friends for someone who knew how to pitch this and was told you were, quote "surprisingly good" at this. But I couldn't use you for that, even if I wanted to, because you've been a dick to me. So why don't you cut out the edgy, "Mr. Superior" act? It doesn't always help you, because you don't always know what opportunity you are screwing up for yourself.

Oh, and I actually like the interviews. Well done on those. It pays when you have engaging talent like Ken Read.

Herb,

I didn't actually mean to come off like a pompous ass, and I apologize. Though I am not looking for work, I'd be happy to help come up with a pitch if it will help bring a sponsor to the sport. No charge.

I think you're confusing me with someone else on the NCASA thing. I've only ever been to two NCASA events, and I raced on an A-Scow for both - no powerboats. Unless I have indeed killed that many brain cells...

[MR.CLEAN]

Actually Herb, I didn't mean to respond to your post with the one you took issue with above. I was talking to DD. apologies. Stand by for my final report...

[MR.CLEAN]

this is going to piss off a lot of people - many of them my friends - but it's the way i see it. Apologies for hurt feelings; just doing my job.

mess in miami

I used to run major regatta reports with the title “The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly.” I’m kind of insecure, though, and before anyone accused me of being a crappy, cliché-dependent title writer, I ditched it. Which pisses me off a little, because a three-level analysis is an awfully convenient way to report on an event.



The other day, a prominent sailor challenged me to ‘not be so negative on Miami,’ So rather than a 66% negative analysis, I’ll go 50/50, and in the process, create a new grading system that will probably last as long as my attention span – a few weeks. It’s the WWCD system, which stands for Worst-Weak-Competent-Divine, and the dopey acronym is a nod to just how insecure I am. I’ll let you figure out what else it stands for. Hint, hint.



The Volvo Ocean Race Miami stopover was extremely important for both the race and for those looking at hosting or sponsoring major sailing events in the States, so it’s essential to look at its successes and failures as objectively as possible without fear of hurting anyone’s feelings. I probably can’t afford any more enemies, but as the people who support our advertisers, you readers make my job possible. Because it is the best job in the world, I figure I owe you the same honesty that I expected back when I was just a reader myself, and the same honesty that’s helped Sailing Anarchy become the world’s most visited and dependable source for sailing information and entertainment. So let’s get on with the analysis.



Divine: I am convinced that one of the reasons for the comparatively weak on-the-water turnout was that about ten million Miami boaters and friends of sailing were busy volunteering for the Volvo. Okay – maybe not that many, but the local stopover organizers and a volunteer army led by Wendy Kamilar (and a few other luminaries) did a laudable job on most everything. From the huge Course Marshall/Press Boat/Jury Boat fleets – nearly all of them donated, private boats from Coral Reef Yacht Club – to the sexy shoreside help, to crowd control, to those pumping things up via their own Facebook sites, it was a smiling and enthusiastic group that gave Miami’s boaters a good name. For the VIPs, Miami was also a great stop. Volvo’s hospitality people told us that uptake on invites to the stopover were huge while sponsor employees and guests themselves said it was a lucrative trip for business relationships. And why shouldn’t it be? For the well-heeled Volvo or Berg client with a wallet full of fifties, the town rocks. Plenty of business deals happen in strip bars, posh restaurants, and nightclubs – three things that are better in Miami than perhaps anywhere in the Americas. Another bright spot on an otherwise inky-black page was the broadcast – not because the predominantly light air made it a great spectacle, but because organizers succeeded in getting the high-traffic Fox Sportsnet to carry it live throughout the Miami market. That’s rare, and they should be proud of it.



Competent: When a pitifully small welcoming flotilla guided Leg 6 winning skipper (and sole US entry) PUMA through the finish line and into Government Cut earlier this month, we thought it was a sign that the departure fleet would be embarrassingly empty on the water for the In-Port Race and Leg 7 start. Saturday wasn’t great, but Sunday saw, by our count, nearly 400 boats on the water spectating, and a lot of them were big, private luxury craft loaded with people. Volvo flew hundreds of its best sales people, affiliates, and clients from all over North America down to the town, and along with a big contingent of B to B guests from Telefonica’s Latin American affiliates, they added literally boatloads of people to the on-water spectator count. For one of the largest boat-owning cities in the US it was still embarrassing – especially compared to the thousands-strong spectator fleets elsewhere – but it was a hell of a lot better than it could have been, and as Ken Read told us in the interview below, it gave the sailors a nice bit of morale as they raced. Back to broadcasting, we’re glad to see the VOR getting more and more airplay in US markets. We’ve seen it in sports bars, we’ve seen it flipping through the satellite guide, and independent auditors say that quite a few North Americans are tuning in on a couple of different channels – or at least they have the opportunity to do so for the first time. We also want to give credit to local organizers for thinking outside the box in their promotion of the event, even if lack of follow-through and bad resource allocation meant that all their efforts were for nought. They had bloggers and social media consultants, they handed out 100,000 flyers at Miami Heat playoffs games, they hit local radio, and we’re told there were flags and posters in quite a few spots – though, strangely, and as we’ll detail below, those were gone almost a week before the race started.



Weak: We already mentioned the weak on-water welcome from US fans for the winning US skipper and nominally US team, but it bears repeating: You Florida sailors and boat owners should have done a lot better. We know you aren’t going to bring 10,000 of your friends to the race village, but a couple hundred boatowners following PUMA in could really have done a lot for the US image of the race, not to mention the confidence and pride of US sailors by showing up for a major finish like this one. I guess it’s part of the much larger problem you find when you choose a city like Miami for an event like this one: The Volvo Ocean Race doesn’t even make a blip on the radar, even to sailors and boaters.



Another major problem, though one that wasn’t really the Stopover or HQ’s fault, was a nasty storm that literally flooded out the entire race village. When we arrived on Wednesday, the whole place looked like the active construction zone that made the 2001 stopover’s location such a joke. Passersby would have been surprised to even know you could enter, much less that there was an entire race village filled with free attractions beyond the excavators and payloaders. We’ll go into the deeper problems of promotion and marketing below, but this last-minute SNAFU, and the time and money it took to repair, made a bad problem much worse.



Worst: Much of our analysis comes down here in the basement, because much of the Miami effort was just shockingly bad. As jaded as we are, we were genuinely amazed at some of the decisions that led to the ghost town that was the Miami Stopover race village.



Let’s start with the selection of Miami itself. When Knut and the Board chose Miami over Newport, we wrote that it had the potential of being a good host location, but only if organizers were prepared to spend a metric shit-ton of money to promote and advertise to a population that wouldn’t know a racing yacht if it was dropped by a hurricane onto their house. We also wrote that the 2001 stopover debacle could only be repaired if the actual docking location and race village were somewhere that had a chance to get the foot traffic and visibility that would get the millions of locals and tourists to wonder just what was going on. Instead, the stopover port – a canal next to the Miami Heat arena and flanked by a downtown park – was virtually invisible unless you were standing on top of it. And since there is basically no foot traffic anywhere in downtown Miami, we tried a little experiment, driving to the village from every possible direction. In every case, we literally saw nothing until we were directly abeam of the canal cut. And at 30 mph, that view lasted for precisely 8 seconds. A couple of cool looking Volvo rally-style racing trucks in front of the North entrance looked more like parked construction vehicles than anything associated with the carnival atmosphere that the VOR village shoots for, and a huge concrete wall obstructed the entire village from view unless you were up in an office tower, where trees obstructed much of the park anyway. From the South, the arena is a massive monolith that prevented seeing anything VOR until, as we wrote earlier, you came around another concrete wall and the boats popped into view. For 8 seconds. Miami has far too much going on to expect any traction when you put an invisible race village in a spot with vehicle traffic only. It was our first “what were they thinking” moment.



But we really scratched our heads on the promotion and advertising, or lack thereof. Most visitors’ first look at a VOR comes at an airport, where they do a great job putting up posters, buy advertising spots on the wall, and erect cardboard cut-outs promoting the race. At least, they do that everywhere else but Miami. Maybe the MIA airport rates were too expensive for the organizer’s budget, but if we were typical tourists, we simply would never have known the Volvo was in town unless we were run over by a VO70 on its way out of the cut.



That’s not strictly true; we laughed our asses off when we saw organizers solution to ‘getting the word out’: Two of those yellow, generator-lit construction signs on Biscayne Blvd, one facing North and one South, that said “VOLVO OCEAN RACE” in yellow dots. We’re not joking, folks; the same race that plants 2 miles of beautiful, 8 foot wide LIFE AT THE EXTREME flags on every coastal road in the other stopover port, puts billboards up at every freeway entrance to those cities, and covers buses, supermarkets and DIY stores with VOR murals somehow thought that two fucking construction signs were the solution to their problems in the biggest city they visit on the entire nine-month odyssey. Strangely, we’re told that there were, in fact, flags and posters on Miami’s main drag, but that they were inexplicably removed on Tuesday, precisely when they were needed to show people where to go. Maybe someone forgot to pay the City’s bill? Whatever the reason, an inexcusable screw-up, and yet another reason why the total visitors to the Race Village were significantly less than the number of pervs packing into the EXXOTICA porn fair just down the road.



We sent a couple of Anarchy scouts down to South Beach to see if any of the tens of thousands of beachgoers on Saturday or Sunday knew what those brightly colored things were moving around the horizon. Out of a hundred random people asked the question, not a single person knew that it was a sailboat race. Not one. Apparently, oyster bars and car wash joints can afford to hire planes carrying those flying signs around the beach, but the VOR can’t. You might remember rumors about Sony Music working with the VOR to get huge artists to Miami to play the event (names like Shakira and U2 were bandied about), guaranteeing tens or hundreds of thousands of visitors and a smashing success to the stopover. That, like pretty much everything else that could have a real effect on a jaded and busy Miami public, didn’t happen. Instead, some random and unmemorable band spent the week clanging away in the race village with no one even noticing them. And speaking of bands, you might know about the “Cultural Exchange” that’s become a very cool part of the race; it’s when each venue sends over hundreds of native people, performers, or other colorful folks bedecked in costumes, dancing and singing and banging on things to show off their culture’s brightest and most interesting points as they bid goodbye to the fleet. Indigenous Brazilian warriors, Maori tribesmen, Chinese dragons – that kind of thing. You know what we sent to the dock to send the sailors off? A high school marching band. Seriously – that’s apparently the best we could do.



Radio, print, and TV dollars got spent on a week or two of advertising with little to no effect, while social media marketing fell completely flat. These are proven methods of driving up visitor counts, so why did they fail so spectacularly? Time, money, and the age-old problem of a European organization being unable to comprehend how things work in the USA. You might think more than a decade of crappy US stopovers would have taught them something, but as evidenced by the numbers, it didn’t. This is America, where marketing and PR was invented, and this is Miami, where glitz is everything. If you don’t stand out, you might as well not come at all.



The Miami marketing and advertising effort – or at least, its appearance -- was a quarter of the size of what we’ve seen in other stopovers, and that’s precisely the reverse of what you need to succeed here. The stopover’s PR company had just a few months of lead time to accomplish what other major events have two years for, and unlike in other ports, they had two major jobs: The first was to educate the public about the very existence of sailboat racing; the second, to get them to come check it out. To complicate matters, the local PR company hired by the local organizing group and the national PR company hired by the VOR didn’t really know what the other was doing, leading to major gaps in the promotional campaign. VOR staff and local organizers didn’t see eye-to-eye on some important issues, and despite the local group having some serious local marketing expertise, many of those issues ended up being decided by the VOR. In private conversations, some of the local organizing team were near tears at the stopover’s abject failure, while many of the US racing crews were shamed (if unsurprised) by the fact that their massive and wealthy country just didn’t seem to care about the race at all.



Final Thoughts:



In hindsight, Newport would have been a much bigger success in terms of foot traffic and exposure than Miami, even if only the local sailors turned out. From the fan standpoint, it’s a much better choice of venue for an event like this, if only because there are dozens of passionate sailing populations within a stone’s throw of the sailing-crazy town. The actual micro-location may or may not have been an issue, but certainly, in the future, venues must be chosen that put the show in the center of the action – not out on a commercial strip where people never go anyway. Organizers and sponsors might claim that Miami was a far better venue to attract their clients and B to B networks, but that avoids a really important reality for the long-term success of the race: If you focus only on what works best for a few thousand commercial customers, you lose the public. If you lose the public, all that’s left is those well-heeled customers, and they want to be part of something special and something grand – not a private party for them alone. But if you make financial and venue decisions to maximize public appeal and exposure, you grow the event’s stature and visibility, and then you have an engaged public and happy corporate VIPs. Oh, and bring back something on the water to hold the public’s attention during the stopover – the Extreme 40s in the otherwise unremarkable city of Baltimore were widely credited with the best turnout and overall stopover since the 90s.



Miami is one of a very few black marks on an otherwise brilliant race effort from almost every metric, and there’s no denying that, even for more prominent sports than yacht racing, the US is an extremely tough nut to crack. As the VOR rolls into their venue selection process for the next race, we hope they learn from their mistakes.



Paul Todd photos, and note that these are the ones they used because they showed the biggest public turnout of the week. Ugh.

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[josselin]

links to Groupama international targets :
voiles et voiliers

Le Groupe Groupama se développe fortement à l'international, où nous réalisons près de 30 % de notre activité. Afin d'accompagner cette croissance, qui doit nous amener à figurer parmi les dix premiers assureurs européens en 2012, nous avons décidé de relever, avec Franck, ce nouveau défi, réellement international, auquel aucune équipe française n'a participé depuis plus de quinze ans avec Eric Tabarly (La Poste)>,

Groupama Groupe is growing a lot internationally, where we have nearly 30% of our activity.

and teh VOR is really an international race, the other alternative groupama contemplated at that time was the Americas cup, they did not followed that way because of the endless court case between LE and EB at that time... shame!

[MR.CLEAN]

BTW, the VOR is now running live streaming interviews from the boats. Kenny is on now, keep the screen open in your browser and you'll hear them pop up every half hour or so.

http://new.livestrea...ooceanrace/Leg7

[Heriberto]

Actually Herb, I didn't mean to respond to your post with the one you took issue with above. I was talking to DD. apologies. Stand by for my final report...

Ahhh,

Oopsie. I was wondering if maybe that hadn't happened.

As for NCASA, hmmm, it was the first one, and maybe it was mainly your photo guy, but you were on the boat too, though maybe you were just amped getting ferried in a hurry from racing, but yeah, sorry, you were a jerk.

Buy me a MG soda or Dark and Stormy and it's all good, and have fun going to Bermuda, looks like I have a friend on that ride too. Now I won't ask him to toss you in the drink....

[Heriberto]

BTW, the VOR is now running live streaming interviews from the boats. Kenny is on now, keep the screen open in your browser and you'll hear them pop up every half hour or so.

http://new.livestrea...ooceanrace/Leg7

Shit.

Why don't those fuckers give some notice!

[MR.CLEAN]

Today is testing day. We'll have the full schedule up on the front page tonight. It's an AWESOME feature we've been asking for for some time, and we'll be promoting it heavily.

[MR.CLEAN]

Actually Herb, I didn't mean to respond to your post with the one you took issue with above. I was talking to DD. apologies. Stand by for my final report...

Ahhh,

Oopsie. I was wondering if maybe that hadn't happened.

As for NCASA, hmmm, it was the first one, and maybe it was mainly your photo guy, but you were on the boat too, though maybe you were just amped getting ferried in a hurry from racing, but yeah, sorry, you were a jerk.

Buy me a MG soda or Dark and Stormy and it's all good, and have fun going to Bermuda, looks like I have a friend on that ride too. Now I won't ask him to toss you in the drink....

All good mate. Might've been from the YC to the mainland or something, meaning I might have been lit up a little...count me in for the DnS.

[umpire]

this is going to piss off a lot of people - many of them my friends - but it's the way i see it. Apologies for hurt feelings; just doing my job.

mess in miami

I used to run major regatta reports with the title "The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly." I'm kind of insecure, though, and before anyone accused me of being a crappy, cliché-dependent title writer, I ditched it. Which pisses me off a little, because a three-level analysis is an awfully convenient way to report on an event.



The other day, a prominent sailor challenged me to 'not be so negative on Miami,' So rather than a 66% negative analysis, I'll go 50/50, and in the process, create a new grading system that will probably last as long as my attention span – a few weeks. It's the WWCD system, which stands for Worst-Weak-Competent-Divine, and the dopey acronym is a nod to just how insecure I am. I'll let you figure out what else it stands for. Hint, hint.



