Spanning some 37,000 nautical miles, visiting 11 ports over nine months, including a legendary stop over in Galway, the Volvo Ocean Race 08-09 is the world’s premier ocean yacht race for professional racing crews. Markham Nolan met up with winning skipper Torben Grael of Ericsson 4 and Irishman Damian Foxall, watch captain on the Irish-Chinese Green Dragon to get under their salty seadog skins.
After 37,000 miles of living and racing at oceanic extremes, your perspective becomes pretty skewed. Enormity becomes mundanity, which is why “It’s been very nice” was the first thing that came into Brazilian Torben Grael’s head when asked what he thought of completing and winning the Volvo Ocean Race.
“Very nice,” he said, dryly. This, from a man who had just ticked the only remaining box in terms of sailing glory. After a string of Olympic medals and a win in the America’s Cup, this was the last of the trinity of big wins that had eluded him thus far. Torben Grael’s holy grail.
His crew on Ericsson 4 had handed out a lesson in brutal sailing efficiency to the rest of the Volvo Ocean Race fleet over the last nine months, setting a new 24-hour distance record on their way to winning the first leg from Alicante to Cape Town, the first of five leg wins in the 10-leg race.
Although their average speed over the entire race was just 12 knots, for that 24-hour period they averaged more than double that. As the first monohull to ever cover more than 600 miles in one day, the speedo topped out in excess of 35 knots as they careered down enormous swells in some of the harshest weather they would see all race.
The conditions were horrendous. Being on board would have been like trying to cling to the roof rack of a rally car for an entire day in the rain, with bursts from a fire hose being trained on you every 10 to 15 seconds, and intermittent weights routines thrown in as physical challenges. It was punishing.
So extreme was that record run that Grael, master of understatement, breaks his own protocol when describing it.
“We had that start in Alicante which was very nice; and then sailing in the trade winds is very nice; going around Cape Horn is so nice and when you’re sailing close to the limit, that is very nice. And that record on the first leg…that was a fantastic thing.”
Grael wasn’t even a first-string skipper. He was the Volvo Ocean Race’s substitute teacher, stepping in late in the day to take on another teacher’s unruly class. He became skipper only when drafted in as a replacement for John Kostecki, who left the team during training for personal reasons, promoting Grael to head honcho.
Grael was reluctant, but was eventually talked into taking on the role by his teenage daughter.
“I did have to think a lot about it, I was not 100% sure. My daughter, when I asked her – because I had the option to go America’s Cup at that time – and she was: ‘You gotta do the Volvo, it’s much better.’ So here I am,” he says, as if she just helped him pick out a new suit for a wedding.
By the time they reached Galway, scene of yet another leg win, they had it in the bag, although Grael would not admit it so early, with three legs left to race. And in any case, erupting all around him was the fanfare of a city suddenly smitten with ocean racing.
Rub of the green
‘Volvo Race ensures biggest influx into Galway city since the Pope,’ read the headline in one local paper, as throngs of spectators hit the town for a sun-kissed fortnight. All expectations were exceeded, and by mid-week, the crews were asking whether they really had to leave.
Thankfully, Ireland’s Green Dragon entry stepped things up as they neared Ireland, hooning into Galway Bay in third place in the middle of the night. Galway, in turn, went berserk.
Fireworks, foghorns, pretty much anything that could make noise or emit flashing light was put to use as they entered the harbour in the wee hours of the morning along with 7,000 early morning well-wishers. Boats sped up the coast from as far south as Bantry Bay in the pitch black to sit miles off the Aran Islands and shepherd the fleet in, and they were rewarded with the sight of the home team amongst the leaders. Bonfires on the islands blazed like tribal beacons as the boats passed the outer marker of Irish waters.
“It was a huge lift for us to come into Galway in a podium position,” said Green Dragon navigator, Ian Moore at the time.
“It’s made my entire race, this arrival into Galway.”
For the Irish crew, merely getting home was a victory. Their boat had turned out to be something of a lemon, with design flaws making them almost 10% slower than the top boats at some wind angles. Rendered uncompetitive, they then struggled with breakages. First, the boom broke on the way north from Cape Town to India. Then, the forestay, which holds up the mast, snapped on the way to China, before structural elements of the bow gave way and the boat started taking on water. The boat limped into the Chinese port of Qingdao for a fortnight of repairs ahead of a marathon trans-Pacific leg that would take them to Rio de Janeiro in Brazil.
