To The Ends of The Earth - The First 40 Years | Volvo Ocean Race

[Applause] [Music] if you're determined to be in the sailing game you have to do this race this race is demanding physically and mentally it is the ultimate your race the feeling of being with 11 other people who you love and who you trust your life with if there's just nothing like [Music] it you'll be probably frightened at times scared worried you'll hate it he'll absolutely despise the fact that you're involved when you get to the Finish you'll know why because there's nothing like it [Music] for nearly 40 years it has been at the Pinnacle of offshore sailing in October 2011 teams from across the globe will line up for this epic adventure 39,000 M around the world across four oceans and to every continent on Earth 11 crew members squeezed onto a state-of-the-art 70ft racing machine with one single aim to lap the planet as fast as possible racing up to 600 M day through searing heat and subzero temperatures braving storm force winds and waves the size of office blocks adventurers and athletes in equal measure with the planet as their [Music] racetrack before the Advent of air travel the sea was the fastest way to move people and products around the world in the 19th century clipper ships huge streamlined vessels sailed eastwards around the globe with the prevailing winds setting distance and speed records that would last for over 150 years the Clippers strove to go as fast as they could across the seas as a matter of Professional Pride but it was a group of solo Sailors some 100 years later that would provide the inspiration for man to race around the planet in May 1967 Francis Chichester became the fastest man to sail around the world single-handed stopping in Sydney on the way I felt there was the one big thing left in sing to go around the world nonstop she just stopped once and left us with just that to do in life you can say no well there's other important things or you say I'm going to go and try it well Robin KNX Johnson set the scene really he he proved it could be done nonstop so it it did the sport a huge amount of good and he got people thinking could we race yachs around the world day 312 about 2 5 3 on April the 22nd and Robin Knox Johnson and Su Haley have sailed nonstop around the world the story I've always heard U which may or may not be true is that it was cooked up in a pub in portsman by the head of wood bre a rear Admiral of the ra Navy Sailing Association and they had the idea um who knows if that's true or not the whip bread didn't start as the Legends would have created it the first mention of it came in a brochure presented by Anthony Churchill and Guy Pierce at cows week in 1971 where they were toting the idea of a fully crude race around the world there was a lot of interest but they couldn't find the sponsorship and it was the royal Naval Sailing Association who were looking for something adventurous to do as well and they brought in Whitbread they had sponsored chich before news of the spread and soon hundreds of potential entrance from across the world were staking their claim aside from a few full-time Sailors it was a mix of former military personnel and affluent amateur who were paying their way around the world the foundations of the first Whitbread were built more on enthusiasm than offshore experience well they went into out andout races like we have now they were all adventurers and uh they wanted to go and see the world and and this was a great opportunity to do that we're going to sail um normal boats around with normal people all right we're going to stop but we're going to race uh was really an enormously challenging Prospect and I think that you know now it's hard to get our heads around quite how much of an adventure that was that was going to be for everyone the race would follow the traditional Clipper route heading south from Portsmouth first to Cape Town and then continuing eastwards with the prevailing winds to Sydney leaving Australia the fleet would head down into the southern ocean to round Cape Horn and make for Rio de Janeiro before the final leg back to Portsmouth 27,000 miles around the world on September 8th 1973 17 Yachts left on the first wit bred round the world race from Francis Eric tavet on pendu C to the Mexican millionaire Ramon Carin on saula 2 None had sailed around the world before all except one man Chay blle the skipper of Great Britain 2 Chay was one of nine children from a railway worker in Hoy in Scotland and quite literally he as far as the yachting establishment concerned he was very much on the wrong side of the tracks he was determined after all he had rode across the Atlantic he had sailed solo around the world against the prevailing winds and currents and it doesn't come more difficult than that perhaps well chbl was a sergeant in the paratroop regiment uh very tough individual uh never wanted to be an officer cuz he knew that the wars were won by the sergeants not by the men above them the thing about the first whip bread was of course that we're all sort of shooting in the dark we wen't all quite sure what what we're doing my first problem was how to get a crew and so I said would it be possible to take paris's crew I worked on the principle that if I could train and surely they could train we went up to Scotland um The Cottage I used to own up up in the borders and we spent about 3 weeks there doing some training one of the things I