In light winds on a beautiful sunny day in Bay of Sanxenxo, on the Spanish West Coast, the 2005-2006 Volvo Ocean Race got started yesterday with the first In-Port Race. Not only was this the start of this epic yachting event, now in its 9th edition, but it was also the first time that this round the world event has included “round-the-buoys” racing. And if yesterday was any indication, this new formula will be a big hit. There were no less than 500 spectator boats out on the water afternoon watching the race and 30,000 people crowding the harbor area yesterday evening as the teams returned for the public prize giving in the square. The idea of brining the race to the people is a winner.

The race was delayed as it took a while for a light sea breeze to develop on this November afternoon. But with just 6-8 knots of wind, these 70 footers with their 100 foot high masts and 5000 square foot spinnakers were able to put on a show. Ericsson led the race from wire to wire by winning the left hand side of the start and heading to the left corner where she found more wind and a bit of favorable current. Brasil 1 was in second place around all the buoys followed by Moviestar and our own Pirates for most of the way. Then, up the last windward leg, Moviestar used an upwind “Code 0”, a big roller furling headsail that is set free flying. On Pirates, we did not measure in our “Code 0” as we haven’t had the opportunity to test this sail well and determine if it is in fact faster than a more traditional headsail, and if so, in what wind range. Well, we got a good test in yesterday when we were able to take 200 meters out of Moviestar on that last windward leg and round the last buoy right on their tail. When Moviestar rolled their “Code 0” to tack at the mark, they went right into a spinnaker set and we seized the opportunity to sail a bit higher and faster with the genoa before setting. This put us in a very threatening position to windward of Moviestar and slowly but surely we rolled them to finish third. Adding a bit of extra heat to this battle was the fact that the King Juan Carlos of Spain was on Moviestar and his daughter, Princess Cristina, was with us on the Pearl. On the way in to the harbor after the finish, the Princess was concerned that she might have to find her own ride home. She later sent me a text to thank the team and mentioned that her dad did give her a ride home on his plane.

Behind Moviestar, the two ABN Amro boats had a tough day occupying last and second to last all the way around the track. While the first four boats yesterday were the Farr designed boats which are narrower, the wider ABN boats predictable did not like the very light conditions. They seem to have more wetted surface and they have the two rudders. None of that was helping them yesterday. Yesterday was a tough day for their team as they are the favorites in this race having spent more time sailing and having the advantage of two boats for development. They handled themselves well and sucked it up keeping in mind that this is just the very beginning of a 31000 mile race with 112 points available and yesterday just 3.5 of those points were given out to the winner.

You can’t read to much into yesterday. The whole race took place in under 8 knots of wind in relatively smooth seas. This is not a very good representation of the average conditions that we will have in the race around the world. Having said that, I am very happy because since May 3rd, when I first met the Disnay executives to dicuss this project, November 5th has been a looming deadline, and at times approaching at an alarmingly fast rate. The deadline came, we were prepared to race, and we achieved a nice result. More importantly, we learned a lot from our competitors and we had a great team on the boat and on the water observing, taking photos and gathering information. We will now digest all of that and move forward.

Onboard the Black Pearl, we had three exceptional guests yesterday; Princess Cristina of Spain, herself a very accomplished sailor; Mark Zoradi, President of Buena Vista International; and Fredrik Arp, President and CEO of Volvo Cars Corporation. Apart from enjoying the exceptional “on-the-field-of-play” ride, all three were impressed with how demanding and physical the boats are for the 10 crew….and this was in 8 knots of wind! Our top speed yesterday was only 11 knots so we can only imagine what these In-Port race are going to be like in 25 knots of wind. Along with Mark, we have about 10 Disney and Buena Vista executives here visiting us for a few days, getting to know the event and the team. Every time someone who doesn’t know our world comes and spends a few days with us, I am impressed with how easily they become captivated by what we do. I have seen it happen with the Disney people one by one over the past two months and that was the case with Mark yesterday.

