Volvos

During prep-week, we shared the marine with the boats and crews of the Volvo Ocean Race. They were training and preparing to participate in the Fastnet Race.

Why are these guys interesting and why was I keen to visit one of their boats?

The Volvo Ocean Race, is a sail race around the world. Sounds familiar?

They also have a similar route like us (apart from sailing round Cape Horn). And that where similarities end. These are professionals, and that means smaller boats, but much faster. Smaller crews (just 9), living on freeze dried food (basically these ‘astronaut packs’). Less stuff on board. 8 crew share 4 sleeping bags. Their bunks look very much like ours, just instead of aluminium frames, everything is Carbon Fiber – which includes the rest of the boat. And here lies also the reason, why they can achieve the circumnavigation on roughly half the time we need: a lighter boat can be faster – their boats weight around 8tonnes, our weight around 40t (plus what seems like 2t of food).

These guys are also professional super-athletes, but I’m not sure if they has any influence at all 😉

They are super nice guys and did let me check out on of their boats. I wish them good luck and if you want to see and read more about what they are doing, take a look at the Volvo Ocean Race website.

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