From Rio they left a trail of woe. Last place to the scoring gate en route to Boston. Last place into Boston, and last place in the Boston in-port race.
“I hated the leg to Boston, I hated being in last place and I hated being uncompetitive in the in-port races,” said skipper Ian Walker.
But proximity to Ireland seemed to sprinkle fairy dust on the whole affair. A new partnership with online gamers brought a boost in profile for the Dragon, as virtual racers chimed in with navigational advice on the Boston-Galway leg.
The weather gods played ball too, ushering the Green Dragon westwards with heavy winds from behind, their favourite conditions.
When they emerged in third, the clichés were dusted off frantically to describe it all. Irish eyes smiled because of the luck of the Irish, said the papers variously.
A podium finish in Galway focused light on what would be a momentous stopover, and then as they surfed out of Irish waters on a wave of backslapping, the Green Dragon turned on the magic again. Having built a lead in big breeze as they streaked south-east past Cork, they then sailed a blinder all the way up the North Sea to Sweden, finishing there with another podium place.
“It’s nice to feel that at least we’ve troubled the podium on a few occasions,” said Walker, who wants another crack at the Volvo Ocean Race despite the trudge of the Green Dragon campaign.
“We’ve had financial troubles, we’ve had to cut salaries on the team. That was probably the lowest point. But to do something once is a waste, because you don’t get the opportunity to put into practice what you’ve learnt.
“I’d like to come back with a competitive team, still sailing with my friends but I’d like to come back with a real chance of winning.”
His second-in-command, Kerryman Damian Foxall, is already eyeing up his opportunities too.
“There are boats already getting ready for the next Volvo Ocean Race and to do well, you need to start early,” he said.
“So I’m pretty keen to have a look at the next one to be honest. I’ve been very, very fortunate to make a successful career out of my sport and anyone who can say that is pretty lucky I think.”
Whether or not Ireland will see its likes again in the near future remains to be seen. Galway’s stopover was given a gold star by the headmaster, but with the Green Dragon campaign turning out to be something of a money-pit, another Irish campaign may be hard to fund. Regardless, this edition has been a rollercoaster. A wet one.
Behind the scenes
Apart from the Irish crew on board Green Dragon, there was a flotilla of home-grown help trailing the fleet around the world. Here are a few of the high-profile behind-the-scenes Irish names from the world of the Volvo Ocean Race
BILL O’HARA
O’Hara, a former sailing Olympian, an international racing umpire and hotel owner from Derry, was one of the Volvo Ocean Race’s uppermost race officials. A major player in setting the rules of the race, O’Hara also travelled to each stopover to manage the in-port races, and the leg starts and finishes.
JOHNNY SMULLEN
One of the world’s top boat-builders, Smullen cut his teeth on NCB Ireland, our first entry in the round-the-world race 20 years ago. Since then he has worked with and for the best of the best, on everything from America’s Cup boats to stealth designs for the American military, making him the Green Dragon’s top gun shore foreman.
KILLIAN BUSHE
Another graduate of the NCB Ireland school of boatbuilding, Bushe has now built the winning boats for the last three Volvo Ocean Races from his base in Sweden. This time around, the Corkman was retained by Team Ericsson to construct their two race boats. And didn’t he do well? (They came 1st and 4th.)
MARCUS HUTCHINSON
Dubliner Hutchinson spreads his time between his family home in Cork and Alicante, the home of high-profile racing in Europe and the starting point for the race. Hutchinson came on board the official team as race communications director having done the same for the America’s Cup.
DAVID BRANIGAN
This Dublin-based photographer has followed the last three Volvo Ocean Races and this time around was retained by two teams with Irish interests, Delta Lloyd and the Green Dragon, as their official snapper. The job involved hanging out of helicopters, being sprayed by champagne and high-speed boat chases. How very James Bond!
Photo Credits:
Thanks to Rick Tomlinson, Guo Chuan and Guy Salter for their fantastic images.
