Unlike French ocean races, the Volvo Ocean Race makes stopovers in a number of different ports. Nine to be exact, not including Alicante which will host the race start.
Contested in crews of eleven, this will be an extreme course for both the sailors and the shore crew, with the latter team having to check, repair and optimise the future 22 metre long monohull, Groupama 4, at the end of each stage.
For the Groupama Sailing Team, this land-based organisation is awarded the same importance as the maritime performance.
Shore Team Manager, Australian Ben Wright, is familiar with the Volvo Ocean Race circuit: "When Groupama 70 left Lorient in October bound for Alicante, we dismantled our base and then quickly reassembled it in Spain to accommodate the sailors. A month later, we did the same thing in Lanzarote where the Groupama Sailing Team has been in training since Franck's victory in the Route du Rhum".
In the brand new port of Puerto Calero, the French sailors are sailing in the wake of Team Ericsson. Indeed the winner of the last edition of the Volvo Ocean Race spent eighteen months there: "In Lorient, our port of registry, the winter is cold and the sea freezing. Here in Lanzarote, the weather is good, with fair winds and seas. Conditions are excellent for practising sport and sailing".
Alongside Ben Wright, Santi Casanova, the sports coach confirms this: "The crew have been a lot more open since we came here. Through our physical preparation, I'm seeking to develop the cohesion and brotherhood. For the crew this training involves games but for my part I'm developing coordination, agility and quick reactions. They also switch partners as you have to break up the little groups to create a real team spirit".
Back at the Groupama Sailing Team base after a good shower, the sailors join up with the members of the Shore Team, who are busying themselves aboard Groupama 70 to prepare for a sea trial: selection of the sails that need testing, calibration of the electronics and loading of the packed lunches.
During this time, some of the others are continuing their work in one or other of the four containers, which will form their offices for the nine month period that the Volvo Ocean Race is being played out: "The race regulations limit the space available at stopovers so as to curb the inflation of budgets. Despite all this, we have to be completely autonomous as certain ports where we'll be making a stopover don't have the infrastructure enabling a boat like Groupama 4 to be maintained".
Split between four containers, the elements associated with the composite, mechanical, electronic, computing and electric tasks, as well as the fabrics, sails and consumables, are in fact doubled up on: "When you study the course, you quickly realise that the same set of containers cannot, for example, be dismantled just after leaving Sanya in China and be reassembled before the boat's arrival in Auckland, New Zealand. As such we have two identical sets and they also do a circumnavigation of the globe" adds Hervé Le Quilliec, logistics manager. Ben Wright explains how this works: "You really have to think about things carefully to know which part is supposed to go in which container. And you mustn't confuse them..."
Weighing in at 45 tonnes in total, suffice to say that the inventory forms are very long as they have to be accurate...
From Groupama