The Volvo Ocean Race Miami stopover was extremely important for both the race and for those looking at hosting or sponsoring major sailing events in the States, so it's essential to look at its successes and failures as objectively as possible without fear of hurting anyone's feelings. I probably can't afford any more enemies, but as the people who support our advertisers, you readers make my job possible. Because it is the best job in the world, I figure I owe you the same honesty that I expected back when I was just a reader myself, and the same honesty that's helped Sailing Anarchy become the world's most visited and dependable source for sailing information and entertainment. So let's get on with the analysis.



Divine: I am convinced that one of the reasons for the comparatively weak on-the-water turnout was that about ten million Miami boaters and friends of sailing were busy volunteering for the Volvo. Okay – maybe not that many, but the local stopover organizers and a volunteer army led by Wendy Kamilar (and a few other luminaries) did a laudable job on most everything. From the huge Course Marshall/Press Boat/Jury Boat fleets – nearly all of them donated, private boats from Coral Reef Yacht Club – to the sexy shoreside help, to crowd control, to those pumping things up via their own Facebook sites, it was a smiling and enthusiastic group that gave Miami's boaters a good name. For the VIPs, Miami was also a great stop. Volvo's hospitality people told us that uptake on invites to the stopover were huge while sponsor employees and guests themselves said it was a lucrative trip for business relationships. And why shouldn't it be? For the well-heeled Volvo or Berg client with a wallet full of fifties, the town rocks. Plenty of business deals happen in strip bars, posh restaurants, and nightclubs – three things that are better in Miami than perhaps anywhere in the Americas. Another bright spot on an otherwise inky-black page was the broadcast – not because the predominantly light air made it a great spectacle, but because organizers succeeded in getting the high-traffic Fox Sportsnet to carry it live throughout the Miami market. That's rare, and they should be proud of it.



Competent: When a pitifully small welcoming flotilla guided Leg 6 winning skipper (and sole US entry) PUMA through the finish line and into Government Cut earlier this month, we thought it was a sign that the departure fleet would be embarrassingly empty on the water for the In-Port Race and Leg 7 start. Saturday wasn't great, but Sunday saw, by our count, nearly 400 boats on the water spectating, and a lot of them were big, private luxury craft loaded with people. Volvo flew hundreds of its best sales people, affiliates, and clients from all over North America down to the town, and along with a big contingent of B to B guests from Telefonica's Latin American affiliates, they added literally boatloads of people to the on-water spectator count. For one of the largest boat-owning cities in the US it was still embarrassing – especially compared to the thousands-strong spectator fleets elsewhere – but it was a hell of a lot better than it could have been, and as Ken Read told us in the interview below, it gave the sailors a nice bit of morale as they raced. Back to broadcasting, we're glad to see the VOR getting more and more airplay in US markets. We've seen it in sports bars, we've seen it flipping through the satellite guide, and independent auditors say that quite a few North Americans are tuning in on a couple of different channels – or at least they have the opportunity to do so for the first time. We also want to give credit to local organizers for thinking outside the box in their promotion of the event, even if lack of follow-through and bad resource allocation meant that all their efforts were for nought. They had bloggers and social media consultants, they handed out 100,000 flyers at Miami Heat playoffs games, they hit local radio, and we're told there were flags and posters in quite a few spots – though, strangely, and as we'll detail below, those were gone almost a week before the race started.



Weak: We already mentioned the weak on-water welcome from US fans for the winning US skipper and nominally US team, but it bears repeating: You Florida sailors and boat owners should have done a lot better. We know you aren't going to bring 10,000 of your friends to the race village, but a couple hundred boatowners following PUMA in could really have done a lot for the US image of the race, not to mention the confidence and pride of US sailors by showing up for a major finish like this one. I guess it's part of the much larger problem you find when you choose a city like Miami for an event like this one: The Volvo Ocean Race doesn't even make a blip on the radar, even to sailors and boaters.



Another major problem, though one that wasn't really the Stopover or HQ's fault, was a nasty storm that literally flooded out the entire race village. When we arrived on Wednesday, the whole place looked like the active construction zone that made the 2001 stopover's location such a joke. Passersby would have been surprised to even know you could enter, much less that there was an entire race village filled with free attractions beyond the excavators and payloaders. We'll go into the deeper problems of promotion and marketing below, but this last-minute SNAFU, and the time and money it took to repair, made a bad problem much worse.



Worst: Much of our analysis comes down here in the basement, because much of the Miami effort was just shockingly bad. As jaded as we are, we were genuinely amazed at some of the decisions that led to the ghost town that was the Miami Stopover race village.



Let's start with the selection of Miami itself. When Knut and the Board chose Miami over Newport, we wrote that it had the potential of being a good host location, but only if organizers were prepared to spend a metric shit-ton of money to promote and advertise to a population that wouldn't know a racing yacht if it was dropped by a hurricane onto their house. We also wrote that the 2001 stopover debacle could only be repaired if the actual docking location and race village were somewhere that had a chance to get the foot traffic and visibility that would get the millions of locals and tourists to wonder just what was going on. Instead, the stopover port – a canal next to the Miami Heat arena and flanked by a downtown park – was virtually invisible unless you were standing on top of it. And since there is basically no foot traffic anywhere in downtown Miami, we tried a little experiment, driving to the village from every possible direction. In every case, we literally saw nothing until we were directly abeam of the canal cut. And at 30 mph, that view lasted for precisely 8 seconds. A couple of cool looking Volvo rally-style racing trucks in front of the North entrance looked more like parked construction vehicles than anything associated with the carnival atmosphere that the VOR village shoots for, and a huge concrete wall obstructed the entire village from view unless you were up in an office tower, where trees obstructed much of the park anyway. From the South, the arena is a massive monolith that prevented seeing anything VOR until, as we wrote earlier, you came around another concrete wall and the boats popped into view. For 8 seconds. Miami has far too much going on to expect any traction when you put an invisible race village in a spot with vehicle traffic only. It was our first "what were they thinking" moment.



But we really scratched our heads on the promotion and advertising, or lack thereof. Most visitors' first look at a VOR comes at an airport, where they do a great job putting up posters, buy advertising spots on the wall, and erect cardboard cut-outs promoting the race. At least, they do that everywhere else but Miami. Maybe the MIA airport rates were too expensive for the organizer's budget, but if we were typical tourists, we simply would never have known the Volvo was in town unless we were run over by a VO70 on its way out of the cut.



That's not strictly true; we laughed our asses off when we saw organizers solution to 'getting the word out': Two of those yellow, generator-lit construction signs on Biscayne Blvd, one facing North and one South, that said "VOLVO OCEAN RACE" in yellow dots. We're not joking, folks; the same race that plants 2 miles of beautiful, 8 foot wide LIFE AT THE EXTREME flags on every coastal road in the other stopover port, puts billboards up at every freeway entrance to those cities, and covers buses, supermarkets and DIY stores with VOR murals somehow thought that two fucking construction signs were the solution to their problems in the biggest city they visit on the entire nine-month odyssey. Strangely, we're told that there were, in fact, flags and posters on Miami's main drag, but that they were inexplicably removed on Tuesday, precisely when they were needed to show people where to go. Maybe someone forgot to pay the City's bill? Whatever the reason, an inexcusable screw-up, and yet another reason why the total visitors to the Race Village were significantly less than the number of pervs packing into the EXXOTICA porn fair just down the road.



We sent a couple of Anarchy scouts down to South Beach to see if any of the tens of thousands of beachgoers on Saturday or Sunday knew what those brightly colored things were moving around the horizon. Out of a hundred random people asked the question, not a single person knew that it was a sailboat race. Not one. Apparently, oyster bars and car wash joints can afford to hire planes carrying those flying signs around the beach, but the VOR can't. You might remember rumors about Sony Music working with the VOR to get huge artists to Miami to play the event (names like Shakira and U2 were bandied about), guaranteeing tens or hundreds of thousands of visitors and a smashing success to the stopover. That, like pretty much everything else that could have a real effect on a jaded and busy Miami public, didn't happen. Instead, some random and unmemorable band spent the week clanging away in the race village with no one even noticing them. And speaking of bands, you might know about the "Cultural Exchange" that's become a very cool part of the race; it's when each venue sends over hundreds of native people, performers, or other colorful folks bedecked in costumes, dancing and singing and banging on things to show off their culture's brightest and most interesting points as they bid goodbye to the fleet. Indigenous Brazilian warriors, Maori tribesmen, Chinese dragons – that kind of thing. You know what we sent to the dock to send the sailors off? A high school marching band. Seriously – that's apparently the best we could do.



Radio, print, and TV dollars got spent on a week or two of advertising with little to no effect, while social media marketing fell completely flat. These are proven methods of driving up visitor counts, so why did they fail so spectacularly? Time, money, and the age-old problem of a European organization being unable to comprehend how things work in the USA. You might think more than a decade of crappy US stopovers would have taught them something, but as evidenced by the numbers, it didn't. This is America, where marketing and PR was invented, and this is Miami, where glitz is everything. If you don't stand out, you might as well not come at all.



The Miami marketing and advertising effort – or at least, its appearance -- was a quarter of the size of what we've seen in other stopovers, and that's precisely the reverse of what you need to succeed here. The stopover's PR company had just a few months of lead time to accomplish what other major events have two years for, and unlike in other ports, they had two major jobs: The first was to educate the public about the very existence of sailboat racing; the second, to get them to come check it out. To complicate matters, the local PR company hired by the local organizing group and the national PR company hired by the VOR didn't really know what the other was doing, leading to major gaps in the promotional campaign. VOR staff and local organizers didn't see eye-to-eye on some important issues, and despite the local group having some serious local marketing expertise, many of those issues ended up being decided by the VOR. In private conversations, some of the local organizing team were near tears at the stopover's abject failure, while many of the US racing crews were shamed (if unsurprised) by the fact that their massive and wealthy country just didn't seem to care about the race at all.



Final Thoughts:



In hindsight, Newport would have been a much bigger success in terms of foot traffic and exposure than Miami, even if only the local sailors turned out. From the fan standpoint, it's a much better choice of venue for an event like this, if only because there are dozens of passionate sailing populations within a stone's throw of the sailing-crazy town. The actual micro-location may or may not have been an issue, but certainly, in the future, venues must be chosen that put the show in the center of the action – not out on a commercial strip where people never go anyway. Organizers and sponsors might claim that Miami was a far better venue to attract their clients and B to B networks, but that avoids a really important reality for the long-term success of the race: If you focus only on what works best for a few thousand commercial customers, you lose the public. If you lose the public, all that's left is those well-heeled customers, and they want to be part of something special and something grand – not a private party for them alone. But if you make financial and venue decisions to maximize public appeal and exposure, you grow the event's stature and visibility, and then you have an engaged public and happy corporate VIPs. Oh, and bring back something on the water to hold the public's attention during the stopover – the Extreme 40s in the otherwise unremarkable city of Baltimore were widely credited with the best turnout and overall stopover since the 90s.



Miami is one of a very few black marks on an otherwise brilliant race effort from almost every metric, and there's no denying that, even for more prominent sports than yacht racing, the US is an extremely tough nut to crack. As the VOR rolls into their venue selection process for the next race, we hope they learn from their mistakes.



Paul Todd photos, and note that these are the ones they used because they showed the biggest public turnout of the week. Ugh.

Can I be the first to congratulate you on an open and un-biased opinion of the Miami (a city I love and enjoy) stopover. I too was suprised a the lack of turnout by the local 'sailing' population. Lisbon will be packed and Lorient, even more so (for obvious reasons). But it seems to me that VOR have not covered themselves in glory and, that this could have ramifications for future races.

[MR.CLEAN]

Cheers umpire. Not easy to blast people I know and respect, but hard to avoid the conclusions I reached without putting one's head in the sand.

[Heriberto]

It sounds like it was pretty obviously bad.

It also sounds like there wasn't local government buy in among other things. Like most things, an event like this needs one dynamic, influential and just as importantly, connected individual spearheading it and herding the cats.

Having detailed the performance, what do you think they could have done to improve?

[Pierre S]

The other thing that is interesting to me is how long Volvo Group will support this event now that they have been effectively out of consumer durables (if you exclude Volvo Penta) for a couple of years now (since the sale of the car business to the Chinese). I suppose they were already committed to this edition, but wonder what will happen for the future. I don't know much about the arrangement with Zhejiang Geely re branding etc. Is the VOR part of the package agreed at the time? The website has the 2 businesses (cars and trucks/construction) co-existing, but how long will that last?

[chicagosos]

this is going to piss off a lot of people - many of them my friends - but it's the way i see it. Apologies for hurt feelings; just doing my job.

mess in miami

I used to run major regatta reports with the title "The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly." I'm kind of insecure, though, and before anyone accused me of being a crappy, cliché-dependent title writer, I ditched it. Which pisses me off a little, because a three-level analysis is an awfully convenient way to report on an event.



The other day, a prominent sailor challenged me to 'not be so negative on Miami,' So rather than a 66% negative analysis, I'll go 50/50, and in the process, create a new grading system that will probably last as long as my attention span – a few weeks. It's the WWCD system, which stands for Worst-Weak-Competent-Divine, and the dopey acronym is a nod to just how insecure I am. I'll let you figure out what else it stands for. Hint, hint.



The Volvo Ocean Race Miami stopover was extremely important for both the race and for those looking at hosting or sponsoring major sailing events in the States, so it's essential to look at its successes and failures as objectively as possible without fear of hurting anyone's feelings. I probably can't afford any more enemies, but as the people who support our advertisers, you readers make my job possible. Because it is the best job in the world, I figure I owe you the same honesty that I expected back when I was just a reader myself, and the same honesty that's helped Sailing Anarchy become the world's most visited and dependable source for sailing information and entertainment. So let's get on with the analysis.



Divine: I am convinced that one of the reasons for the comparatively weak on-the-water turnout was that about ten million Miami boaters and friends of sailing were busy volunteering for the Volvo. Okay – maybe not that many, but the local stopover organizers and a volunteer army led by Wendy Kamilar (and a few other luminaries) did a laudable job on most everything. From the huge Course Marshall/Press Boat/Jury Boat fleets – nearly all of them donated, private boats from Coral Reef Yacht Club – to the sexy shoreside help, to crowd control, to those pumping things up via their own Facebook sites, it was a smiling and enthusiastic group that gave Miami's boaters a good name. For the VIPs, Miami was also a great stop. Volvo's hospitality people told us that uptake on invites to the stopover were huge while sponsor employees and guests themselves said it was a lucrative trip for business relationships. And why shouldn't it be? For the well-heeled Volvo or Berg client with a wallet full of fifties, the town rocks. Plenty of business deals happen in strip bars, posh restaurants, and nightclubs – three things that are better in Miami than perhaps anywhere in the Americas. Another bright spot on an otherwise inky-black page was the broadcast – not because the predominantly light air made it a great spectacle, but because organizers succeeded in getting the high-traffic Fox Sportsnet to carry it live throughout the Miami market. That's rare, and they should be proud of it.



Competent: When a pitifully small welcoming flotilla guided Leg 6 winning skipper (and sole US entry) PUMA through the finish line and into Government Cut earlier this month, we thought it was a sign that the departure fleet would be embarrassingly empty on the water for the In-Port Race and Leg 7 start. Saturday wasn't great, but Sunday saw, by our count, nearly 400 boats on the water spectating, and a lot of them were big, private luxury craft loaded with people. Volvo flew hundreds of its best sales people, affiliates, and clients from all over North America down to the town, and along with a big contingent of B to B guests from Telefonica's Latin American affiliates, they added literally boatloads of people to the on-water spectator count. For one of the largest boat-owning cities in the US it was still embarrassing – especially compared to the thousands-strong spectator fleets elsewhere – but it was a hell of a lot better than it could have been, and as Ken Read told us in the interview below, it gave the sailors a nice bit of morale as they raced. Back to broadcasting, we're glad to see the VOR getting more and more airplay in US markets. We've seen it in sports bars, we've seen it flipping through the satellite guide, and independent auditors say that quite a few North Americans are tuning in on a couple of different channels – or at least they have the opportunity to do so for the first time. We also want to give credit to local organizers for thinking outside the box in their promotion of the event, even if lack of follow-through and bad resource allocation meant that all their efforts were for nought. They had bloggers and social media consultants, they handed out 100,000 flyers at Miami Heat playoffs games, they hit local radio, and we're told there were flags and posters in quite a few spots – though, strangely, and as we'll detail below, those were gone almost a week before the race started.