did up there was to get a young lady Professor from Glasgow University to give us some psychometric tests and the only person who had the key to this was me so I could know what sort of chap I was dealing with and it was quite amusing because on my one it says um something like U not suitable for longdistance sailing for the cruise of that first race life was very different to the high-tech world of a modern racing yacht they navigated by Sextant and aside from a weekly call to the race office they might as well have dropped off the face of the Earth as they headed south into the most isolated waters on the planet few had any idea what they would face we were in very Seas full Gale one and in very cold area I mean you had icebergs and we slipping along at some serious speed and suddenly the cry went up Man Overboard they did their plan plot searches of the area they went back they found the Dan booy that had been thrown over immediately Bernie had gone over the side but they couldn't find Bernie it was just a nightmare really we researched for 4 hours but he'd have been dead within 20 minutes with a cold alone Bernie hosking was the third fatality on that first whitre race bl's team of Paras had all seen active service and regarded the loss of Awan as a tragic but immutable consequence of pursuing a life away from the safety of Home stealing themselves through the sou ocean they rounded Cape Horn in first place and with the first boat home in Rio and when we got into Rio we had a memorial service for them which was all the boats attended which was very good of them and I flew back to Britain uh to meet the parents cuz they want to know exactly what happened in a firsthand account that is not easy you know and the real store was absolutely solid as rocks you know we explained to them in there where their son dead and yet they were you know taking it right on the chin really lovely couple yeah it was great very sad the fleet left Rio on the last leg back to Portsmouth bl's gbr2 was the fastest boat around the world winning three of the four stages and crossing the line first into Portsmouth after a then world record of 144 days to circumnavigate the globe but it was Ramon Carlin Cula 2 who took the win on handicap and would go down in history as the first winner of the wit bred round the world yacht race also on that first race was a young New Zealander taking his first steps to becoming one of the Sport's greatest icons Peter Blake sailed on Burton cutter but it was a hand-to-mouth existence for the crew who as soon as they arrived in Port were hard at work refitting the boat despite the frustration of sailing with few resources Blake had a taste for the race Blake was determined to get round prop and the second race included ockland as a stopover so that really interested Peter and he went on Heath Condor with Robin KNX Johnson W had a a pretty good relationship I mean it was very practical relationship and Peter I'd always say I mean he wasn't the technical sailor you get in the Olympics what he had was great leadership qualities the ability to motivate people and is a safe bloke to sell with the second Whitbread race in 1977 saw solo sailing pioneer Robin Knox Johnston skippering Heath's Condor a boat built especially for the race and regarded as the favorite but there was also a little known Dutch industrialist who people were beginning to talk about I read the book there is the glory J bces and I thought well after I read it why why do other people those things why don't I do them every you know was always work work work I made a set of rules and one of them no shouting one of them was no no swearing and uh they were not allowed to complain about the food those kind of things but it worked out fine this person was an unknown he wasn't really rated very highly by us we were thinking oh Robin Knox Johnson all this experience but they were the first into Cape Town and suddenly we all had to look up and say blim me Keith's Condor had snapped their carbon fiber Mast halfway through the first leg all but destroying their chances of winning the race they recovered well to win the second leg into ockland but it was only a temporary halt in Flyer's progress con van re scotton maintained his overall lead through the riggers of the Southern Ocean and Beyond while some competitors's boats had barely been finished before the start flyer had SA over 10,000 mil in training van R gon's style could be authoritarian but his professionalism changed the race from just a matter of survival at Sea to genuine competition his victory in Portsmouth was emphatic and deserved the winner of the first Whi Reb was an off the- Peg racer Cruiser but van Reed Scott's Victory had shown how important it was to build specifically for the race offsh sailing may have once been seen as purely a contest of human endurance but as the status of the race grew so too did the need to focus on every aspect of a title challenging campaign I was the shore manager of a flyer then uh and I followed through with the building uh the crew selection and Connie did exactly the same uh planning as before now the difference this time was that Peter Blake uh also did a huge amount of prepar a they knew before it started that there was a big race between the two of them they knew that was going to happen the 1981 Whi Reb was only ever going to be about two men and two boats the Netherlands Conny van Reit scorton on flyer and skippering