Pirates of the East Atlantic…

090603, Galway, Co Galway.

“Aaahhhrrrrrrrrrr!!!” That’s pretty much what you would expect a pirate to say in a pirate movie, wouldn’t you? Well that’s my experience of Ireland so far!

Galway, or Gaillimh as it is written in Irish, is a community on the west coast of Ireland, approximately at the same latitude as Dublin. With no doubt what so ever I can say that I have never experienced such a Volvo Ocean Race atmosphere anywhere else… Sensational! Every pub/restaurant/shop/jewellery store/grocery store/etc… is paved with Volvo Ocean Race flags and banners!!! It is extraordinary! Not only does the whole city breathe Volvo Ocean Race, the boats were greeted by approximately 10 000 people upon arrival between 2am and 7am!!! Unbelievable!

The sailors have really enjoyed this stopover and it seems like everyone is getting a little anxious about the start of leg 8 coming up on Saturday the 6th. The general feeling is that noone wants to leave Galway… Furthermore, I think the stopover organisation have made a deal with the weather gods because the tropical heat, the intense sunshine, the lack of rain, and the pleasant breeze that we have been blessed with over the past weekend is unheard of for Ireland.

As you can tell I have nothing but good words to spare for this town and the past weekend! Last Sunday was the Pro-Am race and we got several of our guests and customers to experience how a Volvo Open 70 handles on the water! Nothing but smiling faces at the end of that day and I think that many of them still have not stopped smiling!!!

All in all a weekend to remember! For those of you who have not been in Galway yet I can strongly recommend a visit! If you can’t make it before the boats leave from here on Saturday, I think the only difference is that the average height of the masts in the harbour will be slightly lower… It feels like this city will ride the Volvo Ocean Race for many years to come!

Over and out!

/E

7 down, 4 to go!

Friends,

We have just now witnessed the start of the 7th leg of this race that is going to take the boats from one side of the Atlantic to the other…

Boston, the home of the Red Sox, the Bruins and the Celtics (depending on what sport your more into) has showed us a very pleasant side. A very intense inport race weekend with 2 warm-up sessions in the pavilion (a dinner and a breakfast the following day aiming to introduce our guests to the race and prepare them for what they should expect), a royal visit, many management representatives, a fundraising dinner organised by the Scouts and a lot of public!

Volvo Group of North America had a big bunch of guests and customers scheduled for that weekend and they all left with nothing but good memories of our brand and this race. All in all a very successful weekend for Volvo Group!

“After the rain comes the sun” (or the other way round…) and when everybody had left Boston we could breathe out for a couple of days and prepare for the restart weekend. Said and done, we are now packing down the pavilion and getting into Galway mode.

Some pictures of this stopover!

/E

Man or mouse?

Amigos,

Lots has happened since we last talked and I intend to summarize it all fairly quickly below.

The Rio stopover was spectacular like Rio always is… Not so much public visiting the race village, which was sad, but nevertheless a successful stopover. Volvo Group locally, through Solange Fusco, had a hectic schedule with activities and dinners and press conferences and stuff all during the inport race weekend and that all went well!

The inport race itself was won by Telefónica Blue which is good for us since we had 2 very prominent guests onboard: Marcelo Perpetuo, manager of a large mining company that uses Volvo Trucks and based in Rio de Janeiro, and Finn Johnsson, chairman of the board of AB Volvo.  All happy faces at the end of that race!!! Tommy Svensson, president of Volvo Group South America said: “we have just sold another 100 trucks by having Marcelo on the boat. Not to forget was the visit of HRH Crown Princess Victoria of Sweden that helped Ericsson 4 in the inport race.

Then there was the slow week building up to the restart, and all of a sudden the boats were gone, heading towards the island of Fernando de Noronha and then Boston, USA.

So long…

/E

Samba de Janeiro!!!

hiya!

It has been an adventurous trip for our crews on the way from Qingdao over the Pacific, around Cape Horn and then the final stretch up the coast of Argentina and Brazil until reaching Rio. The first boat is approximately 3 days away and believe it or not but the leading boat is the only one that was not present at the start in Qingdao on February 14th, Ericsson 3!!! They are tightly followed by their sistership and Puma, with Green Dragon in 4th and Telefónica Blue in the back of the fleet.

The race village in Rio is now open for public and we are all getting ready to greet the boats at the arrivals! Very exciting times! Just reminding you that this is the longest leg in the history of the race!

I will be sure to keep you up to date on what happens during the stop and post it all here on the blog.

Here’s a picture of the Pavilion and it’s exterior product deck.

Ciao!

/E

“Living on a prayer”

Bon Jovi sang that some years ago… I have never really understood the meaning of it: “living on a prayer”… What does it mean? The lyrics of the song tell a story about Tommy and Gina who don’t have much money but they have each other and their  love, does that mean they’re living on a prayer? Apparently!

I brought this up because the 5 boats sailing towards Rio are approaching the moment that Bon JOvi would describe as: “Oh, we’re half way there…” Ericsson 4, who fyi is back in the lead, have roughly 6700 nm to the finish of leg 5’s total 12 300 nm.

Currently the leaderboard looks like this:

- Ericsson 4

- Puma

- Telefónica Blue

- Green Dragon

- Ericsson 3, who chose a completely different route to the others…

I’m off to visit my best friend in Italy now, I’ll keep you posted!

/E

P.S.

