Volvo Ocean Race

The Volvo Ocean Race shore crews are working around the clock at Sanya’s Serenity Marina in preparation for the earlier than anticipated arrival of their weary, smelly and malnourished sailors from tomorrow.

The specialist teams are preparing for everything from general maintenance, repairs and sail testing, to ensuring the sailors have fresh food, cool drinks, a hot shower and a bed that doesn’t rock.

Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing CEO Jamie Boag said six months of preparation had been invested into ensuring every care of the sailors and all the needs of the yacht were tended to in a timely fashion at the China stopover.

“We’re doing the physical part of the bump-in right now, but the past months have been spent working with the locals to figure out the team’s base, accommodation, translators and food,” he said.

“We try to keep things simple, get the boys in, get the boat out, get the jobs list going and make sure we’ve got no dramas that can delay us time-wise.”

The real action for the shore teams starts when they receive a call from race organisers when their teams are two hours from crossing the finish line.

CAMPER with Emirates Team New Zealand’s shore crew manager Neil Cox said several members of the shore team hit the water on a RIB immediately and head out to meet the team about four or five miles from the finish.

Back on shore other members of the shore crew gather the arrival gear including fenders, dock lines and flags ready for the docking, Cox said.

“Once the boat docks we start stripping the boat at the arrivals pontoon, wash it out and have it on the crane and out of the water about six hours after the finish - - you don’t want to muck around, time’s limited,’’ he said.

Boag explained there were three phases once the teams arrive including conducting standard maintenance, repairing any damage and optimising the yacht for the next leg.

So far as the job list for Abu Dhabi’s Azzam goes, Boag said it “wasn’t too bad”.

“We talk to the boat every day so we know what we have to do, there’s lots of little things, but quite often it’s the little things that take a long time,’’ he said.  “We’ve broken some hanks on the sails, a couple of bits of electronics, a screen of the laptop and things like that.”

With more than two weeks at the Chinese island teams have the opportunity to spend more time tending to their boat and crew than many of the other stopovers afford.

For several of the teams this means getting an ultrasound expert in to assess their yachts.

“The ultrasound will check the structure of the boat, he’ll go over the hull, rig, boom, dagger boards, everything,’’ Cox said.  “We can tap test everything, but that’s pretty old school, so when you can have a guy turn up and wave his magic wand over the boat and give you the OK or find problem areas, then it’s worth it.’’

PUMA Ocean Racing powered by BERG’s general manager Kimo Worthington said having the time to ultrasound test the boats before they head off shore again, especially with the Southern Ocean looming in Leg 5.

“We’ll be having a thorough check and make sure there’s no delamination or anything like that because after here these guys are heading into the middle of nowhere in the Southern Ocean after Auckland. It’s a pretty short stop there so we need to get everything done here,’’ he said.