Camco New Zealand Peter Blake the Dutchman took first blood in the leg to South Africa but Blake fought back from a dismasting to stay in the race battle had commenced from the moment van we scoten and Blake left Cape Town and headed south towards the icebergs and towering waves of the Southern Ocean it was offshore racing at its fiercest for the first time the two Skippers were sailing as fast at night as they did in the day something had to give Connie had a heart attack uh Julian Fuller our doctor he just completed his training and he uh wanted to speak to the TCO they were the nearest uh crew but not only that they had a cardiologist on board he wanted to get advice Connie said absolutely no way and he said if the cam con crew know that I've got a problem they're going to push even harder I'm not going to let them know that the first thing that the guys on Sarco my but were to know if Connie um had died was if they had to put him over the side and we saw him float past he wanted to win van Reed scodon recovered from his heart attack and refused to miss a mile of the race he had dedicated his life to winning with a multinational crew dominated by Dutch and new zealanders flyer was pushed all away by Peter Blake but it was Van Reed scoten who sailed into Portsmouth first to complete and historic double of race victories and in a world record time for a Circ of navigation of the [Music] globe to those who weren't part of the sailing world the sport had often been seen as The Preserve of the titled Elite more about wearing the right tie and Cocktails with the Commodore than a love of the sea the wit bread had blown apart this image with characters such as van Reed scotton and Blake epitomizing a more heroic age self-made men who did battle with each other and the elements it was 1985 the amateur Adventurer was giving way to the professional ocean racer and in their wake came the corporate sponsors and the celebrities Simon lebor and drum brought a whole new dimension to the race here was a pop star a well-known name right across the world uh coming and doing the Race I thought it was a high-risk situation in the beginning I first heard about it especially when I met Simon for the first time his rock star get up but it all transpired to be very enjoyable indeed he was a very intellectual sort of guy and when he was with the crew on the sailboat he really was a different person I think and I think he really enjoyed that a lot while Switzerland's Pierre Felman was tasting the champagne after winning the first leg of the 1985 race there were the usual stories of Carnage inevitable when untried designs faced weeks of offshore Racing for the first time and for those who did make it through they knew worse was to come we said in Cape Town we don't think drum is safe to go in the Southern Ocean so the crew said well we're not going there if not the designer of the boat is coming so our Skipper called up the designer of the boat who was Ron Holland and he said no way I'm going but I can send my brother and we said okay he's sending his brother then he's probably okay the round the world race is a very punishing race and it punishes the equipment pretty much the most I think I think that people tend to you know people people are strong in comparison to the to the the equipment they use in the early days of the whip bread families were waved off at the dog not to be seen until the fleet returned many months later not so Peter Blake along with wife pipper and daughter Sarah Jane they sailed lion from New Zealand to Portsmouth for the start and it was Blake's family that provided the support he needed to take on the stresses of the race I just went down to the local Sailing Club one evening I was down from London and M walked this you Tall Blond Mustachio handsome kiwi and I'd never met an antipa before and um I guess you could say the rest is history because that was love at first sight and that was it the majority of the 300,000 Spectators who saw the fleet off from Oakland were firmly in the Blake camp but as the boats headed back to the Southern Ocean it was felman's UBS who were in front rounding the horn was a right of passage for Sailors in the clier era and a century later it was no less significant at the horn we offered Neptune toast in the traditional way and after weeks of eating freeze-dried food and total alcoholic abstinence one glass of this stuff and you're seeing things felman's Swiss team took the win into Uruguay but it was Duran Duran singer Simon Lebon who was putting the race on the front pages we've had big waves we've had little waves we've had a lot of wind we've had no wind we've had whales we had Dolphins this is a fantastic day in my life felman's UBS was to lead the fleet into the finish in Portsmouth Blake again coming up short in a boat that had sacrificed speed for strength 4 days later it was Leonel Pon from France and his crew on board Lea who took the overall Victory and the trophy from Princess Diana offshore sailing was traditionally The Preserve of men CLA Francis had skippered ADC acut TR in the 1977 race but with a predominantly male crew with few exceptions female participation was at best marginal but in 1989 one woman pushed for change putting together the first all female team in the race Tracy Edwards had sailed in the last whitre as a cook but this time she was the skipper it wasn't just a oh no you can't do it don't be so silly it was quite an