Series 4 - Ep6 - The Ocean Race Part 2

This month's edition of Shirley Robertson's Sailing Podcast comes from the Spanish port of Alicante, long time home to the Ocean Race, as the fourteenth edition of this famous round the world adventure gets underway with a dramatic new look.

On what is the fiftieth anniversary of what was originally called the Whitbread Round The World Race, then became famous as the Volvo Ocean Race and is now being sailed as simply The Ocean Race, Shirley Robertson presents her podcast from the start of the thirty two thousand nautical mile odyssey.  In this edition she talks to skippers and crew members from each of the five foiling IMOCA entrants, and catches up with Ocean Race Co-President, Johan Salen, to talk thorough the class changes, and the future of the Race.

Now being sailed in the IMOCA class, the superfast foiling monohulls more familiar to Vendee Globe fans, much of the dockside chat was over sailing these solo-orientated speed machines with a crew, and how sailing from the almost fully covered cockpits was a huge departure for this race.

The format of this new look Ocean Race is covered in Episode 1 of this two part edition - in this episode, British offshore sailor Will Harris, sailing the Race with Boris Herrmann's "Team Malizia" explains amongst other things, the challenge of sailing from the fully covered cockpit of the new designs of IMOCA...:

"We're always looking at the sensors and the numbers because when you're inside these boats that's really all you've got to go off, it's how these boats are sailed now, it's not so much about what you feel in the helm, or what you feel by looking at the sails."

This edition of The Ocean Race is a fascinating new era, and the discussions within the podcast certainly reflect that.  Revealing the decisions made to move the Race forward, Episode 2 continues with Robertson's talk with Co-President of the Race, Johan Salen, which makes for interesting listening,  Robertson also talks to  IMOCA regular, Route du Rhum winner Paul Meilhat, skippering 'Biotherm'.  

This edition of the podcast is in two parts and is available to listen to via the podcast page of Shirley’s own website - www.shirleyrobertson.com/podcast or via most popular podcast outlets, including Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcast and aCast. The podcast is produced and written by Tim Butt - for further enquires, please contact [email protected].  Support the show