Weak: We already mentioned the weak on-water welcome from US fans for the winning US skipper and nominally US team, but it bears repeating: You Florida sailors and boat owners should have done a lot better. We know you aren't going to bring 10,000 of your friends to the race village, but a couple hundred boatowners following PUMA in could really have done a lot for the US image of the race, not to mention the confidence and pride of US sailors by showing up for a major finish like this one. I guess it's part of the much larger problem you find when you choose a city like Miami for an event like this one: The Volvo Ocean Race doesn't even make a blip on the radar, even to sailors and boaters.



Another major problem, though one that wasn't really the Stopover or HQ's fault, was a nasty storm that literally flooded out the entire race village. When we arrived on Wednesday, the whole place looked like the active construction zone that made the 2001 stopover's location such a joke. Passersby would have been surprised to even know you could enter, much less that there was an entire race village filled with free attractions beyond the excavators and payloaders. We'll go into the deeper problems of promotion and marketing below, but this last-minute SNAFU, and the time and money it took to repair, made a bad problem much worse.



Worst: Much of our analysis comes down here in the basement, because much of the Miami effort was just shockingly bad. As jaded as we are, we were genuinely amazed at some of the decisions that led to the ghost town that was the Miami Stopover race village.



Let's start with the selection of Miami itself. When Knut and the Board chose Miami over Newport, we wrote that it had the potential of being a good host location, but only if organizers were prepared to spend a metric shit-ton of money to promote and advertise to a population that wouldn't know a racing yacht if it was dropped by a hurricane onto their house. We also wrote that the 2001 stopover debacle could only be repaired if the actual docking location and race village were somewhere that had a chance to get the foot traffic and visibility that would get the millions of locals and tourists to wonder just what was going on. Instead, the stopover port – a canal next to the Miami Heat arena and flanked by a downtown park – was virtually invisible unless you were standing on top of it. And since there is basically no foot traffic anywhere in downtown Miami, we tried a little experiment, driving to the village from every possible direction. In every case, we literally saw nothing until we were directly abeam of the canal cut. And at 30 mph, that view lasted for precisely 8 seconds. A couple of cool looking Volvo rally-style racing trucks in front of the North entrance looked more like parked construction vehicles than anything associated with the carnival atmosphere that the VOR village shoots for, and a huge concrete wall obstructed the entire village from view unless you were up in an office tower, where trees obstructed much of the park anyway. From the South, the arena is a massive monolith that prevented seeing anything VOR until, as we wrote earlier, you came around another concrete wall and the boats popped into view. For 8 seconds. Miami has far too much going on to expect any traction when you put an invisible race village in a spot with vehicle traffic only. It was our first "what were they thinking" moment.



But we really scratched our heads on the promotion and advertising, or lack thereof. Most visitors' first look at a VOR comes at an airport, where they do a great job putting up posters, buy advertising spots on the wall, and erect cardboard cut-outs promoting the race. At least, they do that everywhere else but Miami. Maybe the MIA airport rates were too expensive for the organizer's budget, but if we were typical tourists, we simply would never have known the Volvo was in town unless we were run over by a VO70 on its way out of the cut.



That's not strictly true; we laughed our asses off when we saw organizers solution to 'getting the word out': Two of those yellow, generator-lit construction signs on Biscayne Blvd, one facing North and one South, that said "VOLVO OCEAN RACE" in yellow dots. We're not joking, folks; the same race that plants 2 miles of beautiful, 8 foot wide LIFE AT THE EXTREME flags on every coastal road in the other stopover port, puts billboards up at every freeway entrance to those cities, and covers buses, supermarkets and DIY stores with VOR murals somehow thought that two fucking construction signs were the solution to their problems in the biggest city they visit on the entire nine-month odyssey. Strangely, we're told that there were, in fact, flags and posters on Miami's main drag, but that they were inexplicably removed on Tuesday, precisely when they were needed to show people where to go. Maybe someone forgot to pay the City's bill? Whatever the reason, an inexcusable screw-up, and yet another reason why the total visitors to the Race Village were significantly less than the number of pervs packing into the EXXOTICA porn fair just down the road.



We sent a couple of Anarchy scouts down to South Beach to see if any of the tens of thousands of beachgoers on Saturday or Sunday knew what those brightly colored things were moving around the horizon. Out of a hundred random people asked the question, not a single person knew that it was a sailboat race. Not one. Apparently, oyster bars and car wash joints can afford to hire planes carrying those flying signs around the beach, but the VOR can't. You might remember rumors about Sony Music working with the VOR to get huge artists to Miami to play the event (names like Shakira and U2 were bandied about), guaranteeing tens or hundreds of thousands of visitors and a smashing success to the stopover. That, like pretty much everything else that could have a real effect on a jaded and busy Miami public, didn't happen. Instead, some random and unmemorable band spent the week clanging away in the race village with no one even noticing them. And speaking of bands, you might know about the "Cultural Exchange" that's become a very cool part of the race; it's when each venue sends over hundreds of native people, performers, or other colorful folks bedecked in costumes, dancing and singing and banging on things to show off their culture's brightest and most interesting points as they bid goodbye to the fleet. Indigenous Brazilian warriors, Maori tribesmen, Chinese dragons – that kind of thing. You know what we sent to the dock to send the sailors off? A high school marching band. Seriously – that's apparently the best we could do.



Radio, print, and TV dollars got spent on a week or two of advertising with little to no effect, while social media marketing fell completely flat. These are proven methods of driving up visitor counts, so why did they fail so spectacularly? Time, money, and the age-old problem of a European organization being unable to comprehend how things work in the USA. You might think more than a decade of crappy US stopovers would have taught them something, but as evidenced by the numbers, it didn't. This is America, where marketing and PR was invented, and this is Miami, where glitz is everything. If you don't stand out, you might as well not come at all.



The Miami marketing and advertising effort – or at least, its appearance -- was a quarter of the size of what we've seen in other stopovers, and that's precisely the reverse of what you need to succeed here. The stopover's PR company had just a few months of lead time to accomplish what other major events have two years for, and unlike in other ports, they had two major jobs: The first was to educate the public about the very existence of sailboat racing; the second, to get them to come check it out. To complicate matters, the local PR company hired by the local organizing group and the national PR company hired by the VOR didn't really know what the other was doing, leading to major gaps in the promotional campaign. VOR staff and local organizers didn't see eye-to-eye on some important issues, and despite the local group having some serious local marketing expertise, many of those issues ended up being decided by the VOR. In private conversations, some of the local organizing team were near tears at the stopover's abject failure, while many of the US racing crews were shamed (if unsurprised) by the fact that their massive and wealthy country just didn't seem to care about the race at all.



Final Thoughts:



In hindsight, Newport would have been a much bigger success in terms of foot traffic and exposure than Miami, even if only the local sailors turned out. From the fan standpoint, it's a much better choice of venue for an event like this, if only because there are dozens of passionate sailing populations within a stone's throw of the sailing-crazy town. The actual micro-location may or may not have been an issue, but certainly, in the future, venues must be chosen that put the show in the center of the action – not out on a commercial strip where people never go anyway. Organizers and sponsors might claim that Miami was a far better venue to attract their clients and B to B networks, but that avoids a really important reality for the long-term success of the race: If you focus only on what works best for a few thousand commercial customers, you lose the public. If you lose the public, all that's left is those well-heeled customers, and they want to be part of something special and something grand – not a private party for them alone. But if you make financial and venue decisions to maximize public appeal and exposure, you grow the event's stature and visibility, and then you have an engaged public and happy corporate VIPs. Oh, and bring back something on the water to hold the public's attention during the stopover – the Extreme 40s in the otherwise unremarkable city of Baltimore were widely credited with the best turnout and overall stopover since the 90s.



Miami is one of a very few black marks on an otherwise brilliant race effort from almost every metric, and there's no denying that, even for more prominent sports than yacht racing, the US is an extremely tough nut to crack. As the VOR rolls into their venue selection process for the next race, we hope they learn from their mistakes.



Paul Todd photos, and note that these are the ones they used because they showed the biggest public turnout of the week. Ugh.

I have really mixed feelings after reading this, mostly because I was so regretting not going down to Miami for the weekend. On one hand it looks like we could have really gotten close to the action and met some of the guys. But, I feel almost ashamed as an American yacht racing fan. That would absolutely suck to pull into port after a couple grueling weeks at sea and find out that none of the people in the city or country cared. Granted, I'm certainly part of the problem for not going down there like everyone else, but it sounds like there's so many more issues than out of town fans not making it.

[DickDastardly]

links to Groupama international targets :
voiles et voiliers

Le Groupe Groupama se développe fortement à l'international, où nous réalisons près de 30 % de notre activité. Afin d'accompagner cette croissance, qui doit nous amener à figurer parmi les dix premiers assureurs européens en 2012, nous avons décidé de relever, avec Franck, ce nouveau défi, réellement international, auquel aucune équipe française n'a participé depuis plus de quinze ans avec Eric Tabarly (La Poste)>,

Groupama Groupe is growing a lot internationally, where we have nearly 30% of our activity.

and teh VOR is really an international race, the other alternative groupama contemplated at that time was the Americas cup, they did not followed that way because of the endless court case between LE and EB at that time... shame!

Thanks! Interesting now then that Groipama has re thought its priorities and pulled out. Suggests that they dont see huge benefit in the race for them in the new tougher environment, comprared to other items in their marketing budget.

What is also interesting is the reaffirmation that the French have largely ignored this race for some time. Not many French outfits seeing the value in global exposure.

[DickDastardly]

Worst: Much of our analysis comes down here in the basement, because much of the Miami effort was just shockingly bad. As jaded as we are, we were genuinely amazed at some of the decisions that led to the ghost town that was the Miami Stopover race village.

Let’s start with the selection of Miami itself. When Knut and the Board chose Miami over Newport, we wrote that it had the potential of being a good host location, but only if organizers were prepared to spend a metric shit-ton of money to promote and advertise to a population that wouldn’t know a racing yacht if it was dropped by a hurricane onto their house. We also wrote that the 2001 stopover debacle could only be repaired if the actual docking location and race village were somewhere that had a chance to get the foot traffic and visibility that would get the millions of locals and tourists to wonder just what was going on. Instead, the stopover port – a canal next to the Miami Heat arena and flanked by a downtown park – was virtually invisible unless you were standing on top of it. And since there is basically no foot traffic anywhere in downtown Miami, we tried a little experiment, driving to the village from every possible direction. In every case, we literally saw nothing until we were directly abeam of the canal cut. And at 30 mph, that view lasted for precisely 8 seconds. A couple of cool looking Volvo rally-style racing trucks in front of the North entrance looked more like parked construction vehicles than anything associated with the carnival atmosphere that the VOR village shoots for, and a huge concrete wall obstructed the entire village from view unless you were up in an office tower, where trees obstructed much of the park anyway. From the South, the arena is a massive monolith that prevented seeing anything VOR until, as we wrote earlier, you came around another concrete wall and the boats popped into view. For 8 seconds. Miami has far too much going on to expect any traction when you put an invisible race village in a spot with vehicle traffic only. It was our first “what were they thinking” moment.

But we really scratched our heads on the promotion and advertising, or lack thereof. Most visitors’ first look at a VOR comes at an airport, where they do a great job putting up posters, buy advertising spots on the wall, and erect cardboard cut-outs promoting the race. At least, they do that everywhere else but Miami. Maybe the MIA airport rates were too expensive for the organizer’s budget, but if we were typical tourists, we simply would never have known the Volvo was in town unless we were run over by a VO70 on its way out of the cut.

That’s not strictly true; we laughed our asses off when we saw organizers solution to ‘getting the word out’: Two of those yellow, generator-lit construction signs on Biscayne Blvd, one facing North and one South, that said “VOLVO OCEAN RACE” in yellow dots. We’re not joking, folks; the same race that plants 2 miles of beautiful, 8 foot wide LIFE AT THE EXTREME flags on every coastal road in the other stopover port, puts billboards up at every freeway entrance to those cities, and covers buses, supermarkets and DIY stores with VOR murals somehow thought that two fucking construction signs were the solution to their problems in the biggest city they visit on the entire nine-month odyssey. Strangely, we’re told that there were, in fact, flags and posters on Miami’s main drag, but that they were inexplicably removed on Tuesday, precisely when they were needed to show people where to go. Maybe someone forgot to pay the City’s bill? Whatever the reason, an inexcusable screw-up, and yet another reason why the total visitors to the Race Village were significantly less than the number of pervs packing into the EXXOTICA porn fair just down the road.

We sent a couple of Anarchy scouts down to South Beach to see if any of the tens of thousands of beachgoers on Saturday or Sunday knew what those brightly colored things were moving around the horizon. Out of a hundred random people asked the question, not a single person knew that it was a sailboat race. Not one. Apparently, oyster bars and car wash joints can afford to hire planes carrying those flying signs around the beach, but the VOR can’t. You might remember rumors about Sony Music working with the VOR to get huge artists to Miami to play the event (names like Shakira and U2 were bandied about), guaranteeing tens or hundreds of thousands of visitors and a smashing success to the stopover. That, like pretty much everything else that could have a real effect on a jaded and busy Miami public, didn’t happen. Instead, some random and unmemorable band spent the week clanging away in the race village with no one even noticing them. And speaking of bands, you might know about the “Cultural Exchange” that’s become a very cool part of the race; it’s when each venue sends over hundreds of native people, performers, or other colorful folks bedecked in costumes, dancing and singing and banging on things to show off their culture’s brightest and most interesting points as they bid goodbye to the fleet. Indigenous Brazilian warriors, Maori tribesmen, Chinese dragons – that kind of thing. You know what we sent to the dock to send the sailors off? A high school marching band. Seriously – that’s apparently the best we could do.

Radio, print, and TV dollars got spent on a week or two of advertising with little to no effect, while social media marketing fell completely flat. These are proven methods of driving up visitor counts, so why did they fail so spectacularly? Time, money, and the age-old problem of a European organization being unable to comprehend how things work in the USA. You might think more than a decade of crappy US stopovers would have taught them something, but as evidenced by the numbers, it didn’t. This is America, where marketing and PR was invented, and this is Miami, where glitz is everything. If you don’t stand out, you might as well not come at all.

The Miami marketing and advertising effort – or at least, its appearance -- was a quarter of the size of what we’ve seen in other stopovers, and that’s precisely the reverse of what you need to succeed here. The stopover’s PR company had just a few months of lead time to accomplish what other major events have two years for, and unlike in other ports, they had two major jobs: The first was to educate the public about the very existence of sailboat racing; the second, to get them to come check it out. To complicate matters, the local PR company hired by the local organizing group and the national PR company hired by the VOR didn’t really know what the other was doing, leading to major gaps in the promotional campaign. VOR staff and local organizers didn’t see eye-to-eye on some important issues, and despite the local group having some serious local marketing expertise, many of those issues ended up being decided by the VOR. In private conversations, some of the local organizing team were near tears at the stopover’s abject failure, while many of the US racing crews were shamed (if unsurprised) by the fact that their massive and wealthy country just didn’t seem to care about the race at all.

Good piece Clean, from a distance. But my economist brain says there is probably a chicken and egg thing happening here.

If the organisers and local authorities thought they had a hope of turning the stop over into something major with the right injection of commitment, support and funds, why wouldn't they? Perhaps they knew in advance that there was no way they could ever generate a signal to noise ratio that would attract the non-sailing public in any meaningful way in that part of the world?

If you're polishing a turd, don't waste too much polish. After all, you're polishing a turd.

[smackdaddy]

Cheers umpire. Not easy to blast people I know and respect, but hard to avoid the conclusions I reached without putting one's head in the sand.

That was a good story Clean. Nice work.

[armchairair]

this is going to piss off a lot of people - many of them my friends - but it's the way i see it. Apologies for hurt feelings; just doing my job.

mess in miami

I used to run major regatta reports with the title "The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly." I'm kind of insecure, though, and before anyone accused me of being a crappy, cliché-dependent title writer, I ditched it. Which pisses me off a little, because a three-level analysis is an awfully convenient way to report on an event.