aggressive massive backlash an all women crew in an aluminium boat I described rudely as a tin full of Tarts no one of us belied that she would get to finish the first leg let alone get round the world out on the water was extraordinary with all the boats coming out and of course you know the the big Navy ship for the start and that's of York on the radio hi TR I just want to tell my go they better win right yes we will no problem the buildup was extraordinary it really wasn't until sort of two days out when the land had disappeared and the other boats had disappeared and there we were on our own so looking around at each other going BL me and we realized we were there and and it was real on his fifth attempt it seemed Peter Blake had finally got everything right with Steiner 2 they stormed into pter deleste in the first leg while fellow kiwi Grant Dalton's Fisher and pel limped after them with mass damage the next leg to freemantle plunged the fleet into the Southern Ocean where conditions were as rough as anyone had seen and for the first time since the inaugural race a life was tragically lost at sea but it wasn't Stein ler 2 who grabbed the headlines with another leg victory in freemantle but Tracy Edwards and her maiden crew with a stunning class win bulb and ey were probably far too chauvinistic about it we couldn't believe it and they really showed us the other phrase that um Bob fer coined was not just smart Tarts but smart fast Tarts which we loved and of course he got into a huge amount of trouble for if winning the whip bread was the crown in glory finishing first into Orland was a close second for the two kiwi Front Runners neck and neck they chased each other across 3,000 miles of ocean until within sight of Oakland there was barely a mile between [Music] them it was intense and I'm it was so important that the Steiner guys were going to get the first over the line and obviously so important for dos one of those little cells of intense wind came down and Fisher and P went into a wild brooch and that gave Blake the opportunity to get the Spiner down before anything happened and be in full control and be able to sail past them you didn't know quite when the racing was that close he was going to be first so butterflies in the stomach emboldened by a third successive win Stein logger 2 never looked back after a formidable crossing of the Southern Ocean they were first into punto deleste first into Fort Lauderdale and finally just Southampton lay before them pushed every step of the way by a tenacious Grant Dalton on fiser and P Steiner completed the Clean Sweep as they took the last leg Victory finally then on his fifth attempt Peter Blake had achieved what he had dedicated his whole sailing life to winning the wit [Music] bread it was a wonderful Tri to win every leg needed not only skill and determination but just that extra little bit of luck perhaps I've clined one Everest yeah there's a few more around that need to be looked at so um I'm not just going to sort of U disappear you know into the background somewhere I've got a few other things I intend to do he knew then that he wouldn't do another wet boad race cuz there would be no point I run every leg it's almost like a I don't have to do that again but you let's think of the next adventure a world record for the fastest non-stop lap of the globe with his old Skipper Robin Knox Johnston and two America's Cup victories followed for Blake but it was his pioneering environmental work in highlighting the effect man was having on the world around him that was perhaps the most personally [Music] rewarding but while traveling back along the Amazon he was tragically murdered by gunman he was 53 he was the ultimate family man which you wouldn't necessarily think I mean he probably changed far more nappies than I ever did but he was just great sort of tall tall strong kiwi but he loved his family and they loved him in the world of offshore racing biggest had been best with the heavyweight Maxi class dominating the Whi rib for years but these boats demanded a huge logistical effort to race needed big Crews to sail them fast and their spiraling costs were in danger of putting off sponsors so in 1993 a challenger was unveiled these whitre 60s were were fast so the Maxi guys were really uptight that they could be beaten boat for boat the witb became a two-tier event the Maxi class attracted four entries like the catch New Zealand Endeavor skippered by Grant Dalton and the whitridge 60 CL proved its popularity with 10 entries on the start line in Southampton doton B was adamant he had chosen the best boat to win the race this time he really is one of the toughest guys I've ever met back when I first started which was just a delivery between parties that used to be race for Misfit adventurers you know and we brought a whole new kind of level to it and just cleaned it up for years doton stamped his mark on the race from the start as New Zealand Endeavor won the first leg into punter deleste but if doton had hoped the Southern Ocean would prove too tough for the fledgling whitbred 60 class he was to be disappointed as they cared their way to Australia in the second leg taking the first four places and leaving the Maxis wallowing in their wake doton though kept the hammer down and the pressure on as the race headed for home New Zealand Endeavor took the Maxi win and the title of fastest boat around the world Dalton had won the battle against