Galway Officially Announced as Volvo Ocean Race 2011 Finish.

As reported in the Irish press over the weekend, Galway will host the final stop of the Volvo Ocean Race 2011-12. Galway withstood strong opposition from several rival cities in the official port bidding process to earn the right to host not only the finale but also the overall prize-giving ceremony.

At today’s announcement, Volvo Ocean Race CEO Knut Frostad said:

“I am very proud to confirm Ireland’s participation and Galway will be a magnificent port to stage the finish of the event. We have already experienced the enthusiasm that abounds in Ireland for the race and we are looking forward to bringing the competition to its conclusion in a country that really knows how to celebrate.”

At a press conference to mark the occasion, Irish Taoiseach Brian Cowen, said:

“The 2009 stopover in Galway made an abiding impression on the sailors, support crews, organisers and media, who were immersed in the warmth of an Irish welcome. Their presence, in turn, had an enormous beneficial impact on Galway, the west of Ireland and indeed the entire country. Their arrival here was spectacular and their visit helped generate a massive 55 million Euros for the regional economy, more than one third higher than the original projections. Given its economic benefits and its importance to Irish tourism, I am more than happy to welcome the return of the Volvo Ocean Race to our shores and pledge our support for the event.”

http://www.volvooceanrace.com/news/article/2010/MARCH/GALWAY-ANNOUNCEMENT-100310/index.aspx

Lorient Confirmed as Volvo Ocean Race Stopover for Two Editions.

It’s always interesting to speculate in the new era of instant news and communication whether or not a savvy team of PR and media folk leak information with intent, or whether they are still caught out by the way the new world order works. The Volvo Ocean Race have made official, news that France will host a stopover of the 2011-12 race. Confirmation of the news came today at 12:00, though some media had ignored the embargo and released the information earlier.

Lorient, in Brittany on the northwest coast of France will be the penultimate stopover for the 2011-12 event. The deal is for two editions of the race, which will give promoters and investors a chance to develop infrastructure and receive the economic benefits over a longer payback period. Multiple edition deals are good for everyone and show the strength of the Volvo Ocean Race proposition. It is also very important for the Volvo Ocean Race to be relevant to the passionate French sailing market.

Knut Frostad, Volvo Ocean Race CEO said:

“We are extremely pleased to have a strong French presence in the race. It has long been our goal to reignite the passion of this classic event among the French people and we are delighted to have reached an agreement with the city of Lorient to host the event for two consecutive races.”

Norbert Metairie, Mayor of Lorient and President of Cap l’Orient Council said:

“Over the last 10 years, Lorient has transformed its submarine base into a European-wide sailing cluster, hosting a business centre dedicated to yachting activities where maxi trimarans ‘Banque Populaire V’ and ‘Groupama 3′ were built. It also hosts an offshore sailing centre of about 50 teams including France’s most famous skippers. Today we are pleased to have demonstrated that Lorient is a perfect site to host international events such as the Volvo Ocean Race which will undoubtedly yield significant benefits.”

The move is a smart one for the Volvo Ocean Race. While most other global sailing platforms are struggling to announce formats, venues and teams for their next events, the VOR is locking in a secure proposition for the next 5 years over two editions. This long term approach gives security to sponsors and partners and allows potential teams to make long term plans. With every announcement of this kind, the Volvo Ocean Race positions itself as being more commercial, more professional and therefore more invest-able than events like the America’s Cup or the Louis Vuitton Series.

Volvo Ocean Race Announces Lisbon & One Other European Venue.

The Volvo Ocean Race has announced another stopover in its drip-feed race reveal. In a time when information moves at the speed of light around the globe, race organisers are putting a lot of faith in the media and others to respect embargoes about where the 2011-12 race will visit.

Yesterday’s official news is that Lisbon has been chosen as the first of the European ports for next race. Lisbon, will be the finish of the transatlantic leg which was hosted by Galway in the last edition.

Interest in hosting the race in Europe was received from 34 cities, 15 of which went through to the final phase of the bidding process. Europe was by far the most competitive continent in the selection procedure. The news should be good for Portuguese sailing and may help generate support for the Bigamist TP52 team and the Portugal Ocean Race for Class 40 boats.

Volvo Ocean Race CEO, Knut Frostad said:

“It is great to have such an iconic city included in our list of stopovers and Lisbon, especially, has wonderful sailing conditions, which will make for a very exciting in-port race. Lisbon is a delightful city with much to offer the race. This will be a stopover to look forward to after the rigours of the transatlantic leg.”

Antonio Costa, Mayor of the City of Lisbon, was delighted that the city had joined the Volvo fold:

“Lisbon has a great navigational past and the Volvo Ocean Race helps increase this. It is the capital of the Atlantic and it’s natural for Lisbon to be the transatlantic finish. The Volvo Ocean Race has been an amazing event since 1973 and we are very proud to succeed in gaining this stopover. Victory was obtained through the great efforts of all parties, made possible by Tourism Portugal, Tourism Lisbon and Lagos Sports.”