The other day, a prominent sailor challenged me to 'not be so negative on Miami,' So rather than a 66% negative analysis, I'll go 50/50, and in the process, create a new grading system that will probably last as long as my attention span – a few weeks. It's the WWCD system, which stands for Worst-Weak-Competent-Divine, and the dopey acronym is a nod to just how insecure I am. I'll let you figure out what else it stands for. Hint, hint.



The Volvo Ocean Race Miami stopover was extremely important for both the race and for those looking at hosting or sponsoring major sailing events in the States, so it's essential to look at its successes and failures as objectively as possible without fear of hurting anyone's feelings. I probably can't afford any more enemies, but as the people who support our advertisers, you readers make my job possible. Because it is the best job in the world, I figure I owe you the same honesty that I expected back when I was just a reader myself, and the same honesty that's helped Sailing Anarchy become the world's most visited and dependable source for sailing information and entertainment. So let's get on with the analysis.



Divine: I am convinced that one of the reasons for the comparatively weak on-the-water turnout was that about ten million Miami boaters and friends of sailing were busy volunteering for the Volvo. Okay – maybe not that many, but the local stopover organizers and a volunteer army led by Wendy Kamilar (and a few other luminaries) did a laudable job on most everything. From the huge Course Marshall/Press Boat/Jury Boat fleets – nearly all of them donated, private boats from Coral Reef Yacht Club – to the sexy shoreside help, to crowd control, to those pumping things up via their own Facebook sites, it was a smiling and enthusiastic group that gave Miami's boaters a good name. For the VIPs, Miami was also a great stop. Volvo's hospitality people told us that uptake on invites to the stopover were huge while sponsor employees and guests themselves said it was a lucrative trip for business relationships. And why shouldn't it be? For the well-heeled Volvo or Berg client with a wallet full of fifties, the town rocks. Plenty of business deals happen in strip bars, posh restaurants, and nightclubs – three things that are better in Miami than perhaps anywhere in the Americas. Another bright spot on an otherwise inky-black page was the broadcast – not because the predominantly light air made it a great spectacle, but because organizers succeeded in getting the high-traffic Fox Sportsnet to carry it live throughout the Miami market. That's rare, and they should be proud of it.



Competent: When a pitifully small welcoming flotilla guided Leg 6 winning skipper (and sole US entry) PUMA through the finish line and into Government Cut earlier this month, we thought it was a sign that the departure fleet would be embarrassingly empty on the water for the In-Port Race and Leg 7 start. Saturday wasn't great, but Sunday saw, by our count, nearly 400 boats on the water spectating, and a lot of them were big, private luxury craft loaded with people. Volvo flew hundreds of its best sales people, affiliates, and clients from all over North America down to the town, and along with a big contingent of B to B guests from Telefonica's Latin American affiliates, they added literally boatloads of people to the on-water spectator count. For one of the largest boat-owning cities in the US it was still embarrassing – especially compared to the thousands-strong spectator fleets elsewhere – but it was a hell of a lot better than it could have been, and as Ken Read told us in the interview below, it gave the sailors a nice bit of morale as they raced. Back to broadcasting, we're glad to see the VOR getting more and more airplay in US markets. We've seen it in sports bars, we've seen it flipping through the satellite guide, and independent auditors say that quite a few North Americans are tuning in on a couple of different channels – or at least they have the opportunity to do so for the first time. We also want to give credit to local organizers for thinking outside the box in their promotion of the event, even if lack of follow-through and bad resource allocation meant that all their efforts were for nought. They had bloggers and social media consultants, they handed out 100,000 flyers at Miami Heat playoffs games, they hit local radio, and we're told there were flags and posters in quite a few spots – though, strangely, and as we'll detail below, those were gone almost a week before the race started.



Weak: We already mentioned the weak on-water welcome from US fans for the winning US skipper and nominally US team, but it bears repeating: You Florida sailors and boat owners should have done a lot better. We know you aren't going to bring 10,000 of your friends to the race village, but a couple hundred boatowners following PUMA in could really have done a lot for the US image of the race, not to mention the confidence and pride of US sailors by showing up for a major finish like this one. I guess it's part of the much larger problem you find when you choose a city like Miami for an event like this one: The Volvo Ocean Race doesn't even make a blip on the radar, even to sailors and boaters.



Another major problem, though one that wasn't really the Stopover or HQ's fault, was a nasty storm that literally flooded out the entire race village. When we arrived on Wednesday, the whole place looked like the active construction zone that made the 2001 stopover's location such a joke. Passersby would have been surprised to even know you could enter, much less that there was an entire race village filled with free attractions beyond the excavators and payloaders. We'll go into the deeper problems of promotion and marketing below, but this last-minute SNAFU, and the time and money it took to repair, made a bad problem much worse.



Worst: Much of our analysis comes down here in the basement, because much of the Miami effort was just shockingly bad. As jaded as we are, we were genuinely amazed at some of the decisions that led to the ghost town that was the Miami Stopover race village.



Let's start with the selection of Miami itself. When Knut and the Board chose Miami over Newport, we wrote that it had the potential of being a good host location, but only if organizers were prepared to spend a metric shit-ton of money to promote and advertise to a population that wouldn't know a racing yacht if it was dropped by a hurricane onto their house. We also wrote that the 2001 stopover debacle could only be repaired if the actual docking location and race village were somewhere that had a chance to get the foot traffic and visibility that would get the millions of locals and tourists to wonder just what was going on. Instead, the stopover port – a canal next to the Miami Heat arena and flanked by a downtown park – was virtually invisible unless you were standing on top of it. And since there is basically no foot traffic anywhere in downtown Miami, we tried a little experiment, driving to the village from every possible direction. In every case, we literally saw nothing until we were directly abeam of the canal cut. And at 30 mph, that view lasted for precisely 8 seconds. A couple of cool looking Volvo rally-style racing trucks in front of the North entrance looked more like parked construction vehicles than anything associated with the carnival atmosphere that the VOR village shoots for, and a huge concrete wall obstructed the entire village from view unless you were up in an office tower, where trees obstructed much of the park anyway. From the South, the arena is a massive monolith that prevented seeing anything VOR until, as we wrote earlier, you came around another concrete wall and the boats popped into view. For 8 seconds. Miami has far too much going on to expect any traction when you put an invisible race village in a spot with vehicle traffic only. It was our first "what were they thinking" moment.



But we really scratched our heads on the promotion and advertising, or lack thereof. Most visitors' first look at a VOR comes at an airport, where they do a great job putting up posters, buy advertising spots on the wall, and erect cardboard cut-outs promoting the race. At least, they do that everywhere else but Miami. Maybe the MIA airport rates were too expensive for the organizer's budget, but if we were typical tourists, we simply would never have known the Volvo was in town unless we were run over by a VO70 on its way out of the cut.



That's not strictly true; we laughed our asses off when we saw organizers solution to 'getting the word out': Two of those yellow, generator-lit construction signs on Biscayne Blvd, one facing North and one South, that said "VOLVO OCEAN RACE" in yellow dots. We're not joking, folks; the same race that plants 2 miles of beautiful, 8 foot wide LIFE AT THE EXTREME flags on every coastal road in the other stopover port, puts billboards up at every freeway entrance to those cities, and covers buses, supermarkets and DIY stores with VOR murals somehow thought that two fucking construction signs were the solution to their problems in the biggest city they visit on the entire nine-month odyssey. Strangely, we're told that there were, in fact, flags and posters on Miami's main drag, but that they were inexplicably removed on Tuesday, precisely when they were needed to show people where to go. Maybe someone forgot to pay the City's bill? Whatever the reason, an inexcusable screw-up, and yet another reason why the total visitors to the Race Village were significantly less than the number of pervs packing into the EXXOTICA porn fair just down the road.



We sent a couple of Anarchy scouts down to South Beach to see if any of the tens of thousands of beachgoers on Saturday or Sunday knew what those brightly colored things were moving around the horizon. Out of a hundred random people asked the question, not a single person knew that it was a sailboat race. Not one. Apparently, oyster bars and car wash joints can afford to hire planes carrying those flying signs around the beach, but the VOR can't. You might remember rumors about Sony Music working with the VOR to get huge artists to Miami to play the event (names like Shakira and U2 were bandied about), guaranteeing tens or hundreds of thousands of visitors and a smashing success to the stopover. That, like pretty much everything else that could have a real effect on a jaded and busy Miami public, didn't happen. Instead, some random and unmemorable band spent the week clanging away in the race village with no one even noticing them. And speaking of bands, you might know about the "Cultural Exchange" that's become a very cool part of the race; it's when each venue sends over hundreds of native people, performers, or other colorful folks bedecked in costumes, dancing and singing and banging on things to show off their culture's brightest and most interesting points as they bid goodbye to the fleet. Indigenous Brazilian warriors, Maori tribesmen, Chinese dragons – that kind of thing. You know what we sent to the dock to send the sailors off? A high school marching band. Seriously – that's apparently the best we could do.



Radio, print, and TV dollars got spent on a week or two of advertising with little to no effect, while social media marketing fell completely flat. These are proven methods of driving up visitor counts, so why did they fail so spectacularly? Time, money, and the age-old problem of a European organization being unable to comprehend how things work in the USA. You might think more than a decade of crappy US stopovers would have taught them something, but as evidenced by the numbers, it didn't. This is America, where marketing and PR was invented, and this is Miami, where glitz is everything. If you don't stand out, you might as well not come at all.



The Miami marketing and advertising effort – or at least, its appearance -- was a quarter of the size of what we've seen in other stopovers, and that's precisely the reverse of what you need to succeed here. The stopover's PR company had just a few months of lead time to accomplish what other major events have two years for, and unlike in other ports, they had two major jobs: The first was to educate the public about the very existence of sailboat racing; the second, to get them to come check it out. To complicate matters, the local PR company hired by the local organizing group and the national PR company hired by the VOR didn't really know what the other was doing, leading to major gaps in the promotional campaign. VOR staff and local organizers didn't see eye-to-eye on some important issues, and despite the local group having some serious local marketing expertise, many of those issues ended up being decided by the VOR. In private conversations, some of the local organizing team were near tears at the stopover's abject failure, while many of the US racing crews were shamed (if unsurprised) by the fact that their massive and wealthy country just didn't seem to care about the race at all.



Final Thoughts:



In hindsight, Newport would have been a much bigger success in terms of foot traffic and exposure than Miami, even if only the local sailors turned out. From the fan standpoint, it's a much better choice of venue for an event like this, if only because there are dozens of passionate sailing populations within a stone's throw of the sailing-crazy town. The actual micro-location may or may not have been an issue, but certainly, in the future, venues must be chosen that put the show in the center of the action – not out on a commercial strip where people never go anyway. Organizers and sponsors might claim that Miami was a far better venue to attract their clients and B to B networks, but that avoids a really important reality for the long-term success of the race: If you focus only on what works best for a few thousand commercial customers, you lose the public. If you lose the public, all that's left is those well-heeled customers, and they want to be part of something special and something grand – not a private party for them alone. But if you make financial and venue decisions to maximize public appeal and exposure, you grow the event's stature and visibility, and then you have an engaged public and happy corporate VIPs. Oh, and bring back something on the water to hold the public's attention during the stopover – the Extreme 40s in the otherwise unremarkable city of Baltimore were widely credited with the best turnout and overall stopover since the 90s.



Miami is one of a very few black marks on an otherwise brilliant race effort from almost every metric, and there's no denying that, even for more prominent sports than yacht racing, the US is an extremely tough nut to crack. As the VOR rolls into their venue selection process for the next race, we hope they learn from their mistakes.



Paul Todd photos, and note that these are the ones they used because they showed the biggest public turnout of the week. Ugh.

I have really mixed feelings after reading this, mostly because I was so regretting not going down to Miami for the weekend. On one hand it looks like we could have really gotten close to the action and met some of the guys. But, I feel almost ashamed as an American yacht racing fan. That would absolutely suck to pull into port after a couple grueling weeks at sea and find out that none of the people in the city or country cared. Granted, I'm certainly part of the problem for not going down there like everyone else, but it sounds like there's so many more issues than out of town fans not making it.

After missing the US ports from the last two VOR in NY and Boston (and we are from the NE!) and regretting it, we decided we would bite the bullet and go to Miami for what we hoped would be Puma's 1st place arrival from Itajai. We scored there, but shortly after PUMA's arrival and awards a sassy storm blew stink and rained heavily flooding the race village as we prepared for Camper's arrival. We all hunkered down in our respective shelters as Camper also rode it out somewhere after their finish because as soon as the sun came back out, there they were, arriving to our small-in-number cheers.

As we made our way to the Volvo pavilion when it started to shower again, where we expected the iconic awards and champagne bath to take place, we were summarily herded out of the race village because of the flooding I suppose. The storm was over. We had traveled thousands of miles for this event and we got kicked out. Bummer! And to add icing to the bummer cake when we returned at 10 pm to greet Groupama and Telefonica we were NOT allowed into the venu. No go. Nada. So we were forced to do our cheering across the canal as Mr. Clean calls it.

So our humble fan experience seems to reflect and parallel Mr. Clean's experience at the "big boy" behind the scenes level. We did hang around for the first week in the near empty village meeting some great folks. I trust that Newport would have offered an entirely more exuberant experience. We felt like strangers in a strange land. The place did not seem geared at all towards those of us currently following the race. It seemed weird and a loss on all sides. Oh well, I'm glad that Mr. Clean has set out his experience which helps put ours into perspective. THANKS, Clean! I'm diggin' your interviews by the way.

[Icedtea]

Voiles et voiliers just put out a "scoop " email saying next race was going to be a farr one-design. FOCK

[GybeSet®]

What is happening to the VOR race regarding the boat design is not in the best interests of the race, sailors, engineers, shore crew, sponsors or any current stake holders at all.

The fact is, a small CARTEL of boat building firms together with FYD

FoYD

is he back?

[Poseidius]

Voiles et Voiliers article :" Volvo Ocean Race 2014 : a Farr One Design for the next edition !"
English translation at the bottom of the page : http://www.voilesetv...monotype-farr-/

[Alakaluf]

Scoop
The next Volvo Ocean Race will be on Farr One Design.
All the details, here, in French AND in English !

www.voilesetvoiliers.com/course-regate/volvo-ocean-race-scoop-la-prochaine-volvo-devrait-se-courir-sur-monotype-farr-/

Best,
HH

[Presuming Ed]

Major kick in the teeth for JK.A pretty bullshit move if they didn't even ask for a proposal.

[thetruth]

Same team that choose kite boarding? What the fuck is wrong with our sport?

Major kick in the teeth for JK.

[thetruth]

And Jamie Boag and Ian Walker will market it?

[Presuming Ed]

Same team that choose kite boarding?

??? Same team??? What on earth does ISAF decision wrt boards and kiteboards have to do with the VOR organisation's decision to go to a Farr designed one design?

[umpire]

Same team that choose kite boarding?

??? Same team??? What on earth does ISAF decision wrt boards and kiteboards have to do with the VOR organisation's decision to go to a Farr designed one design?

My sentiments exactly.

[thetruth]

Jesus Umpire what part do YOU miss? How someone in the past gets a deal ahead of someone that has won/will win the last 3 editions of the race?

Same team that choose kite boarding?

??? Same team??? What on earth does ISAF decision wrt boards and kiteboards have to do with the VOR organisation's decision to go to a Farr designed one design?

[thetruth]

As stupid and irrational pal

Same team that choose kite boarding?

??? Same team??? What on earth does ISAF decision wrt boards and kiteboards have to do with the VOR organisation's decision to go to a Farr designed one design?

[Steve Clark]

Designing a class of one design boats is different than designing a custom boat within a box rule.
Assuming the goal is to provide equal and durable boats, you walk away from the bleeding edge of structural optimization and toward the comfort of production reliability.
Factors of safety in the critical areas ( like forward of the mast) can be increased across the board.
Some times designers forget this, and try to deliver grand prix expectations on production budgets, and that doesn't end well.

Farr Yacht designs does have a pretty significant track record in larger one designs, and because they are not involved with an America's Cup, probably can be more responsive to this client.
This isn't to say that an RFP process would look less like a stitch up.....but thats he way things are done in his sport, like it or not.