the new 60s but the war of words had just begun uh it is unfortunate that Grant is still on this thing pushing the old wheel barrel down the Garden Path you know he spent three years trying to make us slower that he would win and he's won he he should be very happy with the result and we're static about it and um good on grant for coming in here he's won the Maxis and we won the 6s but they're not happy boys at all and you know they made bad calls they bought 60s to be to be first around the world and they weren't so tough tough luck to them they got it wrong but 2 years later Dalton himself was supervising the build of his own 60-footer as the Maxis finally bowed out the Whi red became at last a race between boats all built to the same rule by 1997 the Corinthian Spirit had been replaced by a cool professionalism as a new breed took on the race for the first time and few epitomized the mood more than po Kart we just were very inexperienced we had nine people like myself who were America's Cup Sailors or Star Sailors on the boat but we had our own style when that all clicked and came together yeah I won't ever forget that we had a Fresh Approach you know we just U the game at every level clothes food stacking every level we just pushed it harder he come from an Olympic background uh where you race around short courses just a mile long where every centimeter and millimeter counts he took that same level of obsession and applied it to 30,000 Mi of racing around the world as the dot Revolution took hold the race was followed like never before Millions around the world took to their computers to check the latest updated positions living every mile of the race Dalton had the experience but it was kad's bunch of inore races on EF language who had the edge on that first leg beating the Kiwi into Cape Town by almost a day kard seemed like the real deal but there was much to learn s out of Cape Town in good shape made an early tactical mistake and were on the back foot K pressed really really hard to catch up and he pressed way too hard they broke to just about first spinning on the boat was just a complete Horror Story and I was unconscious of the fact that there was something such as lifting your foot off the throttle or or slowing down they got into freem manle and I remember meeting them there and it was very very subdued atmosphere and there was clearly a lot of tension on the boat I just for me personally I get a really bad taste in my mouth when I'm in the leading something and start backing down when we got in and had a big meeting and actually changed the whole program at that point and that's where Paul is actually pretty strong as a leader and said all right guys here's where I messed up here's where you messed up here's you messed up this what we didn't do right and here's how we're going to fix it any comments pre-race a lot of the smart money had been on Britain's silk cut rumored to be the bestf funded campaign it was led by the Mercurial Lori Smith sailing in his fourth Whitbread a year earlier Smith had been unveiled as EF languages star Skipper it's finalized and Lori is here and and we are happy that we can work forward instead of backwards as it has felt over the last two months but 3 months later Smith had jumped ship along with most of his crew and headed back home to front silk Cut's high-profile entry with money to spend it seemed like a dream move Lori Smith really had everything at his disposal when he had silk cut backing um a smoker with uh backing from a cigarette company which we don't see anymore he had everything going for him uh but I don't think he spent it in the right areas they weren't as well resourced in terms of shore crew so when they came ashore after each leg it was the sailors that were having to put the boat back together again well on some of the other teams that those Sailors were off to their hotels and getting much needed rest and recuperation before the next leg so maybe cutting some Corners here and there and and it started to tell and it ended up with a broken Mast silk cuts dismasting on the leg to Brazil put any chance of overall Victory well beyond their reach a new 24-hour distance record showed their boat was quick but a series of lackluster finishes left many wondering where it had all gone wrong as the rest of the fleet plowed northwards on the long ride back to Southampton Kad and EF language tightened their grip on the race lead the Whi bread had been a nleg marathon visiting more ports than ever before and with it Paul kard had taken communication to a new new level sharing his Victorious lap of the planet with a legion of new fans my vision of this race was it was a tough race I was coming into an environment that I didn't know too well the offshore sailing and I thought we would struggle at first but that in the end we would grind it out you know when I went around the world in 9798 um that was a voyage it was a lot more than just the race that was a lifetime experience to sail around the planet on the vehicle that I have spent my whole life on a sailboat and my Mont ever in life was to win this race and of course when you succeeded all the emotion came out it was fantastic I I don't regret a minute that I have um spent all this time in [Music] sailing the Southern Ocean perhaps more than any other area of the world symbolizes what the Whi Rad or Volvo Ocean Race as it became is all about ice snow towering waves and winds that