Yachts & Yachting — March 2018

I

t is pleasing to see the B arcelona

World Race going from strength

to strength with organisers, the

Fundació Navigació Oceànica

(FNOB), striving to create a round the

world event which should prove more

financially independent and also help to

strengthen individual sailors’ campaigns.

Xosé-Carlos Fernández is the new

CEO of the FNOB, the foundation

responsible for developing and running

the race. The next edition was launched

in mid-December, and the NOR released

365 days before the 12 January 2019

start. Solid intelligence gathered by

FNOB and IMOCA suggests there will

be between 10 and 12 crews on the start

line. The round the world Barcelona

to Barcelona race will now stop for 10

days in Sydney, Australia. The restart in

Sydney is 9 March and all boats must

take the start within 48 hours. One

co-skipper can be changed in Sydney.

So it is an entirely different proposition

now. Skippers, teams and sponsors see

it as a real win-win. For those skippers

who are perhaps in the early stage of

their round the world racing careers,

the challenge is much more manageable.

But so too it will be inherently more

competitive. It is to be contested on race

points, not cumulative time, though that

will be the decider if points are tied.

The chance to repair and restore

craft, kit and crew to 100 per cent

evens the playing field, and keeps

more teams competitive and on the

course. Rather than being the ultimate

challenge, as is the Vendée Globe, the

ideal is to get as many teams round

• and as competitively as possible.
  “I feel we are ahead of where the
  race was before. The main goal we had
  at the launch was really to let people
  know that we have a really good, new
  Barcelona World Race,” says the CEO.
  “People are concerned about the political
  situation and the conseil (city council)
  elections. There is an ideological position
  from the radical left that it is still a
  sport for rich people, but at the FNOB
  we have an industrial programme, a

Recently announced format changes, together with a new CEO, are giving the

Barcelona World Race a new identity, as well as new influence

Andi Robertson

YACHTS

qualifier for the 2020 Vendée Globe). If

we don’t do this then the French sailors

are focused only on the Vendée Globe.”

Fernández has no airs and graces; a

hard-nosed and clever business person,

he specialises in finance, with national

and multinational experience, which

is undoubtedly influencing decisions.

“There are the same complications with

this as a challenge but with a different

dimension,” he says. “I specialise in

building, driving and managing projects

but this is the first time there are so many

influencing bodies. It is a nice challenge.”

It would not have been apparent at

all in previous editions, but there was

help for certain teams from the FNOB

who supplied boats and helped others

to make it to the start line. Now teams

will need to be financially robust and

more independent. What was happening

before was unsustainable. FNOB funding

was latterly very much focused on the

running of the four yearly race, and

while we might remember the early

days when they could support two

teams on the Transat Jacques Vabre

for example, they could not do that on

an ongoing, edition to edition basis.

Funding, much of which comes from

the city, during a period when the

Spanish economy has struggled, has been

increasingly hard to achieve and now,

as I read it, needs to be more targeted

at specific, quantifiable benefits to the

city and its residents. And rightly so.

So this time there will be no hand-

picked FNOB crews and teams,

cosseted, packaged with a sponsor

and sent on their way on a FNOB boat

according as much as possible to fitting

the right profile and potential. Now,

it will, as I understand it, be much

more down to the sailors’ drive and

entrepreneurship, developing their

programmes as valid business entities.

For me this may be harder to achieve

rather than the ‘dating’ that happened

before, matching sponsors to sailors, to

boats. But the way they are talking now

there should be a good quality of entry

as well a reasonable number of teams.

Few people

can match Andi

Robertson’s insight

into the big boat

world, both in the

UK and globally

‘science and the sea’ programme, an

educational and a training programme

andsothesehaveensuredwehavea

platformtospeakfromandwenowhave

a good relationship with the parties.

“TheFNOBwillbeactiveinthese

areas all the way through the four

years – it is not just delivering the

Barcelona World Race. Also we have a

voice to talk about all different things

which relate to the council – not

just sailing around the world – and

so we are in a stronger position.”

This month the FNOB will start

the design and construction of a Mini

which will allow young people to have

a new pathway to become professionals

in technology, composites, sail design

and build, all locally sourced. A new

R&D centre is being built, to include

an entrepreneur programme.

The new positioning of the race has

been very carefully arrived at. “Before,

the race was a subsidiary product. If you

like, it was secondary to others, now it is

a principal, primary product in its own

right. The main reason to change was to

interest more participants, and to make

it more interesting for the sponsors.

“Sydney is a real stop, not a pit-

stop. There will be a race village and

commercial entities. It will be attractive

to sponsors as it will reach out to

Australasia and Asia. On the sports side

we can now appeal to younger skippers

who have less experience (it will be a

The chance to repair keeps

more teams competitive

Above

Where once the

race was seen as

a precursor to

the Vendée, the

plan is to give it

a new standing

JORGE ANREAEU/BWR

14 March 2018 Yachts & Yachting yachtsandyachting.co.uk