On a further note, it is another step down the decline for custom race yacht builders. America's Cup is down three or four players, some with their own in house shops. TP 52 is dead or dying, and Volvo has gone one design. Not much left is there?
THE SPORT THAT KILLS ITSELF CONTINUES TO STAY THE COURSE.
SHC

[bruno]

First, Miami has produced some excellent sailors and I'm there are some there today. But unless the culture has changed alot, its not really a yachting town with a large local base. most of the racing yachtsman there over the course of the year are from elsewhere, even if elsewhere includes Ft Lauderdale. There actually are more local racers there, as I recall. So hosting a stop is a natural fit for Miami interms of geography and weather, etc., but not really a great fit in terms of native culture, IMHO. A good corrollary is Honolulu, great sailing venue with a thin yacht racing culture. If the VR came to Honolulu would anyone stop paddling, surfing, etc., long enough to visit?

2nd, the whole point I thought of the V70 was to differentiate from the Imoca 60. In 2001 the French guys were garnering notice as the more technically advanced 60 fters racing around the world and they wanted to sex it up beyond that. There was a conscious desire to go up market. That succeeded too well and it has become the AC of global racing rather than the F1. Do they really need near aviation quality build and maintenance to be interesting? Do the wages for top crew justify their value? Does a traveling road show of dependants and flacks really constitue much of the human interst story of what was a harrowing race filled with deprivation and sacrifice? Isn't really becoming just an upmarket snob's reality show? Maybe.

Do "we" need OD to save "us"? I think that the racing is intersting, the class has been developed enough to near OD perfermance, regardless of GD's assertions, and rule stabilty is usually in the best interest of racers unless there is some vicious typeforming. If teams want to blow up their budget that's their business. What the otganizers might consider is leaning themselves down, reducing their footprint, and allowing teams to be competitive forless, they so choose.

[umpire]

Jesus Umpire what part do YOU miss? How someone in the past gets a deal ahead of someone that has won/will win the last 3 editions of the race?

Same team that choose kite boarding?

??? Same team??? What on earth does ISAF decision wrt boards and kiteboards have to do with the VOR organisation's decision to go to a Farr designed one design?

And your point is ?

[GBH]

Designing a class of one design boats is different than designing a custom boat within a box rule.
Assuming the goal is to provide equal and durable boats, you walk away from the bleeding edge of structural optimization and toward the comfort of production reliability.
Factors of safety in the critical areas ( like forward of the mast) can be increased across the board.
Some times designers forget this, and try to deliver grand prix expectations on production budgets, and that doesn't end well.

Farr Yacht designs does have a pretty significant track record in larger one designs, and because they are not involved with an America's Cup, probably can be more responsive to this client.
This isn't to say that an RFP process would look less like a stitch up.....but thats he way things are done in his sport, like it or not.

On a further note, it is another step down the decline for custom race yacht builders. America's Cup is down three or four players, some with their own in house shops. TP 52 is dead or dying, and Volvo has gone one design. Not much left is there?
THE SPORT THAT KILLS ITSELF CONTINUES TO STAY THE COURSE.
SHC

+1 And what happened the last time this was tried with the Maxi OD 80's? Nobody fronted up except for some Mickey Mouse campaigns on the 'circuit' that they had. I raced on that, the boats were ordinary and already well behind the times when they came out.

One of the few areas of interest in the Volvo is with some boat variations and when that goes then you might as well race the Clipper fleet around! Big yawn - and then if IMOCA go the same way the field will be ripe for surprise surprise a genuinely new development class!
Only people that like this are the chosen designers who will make major bucks with no real pressure to move the game along.

[NFI]

if this new one design is too conservative, and smaller than 70ft, it could end up being slower than an Open 60.

That wont be a good look for the worlds premier crewed ocean race.

[DickDastardly]

Seems to me the real issue at pay is how to make the race commercially attractive. Volvo want exposure that matters in their target market/s. The actual boat doesn't matter too much. Look at the leg underway right now. Would it be any less exciting if the boats were all Clipper Fleet one designs? Nope.

But - look at the proposition posed by the next edition and how it will appeal to the various markets (ignoring the shore based component for now).

"10 identical boats raced around the world by hard core multinational professional crews"

• National Interest? Zero. Multinational, professional crews. Where heavily national sponsors are involved we may get nationally based crews I guess.
• Human Interest? Limited to zero - none of the professional sailors involved have any public profile to speak of outside the sailing fraternity. And as they are just professionals getting paid to put up with this hardship non-sailors won't relate to them. In fact Clipper Race stories would be be way more interesting if they had the same level of media exposure attached - the crews are just punters.
• Competitive interest amongst the sailing fraternity? Could be great - one designs will make the actual racing tight and interesting.
• Competitive interest amongst the non-sailing fraternity? Limited - tight and interesting racing but without much reason for spectators to get excited about one boat or another (no human or national interest) - who cares? If there's gambling involved of course, then that all changes.
• Technical interest amongst the sailing fraternity? Zero - one designs.

Overall Fail - and it's not all about the boat.

[couchsurfer]

Seems to me the real issue at pay is how to make the race commercially attractive. Volvo want exposure that matters in their target market/s. The actual boat doesn't matter too much. Look at the leg underway right now. Would it be any less exciting if the boats were all Clipper Fleet one designs? Nope.

But - look at the proposition posed by the next edition and how it will appeal to the various markets (ignoring the shore based component for now).

"10 identical boats raced around the world by hard core multinational professional crews"

• National Interest? Zero. Multinational, professional crews. Where heavily national sponsors are involved we may get nationally based crews I guess.
• Human Interest? Limited to zero - none of the professional sailors involved have any public profile to speak of outside the sailing fraternity. And as they are just professionals getting paid to put up with this hardship non-sailors won't relate to them. In fact Clipper Race stories would be be way more interesting if they had the same level of media exposure attached - the crews are just punters.
• Competitive interest amongst the sailing fraternity? Could be great - one designs will make the actual racing tight and interesting.
• Competitive interest amongst the non-sailing fraternity? Limited - tight and interesting racing but without much reason for spectators to get excited about one boat or another (no human or national interest) - who cares? If there's gambling involved of course, then that all changes.
• Technical interest amongst the sailing fraternity? Zero - one designs.

Overall Fail - and it's not all about the boat.

...how about manning the volvo OD's with the self-funding clipper-punters!!?
...it'd save more bux,and make for one VERY compelling reality series

[Swanno (Ohf Shore)]

Does anyone else think the next VOR will be raced in beefed up versions of this:

http://www.farrdesign.com/604-2.htm
http://www.farrdesig...m/604photos.htm

[couchsurfer]

Does anyone else think the next VOR will be raced in beefed up versions of this:

http://www.farrdesign.com/604-2.htm
http://www.farrdesign.com/604photos.htm

....probably not--the canting keels have not had any significant issues this race,,that'd be an unnecessary step-down
...........''The STP 65 has a standard underwater package, meaning no canting keel, just a “lifting” keel and standard rudder configuration. The keel accommodates a draft of approximately 4.8 meters in its down position and 3.0 meters when fully retracted, facilitating entry into shallow harbors or marinas as part of the class rule, the lifting feature is not allowed while racing.''

[nroose]

Does anyone else think the next VOR will be raced in beefed up versions of this:

http://www.farrdesign.com/604-2.htm
http://www.farrdesign.com/604photos.htm

I dig that rule. I think they would be a great class to get going. And clearly less costly to run than the current Volvo boats. But I don't think they would be quite spectacular enough to follow in the shoes of the VO70s.

[bruno]

I vote for lingerie league 100'ers with cameras in the staterooms, crewes selected from Miss Universe contestants over the past ten years, lots of ports equals more shopping opportunities, scores combined elapsed leg time and bargains gained in each stopover, limited by the closet, sorry, hanging locker each girl gets issued. Secondary market in locker space and locker futures allowed so hthe smart ones can strut their stuff. And halfway the Donald gets to fire the biggest loser, who gets sent ahead on a redemption freighter to the next port after giving all their gifts away at tribal council, thereby setting up the revenge scenario...

[dogwatch]

If teams want to blow up their budget that's their business.

Well no, it's not when the event is heading towards economic oblivion.

[DickDastardly]

I vote for lingerie league 100'ers with cameras in the staterooms, crewes selected from Miss Universe contestants over the past ten years, lots of ports equals more shopping opportunities, scores combined elapsed leg time and bargains gained in each stopover, limited by the closet, sorry, hanging locker each girl gets issued. Secondary market in locker space and locker futures allowed so hthe smart ones can strut their stuff. And halfway the Donald gets to fire the biggest loser, who gets sent ahead on a redemption freighter to the next port after giving all their gifts away at tribal council, thereby setting up the revenge scenario...

They sail nude of course.

[Presuming Ed]

^
It's common for transoceanic oarsmen/women to row nude. Reduces chafe.

[Flying Wasp]

Like I said, question your assumptions. I suggest that the public doesn't actually know who is sponsoring what, and that the name on the side of the boat is often a small part of the story.

You don't need to take too many orders for 100 giant dump trucks to make just about any sponsorship agreement pay. Same with Berg Propulsion, who I think will likely be back for the next race with or without PUMA. Know what a new ship's propellor costs? Somewhere between say 500k and a million. You know how many ships the average Berg hospitality client owns or manages? 200.

Note something: I do not believe that the B to B/hospitality part of the race is the more important part - quite the opposite. I think the race MUST focus on building its fan base while maximizing stopover footfall and mainstream exposure. In my eyes, if you focus on only the corporates and the experience for the wealthy, you lose the fans and the general public. Once you lose them, it stops being one of those "must-do" events, and instead of feeling special, the VIPs start feeling like pampered fools, paying attention to something no one else is. If you focus on the fans, the media, and getting max crowds, you create the kind of atmosphere that everyone - the poor and rich alike - want to get in on.

There's the event organizers and the sponsors, two different groups with two different needs. There is no race without the sponsors and so they come first. Not saying that's right, but it is what it is.

Sponsors could give a fuck less about getting people interested in a new or different sport or attracting fans to a company's boat. Those metrics simply are not part of the ROI on an event investment like the VOR. You might gauge some level of pre and post brand awareness numbers to see what's popping, and you almost might include overall impressions if you're trying to build a pst-event case for what you did. But, in the end, these things need to be about building relationships and closing deals during and after. The people who care about building interest in the sport are the race organizers. Boat sponsors have a myriad of options open to them and their sponsorship dollars and will ultimately go with the one that is the best fit for their business strategy and target audiences.

I worked on Jim Beam bourbon for a few years and they had a fairly significant investment in NASCAR to the tune of about $10 million a year. That $10 m got them about 30% of a car for the season. When you line up on the grid in NASCAR you have 2.5% share of voice at the start, and only decreases unless you're running in the top 3. The awareness numbers simply do not support the investment. However, the corporate suite which their top distributors and retail clients want tickets to is where the action is. Ultimately Beam has shifted dollars to other places that it now sees to be potentially more effective. It all comes down to what they need to do from a business perspective and no corporate sponsor in interested in using their dollars to grow a sport.

[DickDastardly]

Does anyone else think the next VOR will be raced in beefed up versions of this:

http://www.farrdesign.com/604-2.htm
http://www.farrdesign.com/604photos.htm

I dig that rule. I think they would be a great class to get going. And clearly less costly to run than the current Volvo boats. But I don't think they would be quite spectacular enough to follow in the shoes of the VO70s.

One of the main reasons to move to a one design rule is that bleeding edge high tech becomes unnecessary. Sure it seems that chanting keels are now reliable and a great performance booster but a one design fleet will still be much more reliable and waaaay cheaper to build and operate without them. And the racing would be no less compelling. Look at the current leg - great to watch, but it's the closeness of the boats not their outright speed that is generating the interest right now.

I'd be surprised if canting keels were part of the mix.

[onimod]

^ The speed of the boats has a lot to do with the closeness of a lot of the racing we've seen.
Slower boats will not rubber band back together as quickly as the current boats.

[diggler]

While I agree speed in and of itself is not a vital part of interesting racing, the people who are saying the boats could be clippers and the race would be no different or less interesting are not giving a single thought to weather routing. Big, broad, polar performance curves mean far more strategic options, choices, and possibilities. This is interesting both for the hardcore sailing geek and the general public alike. No the public at large won't get the finer points, but some big fleet splits and updates from the boat talking about how hard it is to decide whether to turn left or right, and when, are simple things to understand and make for more talking points and more interest all around.

Go to significantly slower (ie, non-canting keel) boats, and the race changes significantly. Less passing lanes, less opportunities for trailing boats to gain back miles, fewer chances of big fleet splits, more time spent in exciting sailing areas like the doldrums. Of course we will be back to the 60 days of fleets getting overtaken by SO storms and given a solid ass whooping. Whether all this is good or bad is debatable. I personally rate it as bad. It the fleet is spread out over 20nm instead of 200nm it is not necessarily any more interesting racing if it is a procession due to limited passing opportunities.

Edit: and omnimod managed to say that in a much much more succinct manner.

[DickDastardly]

While I agree speed in and of itself is not a vital part of interesting racing, the people who are saying the boats could be clippers and the race would be no different or less interesting are not giving a single thought to weather routing. Big, broad, polar performance curves mean far more strategic options, choices, and possibilities. This is interesting both for the hardcore sailing geek and the general public alike. No the public at large won't get the finer points, but some big fleet splits and updates from the boat talking about how hard it is to decide whether to turn left or right, and when, are simple things to understand and make for more talking points and more interest all around.

Go to significantly slower (ie, non-canting keel) boats, and the race changes significantly. Less passing lanes, less opportunities for trailing boats to gain back miles, fewer chances of big fleet splits, more time spent in exciting sailing areas like the doldrums. Of course we will be back to the 60 days of fleets getting overtaken by SO storms and given a solid ass whooping. Whether all this is good or bad is debatable. I personally rate it as bad. It the fleet is spread out over 20nm instead of 200nm it is not necessarily any more interesting racing if it is a procession due to limited passing opportunities.

Edit: and omnimod managed to say that in a much much more succinct manner.

Thoughtful post. Makes plenty of sense.

[shanghaisailor]

First, you must grasp the concept of the VOR being nothing more than a business - it's not a design competition or man and machine V mother nature. The success or failure of a VOR campaign is based solely on what return they get for their investment. If the VOR can bring in cost saving measures i.e. OD fleet, whilst keeping the media and fan interaction integrity at least intact, if not improve, the advantages from a sponsors perspective are two fold - lower barrier to entry and increased rate of return.

Common Sense Speaks at last. So much of the comment here is so badly informed - like they were not born BJ (before JuanK) He has hit it right with the VOR70 but has designed some dogs along gthe way too, Ask about Maiden HK for example! And Farr ruled the roost in the VOR 60 days and maxis beofre that. Whoever is chosen, suggeswtions of two designeers to chose from would hardly be one design would it?

Costs have to be controlled - especialy at this stage in the global ecconomic cycle- and it is not just the VOR doing this, Motor Racing's F1 is too, even the Olympics - why else would they limit the number of athletes in Sailing?

It is always easy to criticise something from the outside or when you are not spending your own dollars or you are not involved or have family memebers and friends involved.

anyway, eyes are shutting

See ya on the water

SS

[onimod]

I started typing the long winded reply earlier but gave up and posted the short one instead (I'm not a fan of typing in bed unless I have to).
These boats appear to be in a real sweet spot - they're fast enough to do all those things that diggler pointed out but then they're not quite fast enough to sail right around the weather problems (see Banque Populaire V).
In simple terms if the boats aren't fast enough then their options are reduced and I'm pretty sure the race will be less interesting to watch.
I don't think it matters how many boats you have if they're all going to do (or are only capable of) the same thing.

[onimod]

First, you must grasp the concept of the VOR being nothing more than a business - it's not a design competition or man and machine V mother nature. The success or failure of a VOR campaign is based solely on what return they get for their investment. If the VOR can bring in cost saving measures i.e. OD fleet, whilst keeping the media and fan interaction integrity at least intact, if not improve, the advantages from a sponsors perspective are two fold - lower barrier to entry and increased rate of return.

Common Sense Speaks at last. So much of the comment here is so badly informed - like they were not born BJ (before JuanK) He has hit it right with the VOR70 but has designed some dogs along gthe way too, Ask about Maiden HK for example! And Farr ruled the roost in the VOR 60 days and maxis beofre that. Whoever is chosen, suggeswtions of two designeers to chose from would hardly be one design would it?

Costs have to be controlled - especialy at this stage in the global ecconomic cycle- and it is not just the VOR doing this, Motor Racing's F1 is too, even the Olympics - why else would they limit the number of athletes in Sailing?