blow relentlessly and unstoppably around the bottom of the world nowhere on the planet is man more isolated from his fellow human beings southern oceans for for only a certain few I think is the most beautiful place in the world some days other days it's just could be the worst place in the world if is what you do the greatest place in the world to go sailing is the Southern Ocean because it's like your best ride at Disneyland and it just goes on but in there's the big problem cuz it just goes on and you can't get off the roller coaster one of the worst moments is when there is Growler small icebergs around you and you cannot see them on the radar and you're completely in the darkness and the boat is doing all this speed and you feel a little bit crazy then you feel a little bit wow this is this is on the edge in 2001 the Volvo Ocean Race Fleet went further south than ever before as the team sought every advantage over their Rivals for all the advances in technology the boats were no less vulnerable to the hidden dangers that lurked beneath the Waters of the Southern Ocean it's blowing 35 knots you're doing 25 knots of boat speed you're hanging on the wheel the Navigator sticks his head up the hatch and he'll say Iceberg on the bow and you go how far 1 mile it's like 3 minutes you're on top of it have to react instantaneously once you get the call Iceberg you react you basically drive through this pack ice picking out the big bits to miss and all the time you're doing 25 knots the Hammer's down fully you're just going and you just if we hit something bigger than 6 or 8 ft across we will actually compromise the hole and go down you go down below and you take your gloves off and your feet are frozen and your hands are frozen and you curl up in your bunk and you just pretend you're not there and I don't need to do that anymore that's my last time the German sponsored IL Brook team Skipper by John CI was the Class Act of the race they had out prepared outspent and outperformed their Rivals from the time they announced their entry in the Volvo Ocean Race newly acquired from whitre Grant Dalton's Amma Sports one team was late in the water and from the start Dalton had everything thrown at him gear failure shredded sails critically ill crew members if he wanted a challenge he'd got one on his sixth race around the world that was a bad Grant Dalton may not have had the fastest boat in that race and he probably wasn't ever going to win it but I just think it's his sheer bloody mindedness and determination that that he's not easily phased by things so even if he knew he was sailing a slow boat he would have taken it to the nth degree we've got to get on our game and we'll do whatever's necessary to do that and I I'm brutally ruthless to make sure this campaign stays on the podium Dalton's pursuit of leaders IL Brook was relentless but the German back team were uncatchable by the time they came within sight of the finishing Keel they may have lacked the Charisma of kad's EF but the emotion was just as genuine you I have a Olympic medal but for sure this is the best [Applause] top Dalton's determination to get on the podium meant his attention was diverted away from all female Amma Sports 2 and the small matter of a wager to settle Grant said uh that if he was ever beaten by the girls then he would uh stick a pineapple where the sun don't shine and anyway in the uh the final leing to Kil the very final bit of the race uh the girls indeed did be Grant what a champ yeah well done couldn't catch it he didn't quite oblige but he did at least stick the pineapple down his underpants which must have hurt a little bit but I think what hurt him more was the fact that he was beaten by the girls this thing is way more potent and way faster this thing's a [Music] weapon the Volvo 70 was the replacement for the Aging 60-footer it was a revolution in the design a canting or swinging Keel 60% more sail area but 2 tons lighter with a crew of just 10 new territory for both designers and sailors alike the far office designers of the previous four race winners with a favored choice in 2005 but ab and Amro were a two- booat team with a secret weapon 34-year-old Argentinian designer Juan kuum Jang I'll be honest I wanted the fastest boat in the fleet not only did we have a fantastic association with with onean we made him overanalyze everything to death because we couldn't just sit back and say hey the fire offic have won every race it's going to be right this time as well jk just hit it first time bang on with the Vol open 70 he he got the right area of the rule the wide uh fat Stern and the twin Rudders that was the key Insight the far boats dominated the import race a week before the start of the main event with ABN amro's two races bringing up the rear it was starting to look like abn's gamble had already backfired but the light winds of the import race were a world away from what the fleet could expect on that first leg from vgo Spain as they plunged South into a raging Atlantic the new 70s were about to be tested for the first time as the crews on the far boats wrestled to keep their charges together it was ABN Amro 1 the broad but bulletproof racer which was already beginning to run away with the race the great challenge in that race was knowing how hard to push without breaking the legs off your boat that wasn't really an issue that they ever had with a V60 that that was just pedal to the metal drive it