The official announcement states that the second European port will be announced on Wednesday 3 March, but keeping that secret had proved too much for some.

The usually savvy Volvo Ocean Race media team seem to be counting on old journalistic models to try and keep hold of the stopover announcement agenda, but not all are playing ball. A Tweetphoto with the caption “Chut, n’en parlez pas, il y a embargo ” has helped leak the news of another European stopover. While it was generally assumed that there would be a stop in France, given the importance of the sailing market to the Volvo Ocean Race and the participation of a Groupama French team, it was not widely known where the French stop would sit in the order.

If the leaked news is right, then Galway may have missed out on a second visit from the Volvo Ocean Race. This would come as a big blow to the Irish team who have invested heavily in trying to woo the race back to the town that put on such a memorable stopover in the last edition.

Another announcement will be made on the 3rd of March, but keep watching Twitter if you can’t wait…

New Volvo Ocean Race Rules Coming. Budgets? 15 Million Euros.

Knut Frostad, the Volvo Ocean Race CEO, has told a gathering at the Genoa Boat show that the new Volvo Open 70 rule and Notice of Race would be revealed shortly and hinted at the content of these documents. “Over the last 12 months we have been conducting a project which has shaped the direction of the new Rule and Notice of Race,” he said.

“We have focused on safety and cost containment and have also spoken in detail to the leading figures in the yachting world. Cost containment and team expenditure is important for us as last race the budget for a team ranged between the smallest at fewer than 10 million Euros to a speculated 25-30 million Euros. We want a team to be able to have a good solid campaign in the next edition for only 15 million Euros. We want the race to be won on the water in the end. This is very important to us.”

Grant Dalton, also at the event, who has competed in seven round-the-world races and won the Whitbread twice, spoke of the differences between the race of old and the professional event it has become.

“I remember back to when we used to have beer and wine and we don’t have that anymore”

When asked about potentially sailing in both the America’s Cup and the Volvo Ocean Race, Dalton explained how the events were very different beasts but the people involved were not.

“People cross between the America’s Cup and the Volvo, and Torben and Knut are both examples of this,” he said. “At the end there is a chemistry which is fundamental to any team. It’s a culture some teams have and some teams don’t. If you do not get the chemistry and culture right you will not win.”

Carlo Croce the President of Yacht Club Italiano which is backing Giovanni Soldini’s campaign explained their reasons for not building a new Volvo Open 70.

“We did think about taking part in the race on a new boat, but Giovanni preferred to take up a two-race challenge: the first, the 2011-2012 one, will be more conservative. In this way, we will be subject to less pressure and will also be able to focus only on building the crew and on training. We cannot wait to be part of the game, we were immediately fascinated by the Volvo Ocean Race’s spirit and culture.”

Interview with Volvo Ocean Race CEO, Knut Frostad.

The Volvo Ocean Race 2009 is over. In our opinion, the race is leading the way in showing how a sailing event should be run. Part of the reason has been CEO Knut Frostad leading from the front. Without taking anything away from the team that work on the event, Knut is the man standing up in front of stakeholders asking questions, listening to the answers with a real commitment to make the race better. Knut’s passion for the sport is also apparent. Particularly, we have enjoyed his ‘on the water’ commentary during race starts and in-port races.  Here is an interview from the official website:

Q: What have been the main differences in your experience of the race from competitor to organizer?

A: There are so many stakeholders in this event with so many objectives it is extremely important to crystallize an overall strategy and a set of objectives that work for everyone and enable you to work together towards a common goal. Of course the overall objective of the teams is to win the race and to maximise the return on investment for sponsors. This race is really about managing expectations, about managing the unforeseen and the unpredictable whether, you are a sailor or a CEO.

You have learn to deal with things at very short notice. A lot of things in the world are predictable, this race is not. As organizers, this is also a race around the world. As organizers, often we don’t know what we are dealing until it lands on our table. You have to shoot from the hip to some extent. I like the challenge of dealing with that unpredictability. It is very similar to racing.

Q: What challenges have you faced in organizing the 2008-09 event?

A: Actually I’ve discovered that we get thrown a lot more challenges than I imagined we were going to get. This race is a huge mountain to climb and the satisfaction of getting on top of those challenges is immense even if you don’t win. It is the essence of this race whether you are a sailor or an organizer. Green Dragon has been a good example of that.

It has been a struggle for them to get to the start line but they have worked really hard to get round the world in this race and at the same time they have performed very well on some legs. They can look back now and feel proud that they did something really big. Similarly we set ourselves tough objectives as organizers and I am pleased that in most case they were met.

Q: What do you see as successes?

