The countdown to the Volvo Ocean Race (VOR) has become something of an out-of-body experience for Neal McDonald.
His previous perspectives on the round-the-world event came from the deck of a boat. For six successive editions of the race, from 1993/94 through 2011/12, he was a member of the crew.
When the 2014/15 race begins on October 10, in Alicante, Spain, McDonald will find himself in an unusual position: watching from the shore.
He is a key member of a seventh campaign, as performance manager for Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing (ADOR) and its much-fancied boat, Azzam, but knowing he will not be on the water when the starting gun sounds is beginning to feel a little weird for the veteran sailor.
“It has taken some getting used to,” he said last week, as Azzam finished the dry run, Leg 0 in Alicante.
“It’s a good time to ask the question. I got up two, three times at night to check on where the boys were, and it’s a very odd feeling.
“It wasn’t a race that counted for any points but I still got up at one, three and six and I was, well, I can’t quite get used to it yet.”
We must imagine then that the next nine months for McDonald will be long and potentially sleepless. At least, he will have the company of his young family. Spending more time with his young son and younger daughter was the main reason he finally decided to stop inflicting a round-the-world race on himself (and the family) every few years.
McDonald is thought by some peers to be among the best British sailors of the modern era. Many of them also knew he would be back, in some capacity, once he decided to retire after the last VOR.
He has tried leaving before, but he just cannot get away from it.
“It’s hard to give it up completely,” he said.
“It’s been my life for 20 years, this sort of racing, and to give it up completely feels like not just a waste of experience and time, but also it’s hard to say ‘cheerio’ to it.”
If compromises cannot be perfect, this is as close as possible. The role allows McDonald the vicarious highs of being part of another campaign and avoids the lows of being away from home and family.
Race regulations do not allow for on-shore team members to be in communication with the boat during a leg, unless there is a medical or technical emergency. McDonald will fly in to ports at the end of each leg, while keeping an eye on Azzam’s progress.
He may prove a natural for the role.
A naval architect by training and a sailor by experience, he brings in-depth technical know-how of the boat as well as hands-on experience of sailing one.
Without being on the water, he will still take part in almost every role there is, whether it is as facilitator, strategist, interrogator, headmaster, engineer, technical analyst, or just as a sympathetic shoulder for someone to lean on.
A glorified coach, he called it, who, as in tennis or cricket, will only be able to coach from outside of play.
“On paper we have put it as performance manager, but that sounds a bit grand,” he said. “I’m a sort of coach for the team, a little bit of a confidant for Ian [Walker, Azzam’s skipper]. If he’s got something he’s not sure about, he’ll talk to me first and know that I will say whatever I think and won’t have a slant on it that has anybody else’s thoughts.”
Perhaps the most difficult part – putting the right crew together – is over. Months of discussion finally led to what appears to be a wonderful blend. The Azzam crew boast more VORs among them – 21 – than any other crew in the race.
Three of them are over age 40, three in their 30s, with the requisite two under 30. Only one – Luke Parkinson – has not competed in a VOR before. The crew represents six nationalities.
“Picking the crew for this boat was tricky because there was a lot of people we could’ve taken and getting the right mix of people – we’ve thought about it very hard. I’m very confident we’ve got the right mix,” McDonald said.
Once the race begins, the role will expand and blur. McDonald will debrief the crew at the end of each leg, having kept a closer eye on them than he thinks they might expect. Questions will be asked about the decisions they made, but he will also provide a patient ear, allowing the crew to vent, to express ideas, frustrations and feelings openly.
He will also get his hands dirty.
“I’ll be equally involved in the technical aspects of the campaign so when the boat gets at the end of the leg – the first two legs I’ll be focusing on a lot – I’ll be there when the boat comes out of the water, checking it out,” he said.
McDonald has a pretty dramatic, unfulfilled history with the VOR. His first campaign, as bowman in 1993/94 on Lawrie Smith’s Fortuna, is most commonly described as “ill-fated”. (Long story short: flashy, big-money campaign with radical new boat design that lasted 24 hours at sea, bringing participation to an abrupt halt.)
In the 2001/02 race he skippered Assa Abloy to three leg wins and a runners-up place, overall.
In the next edition he hit a trough. A skipper of the Ericsson team, he was stood down after four legs, an unhappy campaign when his team finished fifth out of seven teams.
The 2011/12 race, in which McDonald had joined Telefonica, was perhaps the cruellest.
After leading from the start the boat faded over the final legs to finish fourth. “Some campaigns have been about doing the best we can rather than winning but with this campaign I really felt we had a good chance of winning. So to come fourth is very sad,” he said at the time.
Azzam and Walker, with whom he sailed on Green Dragon in the 2008/09 VOR, came calling again and offer another realistic shot of enduring glory. “It’s a very strong team, with a good attitude and a great training programme,” McDonald said.
“The general feel in the camp is positive, a very get-up-and-go type. The whole thing feels at the moment to me very strong, very settled and I’ve got strong expectations. We’ve got a good shore team.
“Abu Dhabi is a very good sponsor, a nice sponsor to have because people know who they are.
“[Walker’s] one of the world’s best one-design sailors so I feel comfortable we’ve got as good a chance as anybody, I really do.”
osamiuddin@thenational.ae
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