This week, we are preparing the boat and crew for the leg to Cape Town which starts next Saturday. Monday we will have a crew meeting in the morning followed by a safety session out on the water where we wil test the emergency steering system, man overboard procedures, abandon ship procedures, and personal injury procedures. Tuesday-Thursday will be dedicated to loading the boat and getting a bit of time to ourselves to pack up and move out of Sanxenxo. We have been living here for about 6 weeks so we are fairly well entrenched and you can just walk out of your hotel room.

It feels good to have the event under way and it was a great start.

Paul Cayard

Pirates of the Caribbean

We put the Black Pearl back in the water on Halloween but it was too windy today to take her out for a spin. The wind has been blowing 45 knots today with the waves crashing over the sea wall and spraying my portable office. It has been blowing 20 plus from the South to southwest for most of the past 2 weeks and you know what direction we have to go when we start the leg to Cape Town…Southwest. Maybe there is a theory that if it blows from the southwest for three weeks straight, we might get some other direction on November 12th.

We had another long list of jobs to attend to last week after our two events in Vigo. The crew also had to attend a two-day safety course and a media training day. The Safety course was very valuable although we hope we wont need to employ anything we learned there. We did spend an afternoon in a swimming pool with our life rafts learning how to right them if they are upside down, how to get an injured crewmember in one, how to bail it out, how to collect rain water and a number of other things. The next day we learned how to stop bleeding from a deep wound, how to do CPR, and man overboard rescue. The good thing about these courses is not only do they teach you things but it makes you think about how you would handle certain situations. As a crew, we are going to spend next Monday go over our own safety plans onboard our boat.

Tomorrow is supposed to be very windy again in the morning, 35+ knots, then hopefully moderating in the afternoon. We will try to get out there and at least check some of our new sails. We are planning on doing some short course training for the inport race this Saturday. Thursday and Friday are supposed to be lighter and Saturday itself is supposed to be quite light with a possible seabreeze building. We’ll see.

We are really coming down the final stretch here. Freddy is getting all the food ready for the 12th, we are preparing the inside of the boat for storing all the food and gear that we need to take, the Volvo Race organization is scrutinizing all our safety gear while the measurement committee is making their checks. New sails need to be checked and sometimes modified. Spares are getting made up and put aside in a corner. The weather briefs are daily now as we have Wouter Verbraak onsite as our meteorologist for preparing us for this leg. This list goes on. It is impressive to see what goes into getting a boat ready to go to sea for 3 weeks and 6700 miles. I remember what a mountain of work it was 8 years ago and how much better we got at it as the race went on. The same will be the case this time. This will be the toughest leg to prepare for.

The logistics of these teams is no small chore either. Not only do we have to get 20 people down to Cape Town we have to get our whole base structure down there as well. Curt Oetking has been working on that when he hasn’t been working on our boat. Our Cape Town containers left last week and this whole set up that we have here in Spain will be sent directly to Melbourne. The items you need in every port have to be air-freighted.

As this race dates approach, the numbers of people around a team go up. Family members show up, sponsors show up, important dinners are more frequent, it is the “Event” factor coming into full gear. It is all good though. Being busy and challenged all the time is what makes life interesting and satisfying.

On Saturday, we shift modes. We are out of preparation mode and into race mode. Looking back, it has been intense and fast paced 5 months for The Pirates of the Caribbean. The team has done an excellent job of getting the boat this well prepared this quickly. Looking forward, the next 8 months will be very challenging for all of us but we will do amazing things together, travel to remote areas and create memories that will last a lifetime. Life doesn’t get better than that.

It has been a while since I got into a class of boat where handling it around the bouys was a complete learning experience. The VOR 70 is all new to me and to all the Pirates. Not often do Olympic medalists, America’s cup winners, past Volvo Ocean Race winners, find them on a boat where they have to learn how to handle the boat from scratch.

Today we trained by sailing windward leward legs on a 3 mile course which is the legnth of the legs for the inport race we will do in 2 weeks time. On this, relitively compressed playing field, Handling these 70 footers, with 5000 square foot spinnakers, runners, canards that go up and down and canting the keel is a real handful for those who know what they are doing. For those of us still trying to fingure out what to do, it is even more of a challenge.

The wind was slow to get started today but finally filled around 13:30. The Spanish boat had given up on the day and went in. We stayed out and were treated to a beautiful day with the wind peaking at 12 knots and generally around 10 knots. It was a seabreeze from 220 and fairly steady and a beautiful sunny day.

