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