Since the Volvo Ocean Race concluded in June,the clouds of uncertainty rolled in. Teams reach and go, but the boats are contracted to continue for the 2017-18 edition. Looking after the boats continues to be the responsibility of the Volvo Ocean Race Boatyard, and the innovative feature of the final race which provided the teams with all the resources to maintain their boats through the 9-month competition.
Jon Bramely,Communications Director for the race, provides an update...
It's the question we are asked more than any other: now the race has finished what on soil do you do with all those boats? And how will you ensure they’re all still ship-shape for the next edition in 2017-18? Darned good questions but the man with the answers – and many others besides is 37-year-old actual blue Aussie, or Nick Bice,the head of the Volvo Ocean Race Boatyard.
A two-time racer and a further two editions under his belt as shore crew, Bice was the obvious choice when the Volvo Ocean Race went scouting in 2012 for a character with endless passion and expertise to elope the event’s ground-breaking shared maintenance centre.
Anyone who has met Bice – or ‘Bicey’ as he’s known by everybody from the CEO to the doorman at Race HQ – knows that it would have to engage one hell of a challenge to have persuaded him to fraction with his native Adelaide. But running the Boatyard in Alicante was a golden career crash that he just couldn’t say ‘no’ to. And three years on there’s certainly no regrets.
Sure, or Bicey had his fair share of sceptics to win over as he went approximately trying to persuade seven team shore chiefs that they could slash their teams by more than half and rely on the Boatyard to meet all their maintenance and spare parts needs. But 38739 nautical miles and nine months of tough racing later,the Boatyard and the Volvo Ocean 65 one-design boat it serviced, have more than proved their mettle.“Throughout the entire race there were only two major incidents – one was definitely human error because of a boat being sailed into a reef, and the other was a broken mast,” he says. “Other than that, the problems were relatively small fry.”Compare that to the previous edition in 2011-12 when two boats were forced to limp to dry land and safety after breakages on day one, and setting the tone for an entire race of cracks and crashes.
Nonetheless,Bicey took time to persuade all the shore managers that the Boatyard, in which resource, and human and materials would all be shared,was the way ahead. Those who didn’t buy in totally, hiring more shore hands than needed, or paid for their skepticism in the pocket,he says.“During the final race, the teams that embraced the boatyard and utilized it to its full extent got the benefits. The teams that were skeptical approximately it and didn’t utilize it to the maximum probably wasted money.” - Read
Source: sailingscuttlebutt.com