as hard as you can if you do that with a V7 it will break when I went down below um that first night and saw the water pressure on the uh top of the Keel box it was just extremely apparent to me that there was no way that boat was going to sail 7,000 mi in that state so we sailed it as gingerly as we could back towards Portugal so the the first night of the whole race threw everything that this race has had to throw at us ABN amro1 continued its path to victory in Cape Town their domination of the race became a fullscale route as they won five of the first six legs meanwhile the far office was deep into fullscale crisis management as leg after leg teams retired with technical issues often down to the Hydraulics associated with the new Canon Keels abn's progress had been Serene by comparison and a triumphant Homecoming in Europe was just a transatlantic Crossing away I think a lot of people assume that it's the sort of remoteness of the Southern Ocean which is where all the problems occur in races in fact um very often it's the North Atlantic where you experience the most problems and um as we saw in in the worst possible way in in the 20056 race the stage from New York to Portsmouth was as hard a leg as any the fleet had sailed so far freezing temperatures and winds building to over 50 knots at 2: in the morning on May 18th ABN Amro 2 sister ship to the race leader experienced a sudden jump in wind speeds as the boat buried itself into a W 32-year-old Hans horovitz was swept from the deck the most sickening feeling you can ever have as an offshore sailor to know one of your teammates are is in the sea as the crew on ABN 2 began a desperate search for horovitz the rest of the Volvo fleet was deep in the same low pressure system on May 18th and May 19th the wind came up it was blowing 35 to 40 which isn't more wind really than we saw at Cape Horn but the Atlantic waves are very very Steep and the amount of water was coming over the deck and sloshing people around and knocking them knocking them down and uh normally we would take the sper down at night just to be safe but at one point on on May 19th we took the sper down in the middle of the day and put the jib up it was just that rough so uh yeah I've been scared after searching for 40 minutes the crew of abn2 located harbitz unconscious in the water amazingly they did recover him but when they got him on board they were unable to resuscitate him um and that was an absolutely devastating blow to to the race the fact that it it was well getting on for 20 years since the previous death in the race maybe people had forgotten what this race is really all about because in the first 20 years of the whitbred race there were a lot of deaths and and it is a dangerous sport and that was a that was a nasty reminder of it two days after the tragic loss on ABN 2 the race was again plunged into a nightmare scenario 300 M from the English Coast mistar launched off a wave the resulting impact compromised the hull sinking and too far offshore for rescue the closest boat to them ABN Amro 2 it was one of those times where you left with a choice to either cut your losses and get off safely or or if you can persevere in that storm and you know there was a lot of risk involved to to have stayed with it so the decision was made to ban a ship get in the life roed and get picked up by ABN 2 such had been the drama of the previous days that few realized ABN Amro 1 would become Volvo Champions with two legs to spare if they were first to Portsmouth while all around them had been breakages and crew changes Mike Sanderson had brought his boat and the same nine Sailors all the way with him at 34 he was the youngest Skipper to win the race it's such a special moment this is my my Olympic medal this is my climbing of Mount Everest this is my my childhood dream to get to Skipper a boat and win it in the Volvo Ocean Race the boats were be the same for the next race but the route would be radically different instead of the usual dive South to Australia the fleet would head east to India Singapore and China before taking on a mammoth 12,300 Mi Journey Through the Southern Ocean to Rio the commercial sponsors were ecstatic as the race opened up new markets like never before if you go to yacht races around the world it's often the places where they've never experienced sing where they get the biggest turnouts places like India and China um so an eye opener for the for the sailors and and for everyone involved in the race with the prospect of reaching untapped markets like never before the race attracted one of the most International fleets in years Erikson had recruited the core of avm's winning team signing Juan kujan as their designer and for their Skipper one of the most successful Sailors in Olympic history torbin Grail Grail had skippered Brazil's first ever entry to ACC creditable third place but this time he was on a boat that looked to have won the race before it had even started he's one of the fastest drivers of a boat so when he's got his hands on the wheel there are a few people that can match him he understands the wind pretty much better than anyone else and he's won five Olympic medals to prove that um he just sees things that other people don't see the boats in the very first race were as different from the Volvo open 70 Grail was piloting as a biplane is from a stealth fighter since those early years life above and below decks had changed dramatically