VOLVO OCEAN RACE – The Volvo Ocean Race will feature an all-female team for the first time since 2001-02 after global hygiene and forest company SCA announced they would enter a women’s crew for the next edition in 2014-15.

The team, which will sail with an international crew, are the first to announce an entry for what will be the 12^th edition of the race, starting from Alicante in the second half of 2014.
The all-female challengers are the first team to confirm an order for the new 65-foot one-design boat, details of which were announced by the race in June.

The new high-performance boat is being built by a consortium of boatyards in the United Kingdom, France, Switzerland and Italy and will make it significantly cheaper for teams to mount a competitive campaign.

The Volvo Ocean Race will ensure a minimum of eight boats are built, with the goal of getting between eight and 10 teams on the start line for the 12th edition of the race. The first of the boats will be finished in mid-2013.

The new design puts less of a premium on physical strength, and means all-female teams should be competitive in the race, which is one of sailing’s Big Three events along with the America’s Cup and the Olympics.

“I’m very pleased to see a women’s team back in the race,” said Volvo Ocean Race CEO Knut Frostad. “The lack of women in the last few editions of the race has meant we haven’t been representing half the population of the human race.

“I’m also delighted to welcome back Sweden, which has a rich history in the Volvo Ocean Race. This is extremely good news.”

Under race rules, all-female teams will be able to race with two extra crewmembers.
Richard Brisius, who competed in two editions of sailing’s toughest challenge, will manage the team for Atlant Ocean Racing, who have two previous Volvo Ocean Race victories behind them with EF Language in 1998 and Ericsson Racing Team in 2009. MORE STORY

VOLVO OCEAN RACE – CAMPER skipper Chris Nicholson says his team are ready to roll after their first training session ahead of the Bretagne In-Port Race and Leg 9 start this weekend went better than expected.

“We had our first day on the water after a break and normally first days back are quite often disjointed and hard to get running smooth, but we had a good day out there,” Nicholson said.

With just three more scoring opportunities left in the current edition of the race, Nicholson said he had no plans to depart from the crew’s normal approach.

“We just have to do our normal thing and see what happens to the other teams,” he said. “Obviously we are looking to step up, but we also need to see whether the other teams step up or step backwards.

“At this stage of the race, with so many things going on there is a lot of tired people in all the programmes, and I think that if you can just keep on doing what you have been doing, that may well step you up against the others.”

CAMPER currently sit in third place in the overall standings, tied with fourth-placed Telefónica and five points behind second placed PUMA.

Despite having 28 points to make up on leaders Groupama, Nicholson still believes anything is possible as the race winds up to its closest finish ever.

“We all always thought it was going to be very close,” he said. “At the start nobody could pick who would win this race and now we still do not know who is going to win this race.
“Of course Groupama are looking strong, but we have seen other teams looking strong a different stages of this race, and I think there is still so much to play for here.”

CAMPER have little left in terms of new sails to bring out but Nicholson declared himself happy that their existing wardrobe was in good shape for the Leg 9 to Galway. MORE STORY