Yachts & Yachting — February 2018

No. 62 The shoe must go on

DIFFICULTY RATING: 3/5

POSITION

The desire for ever lower cost one-designs continues

Volvo claim the new

design is optimised to ocean

racing and any relation to a

specific nation’s footwear is

purely circumstantial

PEDRO MARTINEZ/VOLVO OCEAN RACE

A

er the organisers of the Volvo

Ocean Race rolled back their initial

plans for a foiling 60 footer for the

next edition of the premier round

the world race, Y&Y has uncovered

these spy photos from the test of a prototype

for the new, slightly lower performance boat.

Clearly, attempts to cut costs have been high

on the list of priorities with fewer crew and far

fewer sails. However, much the way that Emirates

Team New Zealand have returned the America’s

Cup to a monohull due to pressures from their

Italian Challenger of Record, so too it seems that

Volvo have quite obviously gone out of their way

to please one (admittedly big player) nation. e

Dutch may have two boats in this edition but we

feel this might be an appeasing step too far!

noblemarine.co.uk | 01636 707606

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POSITION_AC_GC_TH.indd 98 14/12/2017 16:02