A: It is impossible for me to compare the last race as a competitor with this race as a CEO because I am not looking for the same issues. As a competitor you don’t really have a sense of how big the crowds were or how media coverage was generated because you don’t really have that focus. So, the only measurement I can go on are the numbers we recorded. From a competitive aspect, the biggest positive for me was the closeness of the racing.

This has been the toughest competition in the race’s history, the closeness of the racing between the fleet has been exceptional. So many teams have been on the podium. The margin of Ericsson 4’s victory was only nine points. We could have easily had another boat other than Ericsson 4 winning.

Although Ericsson 4 has been talked about a lot as being superior she hasn’t been that superior. I could see that there could have been another boat winning overall. Telefonica Blue or PUMA, for instance, could have won this race if things went right for them in certain areas and on certain legs. Still Ericsson 4 did a great job and deserved their win in every way.

Another highlight was the globalization of this event. It had a very strong international flavour among the sailing crews, the race village visitors and the media. The footfall figures were much bigger in this race. The crowd numbers we had in Alicante, Galway, Stockholm, Cochin and Qingdao were huge. That has been really positive. We have demonstrated that the event works on new and innovative platforms like the mobile channel and the online game where we had over 220,000 players from over 180 countries.

Q: How have the new territories embraced the race?

A: It is extremely important for the race to explore new regions and new countries such as China. The public reception the race received in Qingdao, for instance, was enormous with nearly 400,000 visitors to the race village. China accounted for 65% of WAP traffic on the race’s mobile channel. Through a partnership with CCTV, we reached an audience of over 260 million by the midway point of the race and the Qingdao stopover attracted 420 journalists from 8 different countries.

One of our objectives from the Qingdao stopover was to bring awareness of sailing to the country and stimulate interest and ultimately involvement among young Chinese sailors. The fact that we had a Chinese-Irish boat in the 2008-09 race and having Chinese sailors among the crew of the boat helped that process enormously.

China has managed in a very short period of time to become a very big player in the Volvo Ocean Race. China took the race for what it is and said it’s an extreme sport, round the world, a huge challenge and Guo Chuan, the Chinese sailor on Green Dragon, did a good job. It was a refreshing and positive approach.

Q: Where do you see areas for improvement?

A: In some cases we have made it way too hard for ourselves. We started too late. Even three months before the start there was a lot to do. There were a number of things that could have been done earlier. We have to acknowledge that for organisers, competitors and stakeholders, time is the most valuable asset.

Ericsson started earlier than the other teams, that’s why they were better prepared and why their all-round performance was better than their rivals. It’s the same thing for us, time is absolutely essential. So for 2011-12 we need to get going much earlier.

Q: How are plans progressing for the 2011-12 race?

A: There are some solid foundations in place for the future of the race. The port of Alicante has committed to hosting the start of the next three editions of the race. The race headquarters will also locate to Alicante where we will have the infrastructure to begin the planning for the next event.

We already have a commitment from a number of syndicates to participate in the next race and the port bidding process is well advanced. We have had a huge response from ports around the world wanting to become part of the next race. We have undertaken a thorough review of the race and sought feedback from a number of stakeholders.

We have focused on cost-cutting while safeguarding the competitive element of the event. We have identified areas where we can make saving across the board for entries in the next race. Commercially we have never been stronger even in a difficult economic climate globally. Even in tough times, you have winners and we absolutely shall be one of those winners.

Q: What is the provisional entry list looking like?

A: From a competitive sense we have close to 50 teams at various levels that are interested. There are a lot of names that I always wanted to see in this race that are now interested in getting on the start line. That includes competitors and sponsors and particularly the French. There is a real hope that we will have a French team in the race.

Among the present fleet, the majority is looking to participate again with the same sponsors. I can’t recall that happening before. We had Ericsson returning from last time and you could argue that Telefonica is the same company coming back from 2005-06. Now we also have PUMA and Delta Lloyd working on getting on the start line. That is very positive. The race is a really a great opportunity right now.

Q: How different will the new Rule be?

A: Obviously the new Rule takes account of the full-scale review we have been undertaking during this race. It will reflect in particular the areas of cost savings we have identified we can make in certain areas. Those are savings that are easily achievable. We have looked at absolutely everything to see where we can make those savings.

We have managed to do as much as we could in the time frame we have set. For sure if we had more time we could have done even more but at some stage you have to say, this is it. You have to have a cut-off point. We are working towards announcing the new rule at the end of September.

Q: What are your aspirations for the race in the long-term future?

A: I have thought a lot about how we take this race forward and how we develop it. Although we are looking at what works in other sports, we also have to remember what the core of this event is. The unpredictability is one of the core elements that makes this race unique. The fact that we are taking this race around the world creates that type of environment. We have to ensure that we are as well prepared as we can be for when those surprises arrive.

The global platform is unique for our race along with the heritage and history we bring with us. I want to widen our audience way beyond where we are today. Based on what we achieved in the 2008-09 race and the platform we have built for 2011-12 and beyond, the future looks very bright.

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