It is always easy to criticise something from the outside or when you are not spending your own dollars or you are not involved or have family memebers and friends involved.

anyway, eyes are shutting

See ya on the water

SS

Except that we already know the that OD being offered saves bugger all over the current boat.
Simple exchange rate fluctuations mean that the OD option could be even more expensive than some of the current boats in 3 years time.
Boat cost saving is not the issue, or if it is then people really do have their heads in the sand.
I'd like to see more detail of the Ken Read cost savings options.
In general terms I totally agree with the need to reduce costs; I'm just not necessarily convinced that a new class is the solution.

[catmanjr]

I can't see why no one has made this reference yet, and if they have. Excuse me.
1993-4 VOR, with the introduction of the Whitbread 60, sounding the death knell for the maxis in future races.

'The new boat was conceived to keep down costs. They were less expensive to build, maintain and campaign than the maxis. They were also light, strong, agile and fast.'


Hmm...
As much as I dislike the whole one design idea over box rule. It makes sense for the 2014.

[Heriberto]

When the Whitbread 60 was introduced, the entries went from 23 in the maxi era to 14 entries in the first W60 race. The next race they went down to 10 entries. The next race they went down to 8 teams and they haven't had more than that since (2001). The boats were slower than the Open 60 that single-handers were taking around the world. The Volvo race barely survived until they changed the boats to the VOR Open 70. I confess I had no interest in it at all, and as Ken Read says, you need the rabid sailing fans to sell the "product" to the masses. If you can't interest sailors, who can you interest?

The first year of the Open 70, they had 7 boats. The next race they had 8 boats, and this race they have 6 boats, but the interest in the race has increased greatly. Sanya with a budget team, budget program and second generation boat is just about competitive (enough to keep up anyway) with the Gen3 boats. Certainly competitive enough to keep their sponsor happy. The next speed improvement is going to be even more marginal, meaning these Gen3 boats would be easily as competitive or more so with the Gen4 boats. This is especially if cost containment and enhanced safety scantlings are imposed on the new boats. That means current teams could sell their boats to offset a new boat price, and/or new teams could get in by buying a Gen3 boat at a discount. Certainly less than the proposed OD boats would cost a new team, and if the goal is to get new teams, why would you obsolete the current fleet and investment?

I've mentioned before that the real way to contain costs is to, uh, actually contain costs. Plenty of other sports do this, so don't say it's impossible. They have salary caps, they have revenue sharing (not applicable), they have all sorts of accounting controls. They are talking about allowing two-boat teams in these OD boats! Talk about out of control costs, Good God!

[roca]

+1000 diggler and heriberto, thanks for explaining so well very obvious facts.

I will add a quote of myself from another topic (those who read in the other topic please excuse me, but it probably fits better this discussion) for a couple more reason for this class to be way better than OD.

Turn that around. Why would you bother with non one-design boats when the racing is this close? What's the point of this box rule?

because this is the way this sport evolves; as someone else said here, think how open60's (and also VO's) innovations in last 20-30 years deeply changed and improved any sailing boat existing from cruising to sport boats. HOw do you think we will get SAFE and less expensive carbon rigging splicing on our cruising boats in 5 years time if not by this guys taking these to the limit now?..think of all the foredeck equipment developed, think on how sails have improved from last race and how this will land to your cruising sails in short time...(and how it already has..)
One design is the end of this.
Second aspect: I think it has always been part of this race the fact to let the best teams , doing a long project and with good organisation in developing a boat have some advantage. I do not like the fact that you can just put 8 superstar sailor together one month before start and have a competitive team, find a chinese sponsor put some stickers and sell the package. I loved reading on magazines about erickson building in their factory in sweden, or about they putting a base in lanzarote and how they trained, tested, and also waiting for new desingns, seeing the french modify the cockpit to their habits, the camper forestay innovation etc. etc. This makes for real continuum of interest in between races and give someone the chance to sell his project and to differentiate from others.
Even the silly talking about dogs and rockets are part of the "contents" which entertain us (and we are the most passionate fans of this race).
This rule now is known enough to guarantee nice racing, with differnt point of strenght and weakness between the boats, this also makes tactics more interesting. Ian walker today live from boat (great these interviews from the ocean) explaining how they tried to make the best routing choices for their boat strenght and now strong in front of the fleet...camper having different strenghts (upwind?)
Leave one design to olympics!!
And at last it is clear that there will be no big changes in costs, when you save 2-3 millions on a 20 budget you do not change the game. And 6 to 10 existing boats good for trash bin (let's say a 10-15 millons loss for the existing teams and sponsors). There were more effective ways to reduce the costs. For sure sticking to a rule which is now well known and therefore cost-effective.

[nroose]

When the Whitbread 60 was introduced, the entries went from 23 in the maxi era to 14 entries in the first W60 race. The next race they went down to 10 entries. The next race they went down to 8 teams and they haven't had more than that since (2001). The boats were slower than the Open 60 that single-handers were taking around the world. The Volvo race barely survived until they changed the boats to the VOR Open 70. I confess I had no interest in it at all, and as Ken Read says, you need the rabid sailing fans to sell the "product" to the masses. If you can't interest sailors, who can you interest?

The first year of the Open 70, they had 7 boats. The next race they had 8 boats, and this race they have 6 boats, but the interest in the race has increased greatly. Sanya with a budget team, budget program and second generation boat is just about competitive (enough to keep up anyway) with the Gen3 boats. Certainly competitive enough to keep their sponsor happy. The next speed improvement is going to be even more marginal, meaning these Gen3 boats would be easily as competitive or more so with the Gen4 boats. This is especially if cost containment and enhanced safety scantlings are imposed on the new boats. That means current teams could sell their boats to offset a new boat price, and/or new teams could get in by buying a Gen3 boat at a discount. Certainly less than the proposed OD boats would cost a new team, and if the goal is to get new teams, why would you obsolete the current fleet and investment?

I've mentioned before that the real way to contain costs is to, uh, actually contain costs. Plenty of other sports do this, so don't say it's impossible. They have salary caps, they have revenue sharing (not applicable), they have all sorts of accounting controls. They are talking about allowing two-boat teams in these OD boats! Talk about out of control costs, Good God!

I agree with you in theory about using previous gen boats, but I am guessing that Sanya's experience with breakdowns will preclude any future team from using a previous gen boat. I know that is not fully rational, but many of the people making decisions will likely take the Sanya experience as a serious downside to recycling.

[couchsurfer]

I started typing the long winded reply earlier but gave up and posted the short one instead (I'm not a fan of typing in bed unless I have to).
These boats appear to be in a real sweet spot - they're fast enough to do all those things that diggler pointed out but then they're not quite fast enough to sail right around the weather problems (see Banque Populaire V).
In simple terms if the boats aren't fast enough then their options are reduced and I'm pretty sure the race will be less interesting to watch.
I don't think it matters how many boats you have if they're all going to do (or are only capable of) the same thing.

..good points,,,just can't see them dropping the canters now that they've worked the 'bugs' out .
......PS...I'da thrown the laptop awhile ago
 laptop distraction.jpg   26.28K   49 downloads

[Presuming Ed]

Whoever is chosen, suggeswtions of two designeers to chose from would hardly be one design would it?

Nobody's suggesting that there would be 2 designs for competitors to choose from. But normally, when going through this sort of process, you send out an RFP, hold a beauty parade etc. Check out some competing preliminary proposals. Given that boats designed by JK have won both races held in VO70s, it's pretty poor to exclude him from even that.

[Heriberto]

I agree with you in theory about using previous gen boats, but I am guessing that Sanya's experience with breakdowns will preclude any future team from using a previous gen boat. I know that is not fully rational, but many of the people making decisions will likely take the Sanya experience as a serious downside to recycling.

Not all the boats would have the same resale value, but I"m guessing at least three, maybe four of these boats are worth something....

Seriously though, Sanya's rudder problem apparently was hitting something, nothing to be done. In the first race they also may have hit something, or maybe launching off a giant wave was enough. It was enough to break ADOR's mast on the same leg. Aside from those, they broke a spar fitting, and sheared their winch pedestal out. That last one would worry me, but I'm guessing there have been structural improvements from Gen2 to Gen3.

In the first leg Puma broke a mast fitting (and it sounds like there was a known reason for that) and lost their mast. Since then has there been a more solid boat?

[bruno]

If teams want to blow up their budget that's their business.

Well no, it's not when the event is heading towards economic oblivion.

Half full or half empty: Frostad has touted the fact that they had a 6 boat fleet at the nadir (or just past it depending pn location) of the current downturn. Proactive management is looking to where the cycle will be at the target date, reactive is planning for today's conditions as a constant 3(or 4, if they really want to save money) years out.
Cost containment is possible, of course, with audited books but yachting more than perhaps any other sport allows cheating opportunities. E.g. find a surrogate similar yacht that hires ypur crew for training and racing, no one of the current competitors has engaged in that, have they?

[roca]

Cost containment is possible, of course, with audited books but yachting more than perhaps any other sport allows cheating opportunities. E.g. find a surrogate similar yacht that hires ypur crew for training and racing, no one of the current competitors has engaged in that, have they?

I do not agree that yachting is different from other sports, (see F1 racing and red bull...); VOR is very small world easy to control, important point is to make good clear rules and make them observed (see sails...in this race)
many teams have had old gen boats to train before new ones, but that was regolated and no cheating happened (eriksson, puma, groupama this time around)

[roca]

[I agree with you in theory about using previous gen boats, but I am guessing that Sanya's experience with breakdowns will preclude any future team from using a previous gen boat. I know that is not fully rational, but many of the people making decisions will likely take the Sanya experience as a serious downside to recycling.

I think that most problem for sanya depend on having taken boat in hand just a few weeks before race start, they could not make proper work to be ready, plus they had some collision. Their speed problem is probably not very big and could probably depend more on sails developement and crew work, than boat design, + karma which after early failures can be low. Groupama has been said to prefer old-eriksson4 to the new boat at a certain point, but probably couldn't waste the new one...
They are today 2 miles in front of groupama and 7 behind camper after more than 2000 miles in different wind conditions.

Soldini could not take part in this race even with a 2nd hand boat unfortunately and didn't even get 10 millions budget, they would have needed much more with new OD. I bet if VO70 were still in charge he would try again next time with maserati....

[LeoV]

OD cost effective, a myth.

My solution, just looking at costs.With a grain of salt to be taken.

CREW:
4 crew, two unmarried under 30 (the partner of these can come on own budget if really in love)
1 sailor, one mechanic, one weather guy, one boatbuilder, skills to be tested by peers.
This saves a bunch of costs, boat will be more design to protect the sailor, the kit will be stronger, easier to makes mistakes.

BOAT;
Canting keel packet for all boats,
Not to stifle design, the older generation boat can experiment with other keel packet.
And can have taller mast.

Hull; ideal would be an Imoca design, or a design in which the deck/structure can be easily changed to Imoca spec.
To really cut costs, think of an OD and a proto class. But then you need a fleet of minimal 20 boats. So not for the first years.

Sails; maximum to have onboard, bigger maximum for the whole race.

Sponsor:
get the Barcelona World race sponsor..

Counter date it with the Vendee Globe.

If professional inshore sailors of the AC circuit (the like of Read, Cayard, etc) gets the saying, it will be dead in a few years..
you need offshore lovers, not career enhancers.

[Heriberto]

Here is what I would propose as cost-saving measures.

An RFP for a single-source sailmaker, boats have a not to exceed yearly sail budget.
An RFP for single source deck hardware supplier with not to exceed total budget
An RFP for single source keel and/or foil supplier with not to exceed total manufacture budget
Instrumentation/communication/computer not to exceed budget
Salary cap for sailing team
Salary cap for shore team including management
Confidential auditing to ensure compliance, this cost shared by the teams. The auditor would have to be experienced in this line of work to ensure teams aren't getting around the salary caps.

You could also potentially do a single-source standing rigging supplier, but I think the above would go a long, long way to contain campaign costs.

[Heriberto]

None of the above prohibits innovation, it just directly controls costs.

[josselin]

OD rules is most of the time more expensive the first race when the new design is introduced. It becomes cheaper from the 2nd race.

SO if they want OD succesfull on such a race they need to have a design to last 4/8/12 years??!! non sense for a class that have a race every 3/4 years and that is "at the top"

Contrary to that, MOD70 have a all year round circuit and same for Imoca 60, the boats are used in many races. at the end a OD class can be reniewed every 5 years or so.

In France each time they changed the figaro boat everybody yield at price increase:

• from half toner (ior rules) to figaro1(OD)
• figaro1 to figaro 2 (OD)

the main thing is that with the 2nd hand fleet you can get a cheap competittive boat, when you change class everybody needs to buy something new...


will see Knut's choice later!

[Mexican]

None of the above prohibits innovation, it just directly controls costs.

One of the factors directly impacting costs and, therefore, any team budget would be the timing of a team's commitment to the next race. We all know this also has a direct correlation to early success in the race.

The earlier you commit, the higher your overall budget (irrespective of annual salary caps as these would be pro rata'd). This applies to salaries, maintenance, sails, etc.

So a competitive advantage will be the race for locking in sponsorship. The game does not change: money talks!

Mex

[Swanno (Ohf Shore)]

Here is one way to save money: Aluminium boats/Masts (recyclable too)

I really would be keen to see the budgets of returning boats (Telefonica, Puma) as opposed to Groupama, Camper and Abu Dhabi. It would be interesting to see if it worked out cheaper (on a ‘per event’ level) to do multiple races, or just to do one loop?

[Potter]

OD rules is most of the time more expensive the first race when the new design is introduced. It becomes cheaper from the 2nd race.

SO if they want OD succesfull on such a race they need to have a design to last 4/8/12 years??!! non sense for a class that have a race every 3/4 years and that is "at the top"

Contrary to that, MOD70 have a all year round circuit and same for Imoca 60, the boats are used in many races. at the end a OD class can be reniewed every 5 years or so.

In France each time they changed the figaro boat everybody yield at price increase:

• from half toner (ior rules) to figaro1(OD)
• figaro1 to figaro 2 (OD)

the main thing is that with the 2nd hand fleet you can get a cheap competittive boat, when you change class everybody needs to buy something new...


will see Knut's choice later!

No. IMOCA have one maybe two events per year. This year there is only one official event, and an abortion of an European Tour. However a lot of the skippers choose to enter other events outside of the IMOCA Calendar in order to train.

[Wess]

Designing a class of one design boats is different than designing a custom boat within a box rule.
Assuming the goal is to provide equal and durable boats, you walk away from the bleeding edge of structural optimization and toward the comfort of production reliability.
Factors of safety in the critical areas ( like forward of the mast) can be increased across the board.
Some times designers forget this, and try to deliver grand prix expectations on production budgets, and that doesn't end well.

Farr Yacht designs does have a pretty significant track record in larger one designs, and because they are not involved with an America's Cup, probably can be more responsive to this client.
This isn't to say that an RFP process would look less like a stitch up.....but thats he way things are done in his sport, like it or not.

SHC

Absolutely agree everything you wrote above.

On a further note, it is another step down the decline for custom race yacht builders. America's Cup is down three or four players, some with their own in house shops. TP 52 is dead or dying, and Volvo has gone one design. Not much left is there?
THE SPORT THAT KILLS ITSELF CONTINUES TO STAY THE COURSE.
SHC

But the last part here I dn't agree or understand. Yes, this is another step down the decline for custom race yacht builders (and even designers), but how does this "kill" the sport? Its may help kill that aspect but that is not exactly the growth engine of this sport is it - rich guys (rating) racing custom yachts? Maybe its just a sign of the sport reinventing itself to something somewhat better??

Wess

[diggler]

But the last part here I dn't agree or understand. Yes, this is another step down the decline for custom race yacht builders (and even designers), but how does this "kill" the sport? Its may help kill that aspect but that is not exactly the growth engine of this sport is it - rich guys (rating) racing custom yachts? Maybe its just a sign of the sport reinventing itself to something somewhat better??

Wess

No development classes = no development = stagnation = decline.

