The Englishman Ian Walker again will be skipper of Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing’s boat, Azzam. He is writing a monthly message for The National leading up to the race.
Over the past 10 days we have had the first of our planned maintenance breaks for our yacht Azzam. We have now sailed 7,000 miles so it is time for Azzam to take a well-deserved rest.
A 65-foot carbon fibre ocean going race yacht like Azzam needs a lot of looking after, particularly if you intend to push them hard in tough weather conditions without any failures.
These maintenance periods are crucial for catching up on planned jobs and regular routine maintenance. Every boat has a job list and it is the job of our shore manager, Guy Barron, to log all the sailors’ job requests and dovetail these with all the routine maintenance work that has to be carried out.
Guy is a veteran of the Volvo Ocean Race and America’s Cup and has project managed several new race yacht builds. He has forgotten more about race yachts than most people will ever know and I trust his judgment on all things technical.
These maintenance slots are when he can really get his teeth into things without the pressure of the sailors wanting to take Azzam sailing every day. Guy has a six-man team working full-time for him, including a boatbuilder, a rigger, a sailmaker and an engineer.
Sailors get very precious about their boats and none more so than us with Azzam. She is more than just a Volvo 65 to us, as she carries the hopes and expectations of our team, our supporters and a whole nation – and she is also our home for most of the next year.
We will be relying on her to keep us safe in some of the wildest, most remote oceans so we need to make sure she is maintained to perfection and every shore team member fully understands that the quality of their work and the minutest attention to detail could make the difference between winning and losing – that is how crucial these guys are.
During this maintenance slot we have replaced all the standing rigging, serviced the mast, the winches, the critical water maker, the engine and all the deck gear. The underwater paint has been touched up and some allowable modifications made inside Azzam.
All of the sails have been serviced by our sailmaker, prior to two long transatlantic trips – to Rhode Island and back this June and early July. We will be there in time for Independence Day.
Everyone on the team knows that any gear failure at this stage could badly derail our final race preparations. That is why everything on Azzam has been checked and checked again and every piece of work has been fully documented for future reference.
Our goal, come race time, is that the crews never have to slow down because of a breakage or issue with the boat. Even throttling back for 30 minutes to make a repair could make the difference between winning and losing a race leg. Remember that in the last race we won the 11-day seventh leg from Miami to Lisbon by a mere four minutes.
As well as maintaining Azzam, another big task for the shore team is preparing for the race. We need to have two identical shore bases ready to go so that they can be shipped from one stopover to the next.
We have to have two of everything as the fleet is too fast to just ship our equipment from one stopover to the next. Instead, the shore bases leapfrog each other to get there ahead of the yachts. This means we need two sail lofts plus materials, four workshop containers, two support motor boats, two sets of spares, two full sets of tools, and so on.
When so much was being done by the shore crew I felt guilty taking a few days off, but soon it will be the sailors turn to put in the hours and it will be the shore team that take a well-deserved rest.
After an excellent few days in Abu Dhabi, where I found time for a quick sail with some media on home waters thanks to the Abu Dhabi Sailing and Yacht Club, and caught up on the exciting plans for the Christmas and New Year festivities at the Abu Dhabi stopover, I was also able to spend some time at home in England with my wife and two daughters.
I have just said my goodbyes and am now on my way back to Portugal to rejoin the team.
We have the two transatlantic crossings ahead of us and then we will be in the UK for Cowes Week and the Round Britain and Ireland Race in August. It is never easy saying goodbye to my girls but it was particularly hard this time as I will be missing my eldest daughter Zoe’s birthday – again.
Next year her birthday will be four days after the end of the race and I have promised her faithfully that I will be home. It is going to be a very busy year.
sports@thenational.ae
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