alcohol disappeared long ago food was freeze-dried and living conditions cramped cheerless and filled with a deafening sound of creaking carbon at times sailing in the Volvo resembles nothing short of a sadistic social experiment the fact that you're living with people all the time uh you you see guys come to to blows on the training pitch in football and they get to go home to the wife every night and have a [ __ ] about the BLS they're playing with you don't have that opportunity when you're on a sailboat run her off run off Jesus Christ it's really brutal on relationships and and just how a small group of people work together effectively without tearing each other's heads off I think the Volvo Ocean Race tests you in so many different ways and probably the mental side is the hardest of all the pressure on the modern race Skipper has grown immeasurably since the first race with budgets now in the multi-millions the need for a team to deliver results has never been greater Ericson four looked on top of their game as the fleet reached Singapore with victory in two of the first three legs and a new 24-hour distance record but their failure to inform officials of a change to their bow suddenly put the future of their whole campaign in Jeopardy and it was torbin Grail who was in the fire line I can hold the pressure of being the tactician of an Italian America SC team into into l v finals and I can hold the pressure of sailing six Olympic Games and I can hold the pressure of sailing 600 miles in 24 hours but I cannot hold the question most of us who were neutral Outsiders felt that it would have been a great sh to taken points away from what was clearly the Class Act in the fleet the result of the race could have been different and I think it was a very stressful time for those guys gra and Erikson four avoided a points penalty and resumed their place at top the leaderboard while some Skippers like to drive from the front others see themselves as first among equals one of the boys Magnus Olson sailed his first whip bread in 1985 on Simon Leon's drum in 1998 he finally achieved his dream winning the race on kad's EF language the Swede was in demand for both his experience and his unique sense of humor this is the last time I step off a boat in a leg in the Vol Ocean Race and I'm happy with that but 6 years later he was back sailing with Erikson 3 the Nordic entry in their two booat campaign the addiction is this adrenaline level that that you feel good about and it's very high throughout the whole race and you feel very good and you want that again and you want that again and again and again that's crazy Magnus is always smiling I mean there just seem so many reasons when you're out there doing evolve Ocean Race not to be smiling but he's always having a laugh we are so happy for second place second second but even Olsen was tested when he took over a skipper on the leg from Singapore to Ching da China Hull damage meant a diversion to Taiwan and then 7 hours after the rest of the fleet had left China they were on the longest leg in race history 12,300 Mi to Brazil with the oldest Skipper in the race 60-year-old Magnus Olen historically the the strategy in the Southern Ocean has always been to just head south wait till it's playing 40 knots then turn left and head east their Navigator Axel magdal was proposed posing something completely different they they saw something um that the the meteorology information was saying that there's a good call here boys let's go for it and they did it they they jbed away from the fleet and it paid off big time now the other Navigators had all seen it and many of them had thought about it no one had the nerve and so Axel magdal and Magnus Olson they tacked went Northeast and two days later they had a one-day lead it was a truly spectacular maneuver after nearly 6 weeks at Sea and running low on food Olsen and his crew headed into Rio as winners and with Magnus Olsen as the oldest Skipper to win a leg in race history [Music] [Applause] yeah to come in as winner on the longest leg at the most heroic possible fashion really with a huge lead was just amazing and some people would have been responded to that in quite a calm way Magnus just let it all hang out and you KN he was so happy Erikson 4 was second into Rio and winning three of the last five legs took overall Victory the race had taken sailing to places where the sport had been unknown and the reception it received showed that even in uncertain Economic Times or perhaps especially in such times the heroism of raw human endeavor was still a compelling story that people were hungry to hear [Applause] [Music] since that first whitbred race in 1973 much may have changed the adventurer has given way to the athlete technology has made it a war of speed not just surviving and every mile sailed can be shared with Millions around the [Music] world but one thing above all others has remained constant it's like a drug this race becomes something you can't live without it's extraordinary [Music] [Applause]

Channel: The Ocean Race

Views: 520,472

Keywords: Volvo, ocean, race, yacht, yachting, sailing, extreme, water, sport, heavy, sea, weather, speed, racing, spray, on-board, history, legacy, winning, victory, waves, imagine, feeling, action, sports, Documentary, Television Show, Boat, Analysis, Commentary, Sir, Peter, Blake, Whitbread

Id: Cp4ydArnzgc

Length: 52min 25sec (3145 seconds)

Published: Sat Nov 05 2011