Stop and think for a minute about how profoundly the technological developments in the AC, Volvo (and Whitbread), various skiff classes, Mini 6.5, Open 60, Formula 40, Orma 60, C class, etc etc have influenced absolutely every aspect of sailing over the last 2-3 decades. Yes some of these classes are now dead but much of their technological impact is enjoyed by a much broader group of sailors today. Now imagine that most of these classes, particularly the bigger ones like the Volvo and Open 60, decided that budgets were out of hand and went to a strict OD sometime in late 70s or early 80s. Where do you think sport boats and cruiser-racers, like J boats and X yachts, and all the other growth engines of our sport would be without the dollars invested at the top to drive technological development? This is not about speed, it is about lighter structures with longer fatigue life and lower risk of sudden failure, more durable rigging, more efficient and durable sails, better navigation and energy systems, more efficient hull forms, all of the previous combining to enable smaller cheaper and easier to handle rigs, and the list goes on and on and on . These are things that make sailing, whether cruising or racing, easier, safer, and more enjoyable, thus dramatically reducing barriers to entry into the great sport of sailing.

[Wess]

But the last part here I dn't agree or understand. Yes, this is another step down the decline for custom race yacht builders (and even designers), but how does this "kill" the sport? Its may help kill that aspect but that is not exactly the growth engine of this sport is it - rich guys (rating) racing custom yachts? Maybe its just a sign of the sport reinventing itself to something somewhat better??

Wess

No development classes = no development = stagnation = decline.

Stop and think for a minute about how profoundly the technological developments in the AC, Volvo (and Whitbread), various skiff classes, Mini 6.5, Open 60, Formula 40, Orma 60, C class, etc etc have influenced absolutely every aspect of sailing over the last 2-3 decades. Yes some of these classes are now dead but much of their technological impact is enjoyed by a much broader group of sailors today. Now imagine that most of these classes, particularly the bigger ones like the Volvo and Open 60, decided that budgets were out of hand and went to a strict OD sometime in late 70s or early 80s. Where do you think sport boats and cruiser-racers, like J boats and X yachts, and all the other growth engines of our sport would be without the dollars invested at the top to drive technological development? This is not about speed, it is about lighter structures with longer fatigue life and lower risk of sudden failure, more durable rigging, more efficient and durable sails, better navigation and energy systems, more efficient hull forms, all of the previous combining to enable smaller cheaper and easier to handle rigs, and the list goes on and on and on . These are things that make sailing, whether cruising or racing, easier, safer, and more enjoyable, thus dramatically reducing barriers to entry into the great sport of sailing.

Sorry but I disagree. I agree what you describe is what the armchair critic (I don't mean you) likely sees and points to but come on and be fair... that is NOT what the vast majority of us sail or race. For those that do actively participate in the sport it just does not seem to be about that. Decline in my neck of the woods is in the glamor PHRF classes and rating racing in general, while the growth is in OD big boats and dinghies. I race a Laser and Snipe (OD) and a trimaran (F27) where we will be ODing at Nationals this year. Take all the classes you mentioned and throw them in the trash and it does not bother me at all.

I don't mean that as negatively as it might sound. I was in SD when Larry put up the wing. Darn toting I blew out of my meeting to go see it. If the Volo came to town I would stop by the party and check out the boats, but honestly I would think it cooler if they were OD.

I guess I just don't get this whole, it has to be an open development class thing. Yea, its fun to watch on video but I have no interest to do it and it makes the race less about the skill set of the sailors. Which brings me to Clean's beef about sailors not being on the water to support and greet the boats in Miami!? Really?!! Because if I get to pick between going racing and watching someone finish a race... I am going racing - not watching somebody else. And no, I don't want to race a development class and yes I would rather race a Laser or a Snipe or an F27 because older boats are still pretty much as fast as newer ones, and are hugely affordable (thus ensuring access, class growth and sustainability) and I can afford to own them all (and a few others) and still pay my bills.

I just don't see the problem here with the direction Volvo is going and it sems like a good thing to me both for the race and in terms of my interest to follow it.

Just one opinion and worth what you paid.

[bruno]

OD: freezes development, viz sails. If 3Dl is the standard then they would still have delam issues. BTW, credit to North as industry leader and near monopsonist for early adoption.

[stumbler]

I've mentioned before that the real way to contain costs is to, uh, actually contain costs. Plenty of other sports do this, so don't say it's impossible. They have salary caps, they have revenue sharing (not applicable), they have all sorts of accounting controls. They are talking about allowing two-boat teams in these OD boats! Talk about out of control costs, Good God!

Heriberto, I'd like to ask you some questions about the VOR but you can't receive any PMs. If you can, please PM me or let me know how I can get in touch with you.

Thanks!

[spacecowboy]

They are kidding if they think this will make things cheaper overall. Sure, you'll be able to buy an off-the-shelf VOR60 OD, but anyone that thinks it will be a case of sheet on and win the VOR is taking the piss.

Ok, the boats will be the same (in theory). So any team serious about winning will spend an absolute fortune on every other area to gain an advantage. They'll still have a shore team, sail makers, electricians, boat builders to put the boat together, load equipment, food, sails, etc... And they will be forbidden to work on the team's yacht? Hard to believe... Reality is they will be pimping it out with every little seemingly useless feature that sailors think they need to win the race.

Can you imagine the weather program? Something similar to AC gone global when the IACC class was so far in a design corner that spending a few million weather analysis seamed like a good investment towards winning.

Sailor salaries will increase as demand for the best guys will increase as it's a simple, effective way of improving performance. With short stopovers it might even be the case teams have a bench of fresh, gun sailors to rotate in/out so guys get a full recovery. Not really possible now because the boats are all custom and built around the sailing team, but if they are the same then swapping guys in and will be easy. No need for NDAs as there is nothing to hide. Sailor contracts will have to be nailed down so hard, which costs!

Increased budgets for fitness, nutrition, details, details, details is what it will come down to and the deepest pockets will win. This is sailing, this how it's been since time began and it will always be the case.

Why don't we just make it a handicap race? Reverse starting order based on the previous leg finish or something. Would be easier if we want to accommodate the guys that haven't got what it takes to design a good package or can't afford to do the race in the first place.

OD will be a disaster for this race... Both commercially and sailing wise. Interesting times and hope common sense prevails before this great race takes a real turn for the worst.

[DickDastardly]

Designing a class of one design boats is different than designing a custom boat within a box rule.
Assuming the goal is to provide equal and durable boats, you walk away from the bleeding edge of structural optimization and toward the comfort of production reliability.
Factors of safety in the critical areas ( like forward of the mast) can be increased across the board.
Some times designers forget this, and try to deliver grand prix expectations on production budgets, and that doesn't end well.

Farr Yacht designs does have a pretty significant track record in larger one designs, and because they are not involved with an America's Cup, probably can be more responsive to this client.
This isn't to say that an RFP process would look less like a stitch up.....but thats he way things are done in his sport, like it or not.

SHC

Absolutely agree everything you wrote above.

On a further note, it is another step down the decline for custom race yacht builders. America's Cup is down three or four players, some with their own in house shops. TP 52 is dead or dying, and Volvo has gone one design. Not much left is there?
THE SPORT THAT KILLS ITSELF CONTINUES TO STAY THE COURSE.
SHC

But the last part here I dn't agree or understand. Yes, this is another step down the decline for custom race yacht builders (and even designers), but how does this "kill" the sport? Its may help kill that aspect but that is not exactly the growth engine of this sport is it - rich guys (rating) racing custom yachts? Maybe its just a sign of the sport reinventing itself to something somewhat better??

Wess

+1 On that. Maybe a design and construction industry seeking short term economic outcones has priced itself out of existence? TP 52 is a fine boat to sail (i have) but why should they only have a competitive half life measured in months and curtailed by marginal construction and fast moving design innovation that costs a bomb but actually has a micrroscopic impact on real performance? A TP goes upwind about 0.5 knots faster now than it did back in 2004-5 or so. So what? In fact the slamming loads and jerk motion felt by the crew and structure are the biggest diffference.

Meanwhile smart designers like Farr are jumping on the Cruiser-racer bandwagon and making hay in Bavaria. Killing the sport? Not really. Only the custom race boat part of it.

Thankfully (hopefully?) SHC will continue to play in a innovation space that pushes the science of sailboat design ever forwards.

[DickDastardly]

They are kidding if they think this will make things cheaper overall. Sure, you'll be able to buy an off-the-shelf VOR60 OD, but anyone that thinks it will be a case of sheet on and win the VOR is taking the piss.

Ok, the boats will be the same (in theory). So any team serious about winning will spend an absolute fortune on every other area to gain an advantage. They'll still have a shore team, sail makers, electricians, boat builders to put the boat together, load equipment, food, sails, etc... And they will be forbidden to work on the team's yacht? Hard to believe... Reality is they will be pimping it out with every little seemingly useless feature that sailors think they need to win the race.

Can you imagine the weather program? Something similar to AC gone global when the IACC class was so far in a design corner that spending a few million weather analysis seamed like a good investment towards winning.

Sailor salaries will increase as demand for the best guys will increase as it's a simple, effective way of improving performance. With short stopovers it might even be the case teams have a bench of fresh, gun sailors to rotate in/out so guys get a full recovery. Not really possible now because the boats are all custom and built around the sailing team, but if they are the same then swapping guys in and will be easy. No need for NDAs as there is nothing to hide. Sailor contracts will have to be nailed down so hard, which costs!

Increased budgets for fitness, nutrition, details, details, details is what it will come down to and the deepest pockets will win. This is sailing, this how it's been since time began and it will always be the case.

Why don't we just make it a handicap race? Reverse starting order based on the previous leg finish or something. Would be easier if we want to accommodate the guys that haven't got what it takes to design a good package or can't afford to do the race in the first place.

OD will be a disaster for this race... Both commercially and sailing wise. Interesting times and hope common sense prevails before this great race takes a real turn for the worst.

I don't know that I'd paint the picture quite so bleakly.

• Weather information is currently standardised across the fleet and would continue to be. Same in AC.
• Boats, sails, rigs, electronics can all be standardised with prohibitions against modifications.
• food, fitness etc. may be an area to play - but isn't a big ticket item
• Shore maintenance between races could be aggregated to a single race organiser provided team - after all the boats are all the same...no need for NDAs
• In fact the teams could arguably be forced to swap boats during the race...albeit with branding complications.
• Crew numbers can be limited in terms of the broader number of sailors on the sailing team, similar to a football game, but I agree salaries will crank up.
• Overall salary costs could be mitigated by limiting the number of paid professionals on each team - and of course as it does in OD classes that creates a category of highly rewarded amateur, but they are still cheaper than pros. In fact if Volvo wanted to boost the human interest factor for the non-sailing public that may well be a good route to investigate - and yes, then it does start looking like the Clipper race. Interesting to look back at the early history of the race here (BTW - does that photo of Rothmans buried in white water look any less cool than a similar photo from the current race to a non-sailor?). It was clearly a much more amateur affair back in the day, and it seems looking back race by race that increasing professionalism and spiralling budgets have a strong correlation to declining participation.

Deep pockets will probably still win, but they won't have to be as deep as now.

[stumbler]

I find it kind of funny that two of the most vociferously spouted opinions on this site are "If it ain't one design, it ain't sailing" and "One design will kill [insert name of event here]".

You guys who think this is a bad move for the VOR are crazy. Will it change the race somewhat? Yes. Will it keep it alive, grow it, keep costs down, help it thrive? Yes, yes yes and yes.

Can it sustainably stay on its current path? Um, no.

And while it might make the 600 nm barrier slightly less likely to be broken in this class, wouldn't you rather have 10-12 teams going 23 knots than 4 teams going 27 knots?

Miami stopover notwithstanding, a mistake I'm certain they won't make again, VOR is one of the few global sailing events that gets it right. Making an offshore, around the world race interesting and accessible enough to actually make me want to check my phone every morning? Well done.

[andrepeixoto]

If they go one design on the Volvo and the IMOCA, what is going to be the high level development monohull class on our sport? AC is gone TP52 is not in good shape either.

I think they have to limit cost, not design evolution, the class 40 is a perfect example of that, freedom on designer choice and a very controlled cost.

[couchsurfer]

If they go one design on the Volvo and the IMOCA, what is going to be the high level development monohull class on our sport? AC is gone TP52 is not in good shape either.

I think they have to limit cost, not design evolution, the class 40 is a perfect example of that, freedom on designer choice and a very controlled cost.

...smaller?.......
http://forums.sailinganarchy.com/index.php?showtopic=135300

[DickDastardly]

If they go one design on the Volvo and the IMOCA, what is going to be the high level development monohull class on our sport? AC is gone TP52 is not in good shape either.

I think they have to limit cost, not design evolution, the class 40 is a perfect example of that, freedom on designer choice and a very controlled cost.

...smaller?.......
http://forums.sailinganarchy.com/index.php?showtopic=135300

[irc-racer]

AC is a joke detached from reality and no relevance to 99.99% of sailing done worldwide. TP52 circuit collapsed with Euro woes and when those bloody Kiwis showed the Europeans again that sailing is actually not very complicated... Volvo race will be no more if it goes one design. The very essence of the race is best against best in a comlex sort of box-rule controlled environment. What will there be left to mull over if the Volvo is one design?? The whole event will be boring as batshit. Boat technology has been the main reason we are fascinated with it.

[roca]

I find it kind of funny that two of the most vociferously spouted opinions on this site are "If it ain't one design, it ain't sailing" and "One design will kill [insert name of event here]".

If you read well this post it is at least 75% against OD. And it is not "insert the name.." it is "OD will kill VOR". OD is good for other races, even offshore, not VOR.

You guys who think this is a bad move for the VOR are crazy.

Thank you for respecting other opinions, I am glad to be crazy in company of ken read, you stay sensible with ian...

Will it change the race somewhat? Yes. Will it keep it alive, grow it, keep costs down, help it thrive? Yes, yes yes and yes.
Can it sustainably stay on its current path? Um, no.

very well motivated position, there have been many well explained and punctual analysis on many aspects (technological, tactical, performance , emotions, team organization..) here to confute if you think..., your "yes, yes,yes and yes, " are useless

And while it might make the 600 nm barrier slightly less likely to be broken in this class, wouldn't you rather have 10-12 teams going 23 knots than 4 teams going 27 knots?

NO, this race proves that 6 competitive teams are enough to have the best show ever; speed is important part of this good result , go back and read about it. (by the way I bet there is no chance to make 12 teams in a VOR with a new OD design, it is easier that you loose 3 or 4 of the existing teams...)nobody cares of an OD VOR, not even the top sailors themself to begin.

Miami stopover notwithstanding, a mistake I'm certain they won't make again, VOR is one of the few global sailing events that gets it right. Making an offshore, around the world race interesting and accessible enough to actually make me want to check my phone every morning? Well done.

May I ask one more question? are you involved somehow with VOR? you sound like a part of the organization, or with some interest, not a sailing enthusiast like most of us...My apologies if this is not true.

[stumbler]

May I ask one more question? are you involved somehow with VOR? you sound like a part of the organization, or with some interest, not a sailing enthusiast like most of us...My apologies if this is not true.

I'm not going to quote your entire post in the interest of length... but let me respond in general to what you said.

First, I have read the debate, and I see that it is coming down more against one design than for it. I was trying to make a jokey point about the site as a whole, not this thread - I could be wrong but I have a sense that many of the SA "purists" are both non-negotiably for one design at the club level and non-negotiably against it here. It seemed moderately ironic at the time, even if it's not wrong (I get the value of development classes). But like all generalizations, it breaks down pretty quickly. Mea culpa.

I am not part of VOR, I am a sailing enthusiast, and as part of that I DO indeed have an interest in the VOR. If I can do anything to make make the the 2014 event a success I will do so, because I think this race is really effing cool. I happen to think an evolving one design approach is the answer, you feel differently, that's fine. That's because I think you can balance advancing the class every 3 years with keeping things somewhat under control cost-wise, and I think having 10-12 teams will be great for the event and for interest and for sponsors, and that is a serious part of all this.

Is it a problem that it eliminates one more full-on development class? Yes, it is. Point conceded. But I think there could be ways around it. Possibly the market will respond and the 52s will come back or some other class will emerge. Possibly innovations could be shared among VOR teams in a way that actually accelerates development. I don't know. But I acknowledge that it's probably my biggest issue with this approach.

Lastly, sorry for the "crazy" comment... in my experience on SA that's kind of the same thing as saying "hey", please don't take it so seriously

[Heriberto]

Although I'm sure that the intent is pure (mostly...), I think VOR would be absolutely crazy to commit to completely changing the format to a smaller, slower one design, without a ) putting in the hard cost containment measures I spelled out above, b ) disallowing two boat teams, and c ) signed commitment with money up front based on this new format from more than the existing amount of teams. All of those (except the third?) could be done with tweaking the VOR 70 rule.

