Frostad: Sailing into calmer waters after an economic storm

Joy Chakravarty 07:54 15/09/2014
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  • Knut Frostad: Four-time round-the-world race participant.

    For the brave sailors of Volvo Ocean Racing, considered by many as the toughest sporting event in the world, negotiating choppy waters is just another day in the office.

    The organisation itself has also had to face stormy waters over the last few years. Rising costs of being part of the race and a diffi­cult economic climate, especially in Europe, had placed the entire event at great risk.

    However, under the leadership of CEO Knut Frostad, himself a four-time participant in the round-the-world race, things are definitely looking up for the iconic event. The 12th edition of what originated as the Whitbread Round the World Yacht Race in 1972, has more participants than last time – seven compared to six in 2011-12 – and many more teams have shown interest in being part of the race again after organis­ers put in place various programmes to cut operational costs.

    The biggest difference this year is that all boats will have the same design down to millimetres. They have been built by one manufac­turer and all teams will share the maintenance and other services.

    The 2014-2015 Volvo Ocean Race starts on October 4 in Alicante, and Abu Dhabi will once again have a boat, as well as the longest stopover of the race, which coincides with the Christmas and New Year period.

    In between his busy schedule, the 47-year-old Norwegian spoke to Sport360°’s Joy Chakravarty on the steps they have taken to rejuvenate the Volvo Ocean Race, and their plans for the future…

    Can you give us an overview of how the last couple of years have been for the Volvo Ocean Race and your feelings weeks before the race starts?

    A lot of things happened in the last two years with the Volvo Ocean Race, and it would be fair to say it has been the busiest couple of years of my life. If people think this race is hard, believe me, the time between the races is even harder.

    It was a huge mountain to climb this time, because we made so many changes. It was about 14 months ago that we announced the One Design concept and the changes in the way we run the event and the boats. And then we had to design and build the boats and get the teams.

    I am delighted with where we stand right now. The original tar­get was to have eight boats, but we found out very early that the eighth boat would be late to complete and it would be impossible to get a sponsor and team ready in that time frame.

    Is there any credence to the rumours that there was a pos­sibility the 2011-12 Volvo Ocean Race could have been the last?

    There is no secret that it has been a very challenging period for us with the economic downturn in Europe and rest of the world. After the last race, the numbers given to us by various consultants that we have like the Boston Consulting Group were not very positive. So, I am very happy that we not only have seven different and strong teams, but also seven different sponsors.

    What the concept of one design did for us was to give us more time. The majority of time spent by a new team is on building a boat, and then get related services together like in­surance etc. In our shared services, we have even negotiated the insur­ance for the teams. Of course, they have to pay, but they do not have to spend time and manpower getting things like insurance sorted out.

    Our seventh team this year, Ves­tas, came in very late, but that was only possible because they made some quick decisions and because a boat was already ready for them. This would not have been possible in the earlier years of the Volvo Ocean Race because they would not have had the time to design the boat for themselves.

    The one design concept also makes it a level-playing field, thus making the races more competitive and more interesting for the fans.

    How have the new changes helped and what kind of a differ­ence has it made?

    The Boatyard, which is our shared service, is probably the biggest change that we have made this year. The one-design boats are the biggest visible change, but the fact that all the boats are going to share the services is even huger, I think. I don’t think something like this has ever happened before in sailing. And that is the new healthy atti­tude, or mentality that we are driv­ing – the fact that working together is much better for the overall devel­opment of the sport. This has made us very cost efficient.

    Now, each team does not have to fly four separate masts to each stop­over, and each of them do not have to employ an entire crew of mainte­nance staff.

    In the last race, the boats were spending between $20 million and $35m, depending on their budgets. We think it will come down to between $9m to $16m for this year.

    What kind of a feedback have you got from the teams on the one-design boats?

    I think it is something that you should ask the teams, but I will tell you this much, it was a radical decision. We were breaking all the history of the race. There was a lot of resistance when we made the announcement and there were more people against it on that day, than they are today.

    I understand that the teams are happy with what they have got. The biggest challenge before was that the boats were very big. As for per­formance, these boats can almost reach the same speed as the earlier ones downwind, and are just a little bit slower going headwind.

    What are Volvo looking for from sponsoring the race?

    Volvo have a long-term vision for the race, and the biggest thing for them is building audience. They want the race to touch the lives of more people.

    One of the things we are doing which will address this is the way we have recruited our on-board reporters. This is a very deliberate move to bring the race closer to the public. It’s extremely chal­lenging because living on board is not a joke. It’s miserable out there if you do not enjoy it. The presence of these reporters will help us get more human-centric stories out from each boat. There will be more multimedia content coming out from each boat in the race.

    How are you looking at the future of the Volvo Ocean Race?

    For sure we want to make it even more cost-effective. We want to make it a smarter race and we want to build audience. Also, we want it to remain a sport – the most demanding sport in the world.

    As for the 2017-18 race, we have already announced that we will have the same boats. At the most, we will build three more boats, so that we have a maximum of 10 teams.

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