We sailed three full laps trying different sets and drops, different tacking

and gybing techniques. To say that we are learning a lot each day out there would be an understatement. I think we are making some good progress but I could see doing this for 3 months and still improving with each new day.

Unfortunately, we can’t even train like this for the next two weeks. Tomorrow we have to measure the boat, Tuesday we are presenting the Pirates of the Caribbean to 500 school children of Vigoand WEdnesday are hosting some media with Disney in Baiona. Wednesday-Sunday we will not be sailing to get the jobs list down to a manageable number. Currently we have 178 itmes on our work list for the boat.

It is all good though; We are a happy team, the food is excellent thanks to Chef Rehana and his able assistant Jo, we are still sleeping in dry beds and we are having fun dealing with the challenge. Doesn’t get much better than that in life!

END PC POTC

We are in the middle of a work week on the boat. The mast is down, the keel is off and the boat is in the shed. The later fact has been a great move as it has been raining a lot this week. Following the 2000 miler and the trip to Holland and back, we got enough time in the boat to know what things we wanted to change. We lined up 14 boat builders from around the world, rented a shed, got the parts lined up and hit it hard last Thursday. Code name for the project is “Pimp my ride”. Special edition T-Shirts are being made. The boat should come out of the shed this weekend and we will start sailing on Monday.

We have 15 outside contractors working on the boat this week plus our own shore team. We have four boat builders from Switzerland who work on Alinghi, we call them the Ski Team, we have four guys from Green Marine in the UK, we have 3 guys from the USA, and 5 painters from England. All these guys do is work, eat, work, sleep and work. Mark Rehana has been taking good care of them with the food. This is proving once again to be a big plus to have not just an inhouse cook but to have Mark Rehana and his able assistant, Jo. They are simply the best!

Three of our competitors are also working on their boats this week. Both ABN boats and Ericsson are out of the water. Brasil 1 arrived today from their training base in Portugal. Volvo event management is setting up the erace village near the club. Things are heating up in Sanxenxo.

Last weekend Disney Italy and I went to the Genoa Boat Show and presented the Pirates of the Caribbean and the Black Pearl to the Italian media. The conference was moderated by Guilio Guazini, the RIA commentator who covers sailing for them. RAI, has bought the rights to the Volvo Ocean Race for Italy. The Italian public are big fans of sailing and it seems there was a lot of interest in the Pirates of the Caribbean. We also announced our Italian Official Suppliers, Ermenegildo Zegna and Gottifredi Maffioli. Zegna is providing us with our formal attire and this continues a long relationship I have had with the high quality fashion house from Milan. Gottifredi Maffioli is number one in the world of ropes and high tech fibers for racing sailboats and there are making some custom ropes for us. Both are very enthusiastic and looking forward to a great partnership with Pirates.

On Friday, October 14, a big event is taking place in my home town and in fact in the St. Francis Yacht Club. The America’s Cup Hall of Fame will induct three new members; Fritz Jewett, Jack Sutphen and Alan Payne. Fritz Jewett was the Chairman of many successful America’s Cup campaigns over a 30 year time frame. Most noteably, the 1980 Freedom campaign and the 1987 Stars and Stripes campaign, both very defining campaigns for Dennis Conner. Coincidentally, Jack Sutphen also served a key role in those campaigns as trial horse helmsman. In 2000 , Fritz served as Chairman of my AmericaOne campaign. I am not sure if this induction is long over due but I am sure it is fully merited. Sport is full of winners but few are the winners who have integrity, live up to their commitments, maintain strong and positive leadership in times of adversity, possess genuine compassion for their team mates, all the while competing with the utmost intensity and commitment in the pursuit of the goal. Congratulations Fritz!

There isn’t much time left to the start of this big adventure. Measurement procedures start this Saturday with a draw to allocate the measurement slots. We are planning to do some more training next week, look at race sails, study the weather with our meteorologist, Jean Yves Bernot and eat and sleep. We have some madatory saftey courses to take, media training and a few hospitality events. For sure, no one is bored around here.

All is well in the Pirate family.

Paul Cayard

Pirates of the Caribbean