If you lose the element of individual team innovation, organization, drive and pursuit of excellence, and replace that with them just writing check and checking how the progress is going at the factory, what do the sponsors have to sell? What narrative is left? That they are really good at sitting at the sidelines and writing checks? It reduces their involvement to merely paying for a floating billboard and there are a lot cheaper ways to do that. Especially when the race only happens every three years. What do they get for their investment in the interim?

Watch this to get an idea of the possibilities and what I'm talking about.

[diggler]

Take all the classes you mentioned and throw them in the trash and it does not bother me at all.

You have completely and utterly missed the point I was trying to make. Please, re-read what I wrote over again and don't get so hung up on the particular classes I named or think I am trying to argue whether a particular class in specific should be OD or not.

[Wess]

Take all the classes you mentioned and throw them in the trash and it does not bother me at all.

You have completely and utterly missed the point I was trying to make. Please, re-read what I wrote over again and don't get so hung up on the particular classes I named or think I am trying to argue whether a particular class in specific should be OD or not.

No, we understand each other perfectly. We just happen to disagree. You stated that development classes reduce barrier to entry. I disagree and believe OD does does that and development classes raise or increases the barrier to entry. You talk about OD and stagnation. I disagree and believe the growth the sport is experiencing is in OD classes.

No misunderstanding. Just different opinions.

[stumbler]

If you lose the element of individual team innovation, organization, drive and pursuit of excellence, and replace that with them just writing check and checking how the progress is going at the factory, what do the sponsors have to sell? What narrative is left? That they are really good at sitting at the sidelines and writing checks? It reduces their involvement to merely paying for a floating billboard and there are a lot cheaper ways to do that. Especially when the race only happens every three years. What do they get for their investment in the interim?

I agree that this is a valid concern. There are AMAZING stories to be told about the development that goes into these boats. It would be a shame to lose that aspect. And the innovations that occur here (or are made practicable here) do genuinely advance the sport. I just believe that the chances of getting more than 3 or 4 boats next time around if things don't change shifts the question a bit... from "How do we keep this a cutting edge, no holds barred, turn a fire hose of money at your problems event?" to "How do we retain a strong element of innovation and the narratives that go along with that while simultaneously lowering costs?" There are probably ways to do that both with a one design and without one, but I think, at least on an intuitive level, that the one design approach will bring in more teams and lower costs in a way that will involve more sponsors and broaden appeal. That's the bigger problem to solve in my view... then you figure out how to retain the innovation element.

But then again... I could be wrong!

[diggler]

No, we understand each other perfectly. We just happen to disagree. You stated that development classes reduce barrier to entry. I disagree and believe OD does does that and development classes raise or increases the barrier to entry. You talk about OD and stagnation. I disagree and believe the growth the sport is experiencing is in OD classes.

No misunderstanding. Just different opinions.

Once again, yes, you completely totally and utterly misunderstand me. Re-re-read what I wrote.

Since you probably still won't get it right, what I said is that the technological developments (headsail furlers for example) that have come out of the development classes reduce barriers to entry. Not the classes themselves. This is to the benefit of sailing as a whole. All forms of sailing, at all levels, one design included (ok, fine, maybe not your laser so much). You can disagree with that, but then you would clearly be an idiot.

I did not say OD causes stagnation or is a problem in and of itself. I am not anti OD. Re-re-read what I wrote. The problem I see is that with EVERY class absolutely EVERYWHERE going OD we are at the point where development classes may well be all but extinct shortly. I do not argue that this is a wrong choice for any particular class to make. However, the cumulative impact this will have on the continued development of sailing technology is the stagnation I was talking about and over the long term this will hurt sailing as a whole. This was the point I was trying to make with my whole thing of imagine how sailing as a whole would be doing today if this OD craze had swept through 40 years ago, leaving us largely with late 70s era technology as the cutting edge today. You can disagree with that too if you want. But you might still be an idiot.

[Wess]

No, we understand each other perfectly. We just happen to disagree. You stated that development classes reduce barrier to entry. I disagree and believe OD does does that and development classes raise or increases the barrier to entry. You talk about OD and stagnation. I disagree and believe the growth the sport is experiencing is in OD classes.

No misunderstanding. Just different opinions.

Once again, yes, you completely totally and utterly misunderstand me. Re-re-read what I wrote.

Since you probably still won't get it right, what I said is that the technological developments (headsail furlers for example) that have come out of the development classes reduce barriers to entry. Not the classes themselves. This is to the benefit of sailing as a whole. All forms of sailing, at all levels, one design included (ok, fine, maybe not your laser so much). You can disagree with that, but then you would clearly be an idiot.

I did not say OD causes stagnation or is a problem in and of itself. I am not anti OD. Re-re-read what I wrote. The problem I see is that with EVERY class absolutely EVERYWHERE going OD we are at the point where development classes may well be all but extinct shortly. I do not argue that this is a wrong choice for any particular class to make. However, the cumulative impact this will have on the continued development of sailing technology is the stagnation I was talking about and over the long term this will hurt sailing as a whole. This was the point I was trying to make with my whole thing of imagine how sailing as a whole would be doing today if this OD craze had swept through 40 years ago, leaving us largely with late 70s era technology as the cutting edge today. You can disagree with that too if you want. But you might still be an idiot.

Sooner or later you will have to pick one position and stick with it.

So now your problem is that "EVERY class absolutely EVERYWHERE going OD..." All that from the Volvo and "over the long term this will hurt sailing as a whole." Uh, wow! Holy over-reaction, Batman!

So please do enlighten little ole idiot me. Is this 6 boat fleet of Volvo the tipping point for the sky to fall? Will the Moth class suddenly die not too? How about A-cats? Maybe the Little America's Cup? Or the actual America's Cup - you know - the one with the giant wings, boards and multihulls... all born out of the litle America's Cup? Will the development of the RTW multihulls die too? How about the innovation that got those huge boats around the world single handed or lightly crewed... is this the death of that too?

I am kinda curious see because it seems that most any of these classes have introduced far more innovation to sailing than the Volvo ever has or ever will.

But please, do go on about how the sky is falling.

Please excuse me though as I need to get off the computer and actually go sailing seeing how the sport is about to die any moment now due to the Volvo decision.

Right after I get my helmet.

Geesh, I joke but come on...

Wess

[Heriberto]

If you lose the element of individual team innovation, organization, drive and pursuit of excellence, and replace that with them just writing check and checking how the progress is going at the factory, what do the sponsors have to sell? What narrative is left? That they are really good at sitting at the sidelines and writing checks? It reduces their involvement to merely paying for a floating billboard and there are a lot cheaper ways to do that. Especially when the race only happens every three years. What do they get for their investment in the interim?

I agree that this is a valid concern. There are AMAZING stories to be told about the development that goes into these boats. It would be a shame to lose that aspect. And the innovations that occur here (or are made practicable here) do genuinely advance the sport. I just believe that the chances of getting more than 3 or 4 boats next time around if things don't change shifts the question a bit... from "How do we keep this a cutting edge, no holds barred, turn a fire hose of money at your problems event?" to "How do we retain a strong element of innovation and the narratives that go along with that while simultaneously lowering costs?" There are probably ways to do that both with a one design and without one, but I think, at least on an intuitive level, that the one design approach will bring in more teams and lower costs in a way that will involve more sponsors and broaden appeal. That's the bigger problem to solve in my view... then you figure out how to retain the innovation element.

But then again... I could be wrong!

Why does it have to be either/or? Means of containing costs are at their disposal without going to one design. In fact, those cost containment features must be in place with one design as well or it remains, as you describe, a "turn a fire hose of money at your problems" event.

Can anyone point to a bargain basement program winning any one design fleet of any consequence? The big bucks are the only contenders. After you have the big bucks, then you can contend.

[MR.CLEAN]

If you lose the element of individual team innovation, organization, drive and pursuit of excellence, and replace that with them just writing check and checking how the progress is going at the factory, what do the sponsors have to sell? What narrative is left? That they are really good at sitting at the sidelines and writing checks? It reduces their involvement to merely paying for a floating billboard and there are a lot cheaper ways to do that. Especially when the race only happens every three years. What do they get for their investment in the interim?

I agree that this is a valid concern. There are AMAZING stories to be told about the development that goes into these boats. It would be a shame to lose that aspect. And the innovations that occur here (or are made practicable here) do genuinely advance the sport. I just believe that the chances of getting more than 3 or 4 boats next time around if things don't change shifts the question a bit... from "How do we keep this a cutting edge, no holds barred, turn a fire hose of money at your problems event?" to "How do we retain a strong element of innovation and the narratives that go along with that while simultaneously lowering costs?" There are probably ways to do that both with a one design and without one, but I think, at least on an intuitive level, that the one design approach will bring in more teams and lower costs in a way that will involve more sponsors and broaden appeal. That's the bigger problem to solve in my view... then you figure out how to retain the innovation element.

But then again... I could be wrong!

Why does it have to be either/or? Means of containing costs are at their disposal without going to one design. In fact, those cost containment features must be in place with one design as well or it remains, as you describe, a "turn a fire hose of money at your problems" event.

Can anyone point to a bargain basement program winning any one design fleet of any consequence? The big bucks are the only contenders. After you have the big bucks, then you can contend.

There is one, but I'll wait until Worlds to talk about it.

[Heriberto]

Why does it have to be either/or? Means of containing costs are at their disposal without going to one design. In fact, those cost containment features must be in place with one design as well or it remains, as you describe, a "turn a fire hose of money at your problems" event.

Can anyone point to a bargain basement program winning any one design fleet of any consequence? The big bucks are the only contenders. After you have the big bucks, then you can contend.

There is one, but I'll wait until Worlds to talk about it.

Well, if there is, we all know that is an outlier to the common pattern. The "budget" programs in a VOR OD, first, won't be "budget" at all, and second will not be able to contend against any two boat program, or single boat program spending twice their budget. If containing budgets and ending arms races, I still contend, with plenty of classes to point to, that you actually would need to audit and control spending. If you did that using the VOR70, you would have four known entities to sell potential sponsors: boats with proven close racing, a platform where the bugs are now much better known, a clear budget path, and a marketing viewpoint including technology, innovation and design. At that point it really would come down to the quality and experience of the team you are able to assemble.

My opinion only, but given the history of the Whitbread60 OD (which was brought in to increase teams and decrease costs but did the opposite on both) it is just a huge gamble to ditch the current platform (which has had only one less competitor than 6 years ago, and much greater competitiveness), for an unproven new pig in a poke. If they have 8-9 teams actually signed on and putting their money down based on this change, then I may understand.

Do they have that? Sufficient committed teams based on this change to OD? Or is it a bunch of "Well ya really oughta, and then we may be interested."?

[onimod]

If they have 8-9 teams actually signed on and putting their money down based on this change, then I may understand.

I completely agree.
While it's great to discuss the merits and theory of the alternatives it's the vote of serious teams that count the most.
It'd be crazy to give up the competitiveness of the current class without a guaranteed improvement.
I think there is the possibility of leaving a void that someone else will fill.

[diggler]

No, we understand each other perfectly. We just happen to disagree. You stated that development classes reduce barrier to entry. I disagree and believe OD does does that and development classes raise or increases the barrier to entry. You talk about OD and stagnation. I disagree and believe the growth the sport is experiencing is in OD classes.

No misunderstanding. Just different opinions.

Once again, yes, you completely totally and utterly misunderstand me. Re-re-read what I wrote.

Since you probably still won't get it right, what I said is that the technological developments (headsail furlers for example) that have come out of the development classes reduce barriers to entry. Not the classes themselves. This is to the benefit of sailing as a whole. All forms of sailing, at all levels, one design included (ok, fine, maybe not your laser so much). You can disagree with that, but then you would clearly be an idiot.

I did not say OD causes stagnation or is a problem in and of itself. I am not anti OD. Re-re-read what I wrote. The problem I see is that with EVERY class absolutely EVERYWHERE going OD we are at the point where development classes may well be all but extinct shortly. I do not argue that this is a wrong choice for any particular class to make. However, the cumulative impact this will have on the continued development of sailing technology is the stagnation I was talking about and over the long term this will hurt sailing as a whole. This was the point I was trying to make with my whole thing of imagine how sailing as a whole would be doing today if this OD craze had swept through 40 years ago, leaving us largely with late 70s era technology as the cutting edge today. You can disagree with that too if you want. But you might still be an idiot.

Sooner or later you will have to pick one position and stick with it.

So now your problem is that "EVERY class absolutely EVERYWHERE going OD..." All that from the Volvo and "over the long term this will hurt sailing as a whole." Uh, wow! Holy over-reaction, Batman!

So please do enlighten little ole idiot me. Is this 6 boat fleet of Volvo the tipping point for the sky to fall? Will the Moth class suddenly die not too? How about A-cats? Maybe the Little America's Cup? Or the actual America's Cup - you know - the one with the giant wings, boards and multihulls... all born out of the litle America's Cup? Will the development of the RTW multihulls die too? How about the innovation that got those huge boats around the world single handed or lightly crewed... is this the death of that too?

I am kinda curious see because it seems that most any of these classes have introduced far more innovation to sailing than the Volvo ever has or ever will.

But please, do go on about how the sky is falling.

Please excuse me though as I need to get off the computer and actually go sailing seeing how the sport is about to die any moment now due to the Volvo decision.

Right after I get my helmet.

Geesh, I joke but come on...

Wess

Dude, let go of the classes. Seriously. Just stop trying to tie what I say to a particular class or group of classes. Stop it right fucking now. You started this by asking what Steve Clark meant about sailing continuing to shoot itself in the foot. I took it upon myself to try and clarify what I thought he meant. You seem to stubbornly refuse to get or acknowledge that point so yes, at this point I do believe you are an idiot. I do not believe the sky is falling nor have I changed my position at all, only tried to elaborate on it for the sake of helping you understand a concern that some people such as Steve (if I got his meaning right) and I carry. I am done trying to beat understanding into the unwilling so go sail and enjoy that technology you are using without even needing to think about it.

[DickDastardly]

Although I'm sure that the intent is pure (mostly...), I think VOR would be absolutely crazy to commit to completely changing the format to a smaller, slower one design, without a ) putting in the hard cost containment measures I spelled out above, b ) disallowing two boat teams, and c ) signed commitment with money up front based on this new format from more than the existing amount of teams. All of those (except the third?) could be done with tweaking the VOR 70 rule.

If you lose the element of individual team innovation, organization, drive and pursuit of excellence, and replace that with them just writing check and checking how the progress is going at the factory, what do the sponsors have to sell? What narrative is left? That they are really good at sitting at the sidelines and writing checks? It reduces their involvement to merely paying for a floating billboard and there are a lot cheaper ways to do that. Especially when the race only happens every three years. What do they get for their investment in the interim?

Watch this to get an idea of the possibilities and what I'm talking about.

See 07:15 Puma Marketing Guy talking about the V070 - "You can't buy it off the shelf, I wish it was somethin' off the shelf, I wish it was one thing you could just buy at SailMart"

A vote for One Design?

[mad]

Why does it have to be either/or? Means of containing costs are at their disposal without going to one design. In fact, those cost containment features must be in place with one design as well or it remains, as you describe, a "turn a fire hose of money at your problems" event.

Can anyone point to a bargain basement program winning any one design fleet of any consequence? The big bucks are the only contenders. After you have the big bucks, then you can contend.

There is one, but I'll wait until Worlds to talk about it.

Well, if there is, we all know that is an outlier to the common pattern. The "budget" programs in a VOR OD, first, won't be "budget" at all, and second will not be able to contend against any two boat program, or single boat program spending twice their budget. If containing budgets and ending arms races, I still contend, with plenty of classes to point to, that you actually would need to audit and control spending. If you did that using the VOR70, you would have four known entities to sell potential sponsors: boats with proven close racing, a platform where the bugs are now much better known, a clear budget path, and a marketing viewpoint including technology, innovation and design. At that point it really would come down to the quality and experience of the team you are able to assemble.

My opinion only, but given the history of the Whitbread60 OD (which was brought in to increase teams and decrease costs but did the opposite on both) it is just a huge gamble to ditch the current platform (which has had only one less competitor than 6 years ago, and much greater competitiveness), for an unproven new pig in a poke. If they have 8-9 teams actually signed on and putting their money down based on this change, then I may understand.

Do they have that? Sufficient committed teams based on this change to OD? Or is it a bunch of "Well ya really oughta, and then we may be interested."?

What is this Whitbread 60 one design your talking about?