Delta Lloyd on the cargo ship to Rio…

Sponsorships and stuff…

One of the most common opinions of Volvos involvement in the Volvo Ocean Race is that they are the main sponsor… which in fact they are not. They OWN the race!!! There are sponsors to the race such as these ones, but Volvo actually owns the race.

VOlvo however is involved as sponsors in many different activities around the world. Many of them sports events but also on a cultural level with the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra, as well as the Opera in Gothenburg. Those are not what I wanted to talk to you about today though… Tomorrow is the start of the Göteborg Horse Show 2009!

Volvo is a sponsor of this event and the department dealing with this is Volvo Event Management Sweden, which I happen to be part of. Yet another reason to be proud of this company!!!

See below some pictures from last years horse show. Notice how well represented we are in the actual sporting aspect of it!

/E

Swimming against the stream…

Having been involved in the last Volvo Ocean Race 3 years ago, I have the great priviliege of comparing how the different Busines Areas utilised the race back then and how they are utilising it now.  And with that introduction, I would like to dedicated this whole section to Volvo Bus Corporation, who is not only utilising this race in an exemplary way, but also signing orders after orders in economically difficult times! “Chapeau” as the French would say!

VBC have had some form of activity in all the stopovers so far and what I have heard and experienced they have all been satisfactory. In Qingdao, I managed to get 2 of the sailors anxiously waiting to get onboard Ericsson 3 to join VBC Sweden at a dinner and sit down with them and tell them a little about the race and the sailing. Every one saw it as a win-win situation. The sailors got better food than they would have gotten at the base, and the VBC customers got an insider’s view on the race.

We are all aware of the prevailing economic times  but I hope that VBC gets the message out there that this is the ultimate platform to give customers an experience far from ordinary! “Hail to the busdrivers!”

/E

5 down, 6 to go!

“It ain’t over ’til the fat lady sings”, have you heard that expression? In this section I would like to compare Ericsson 3 to the fat lady and I’ll tell you why…

Line up for the start of leg 5 to Rio: Ericsson 4, Puma, Telefónica Blue, Green Dragon. 5 minutes before the start Telefónica Blue announced it was suspending racing?!?! What happened? they apparently hit something and damaged their keel. Back to shore, lift the boat up to assess the damage, make the necessary adjustments, then send her off with the rest of the fleet. In the mean time however, Ericsson 3 managed to cut the finish line of leg 4 and collect their valuable 4 points only to board the docks, change some sails, pack the food supplies and head off towards Brazil with the others just 8 hours after the others started leg 5.

After 16 hours of frenetic work on the keel and bulb, Telefónica Blue finally sailed off to join the others on the longest leg the race has ever experienced…

Now, where’s the connection to the “fat lady”? Ericsson 3, somewhat the underdog of the race with all their penalties and misfortunes and crew changes, have nothing (almost) to lose in this leg and it only took them about 24 hours ’til they had overtaken Green Dragons 3rd place and chasing the leading duo… This leg promises some dramatic action so you better stay tuned!!!

All for now!

/E

Multiple nationalities…

Many years back there was a scandal in the swedish national ice hockey team when it was found during a world championship that one of the players of the swedish team was both a swedish and an american citizen. Sweden only recognized one citizenship back then so his swedish citizenship was recalled and he was no longer allowed to play for the national team…

At a press conference today in Qingdao, Green Dragon Team announced the backup of an additional sponsor to their syndicate: Berg Propulsion, an originally swedish company specialised in the production of propellers and shafts as well as service and after sales.

Now what’s the link between Green Dragon, Berg Propulsion and multiple nationalities? The CEO of Green Dragon, Jamie Boag, said that they are privileged since they feel like coming home to several ports throughout the race. Originally an Irish syndicate, they were backed up by some chinese companies in the shandong province, and now a propeller company from just outside of Gothenburg… “Home in Qingdao”, “home in Galway”, Home in Marstrand/Gothenburg”… Thus the multiple nationality talk

Tomorrow there’s an inport race to look forward to!!!

/Edward

lifeattheextreme blog is born

Today’s the first day testing our new blog for the Volvo Ocean Race. This is meant to be a place for those of you who do not have the chance to be there at the stop, but want to learn more about the life around the Volvo Ocean Race.

Who are we?
We are a part of the Volvo crew working with the utilization of the Volvo Ocean Race on shore. I am sure we will have plenty of happy and glamorous times you as well as private, unglamorous moments to share with you. I hope you will follow our journey!
/Kristin

A small step for mankind, a huge step for Volvo…

We’re not first but we will be the best! Welcome to the Volvo Groups blog for the Volvo Ocean Race. I feel privileged to be able to give you my personal view on how this race will affect the stopover cities that we will visit and I will sure do my best to give the inside scoops on what’s hot!

The first inport race in Alicante is only 11 days away and that gives us about 11 days to build up your expectations of this extreme race. Fasten your seat bealts and get ready for take off!!!

All for now, take care of yourselves and each other, I’ll be back with more details tomorrow.

/E

Christening a boat in beer?

Would you really christen a boat in beer?

Telefonica obviously dared to change an old tradition! The Spanish Princess Elena and Princess Christina (the two godmothers of the Telefonica boats) christened the boats in Spanish beer, instead of champagne last week! You can check out the live footage at www.volvooceanrace.tv .

/Kristin

Sailors who can’t sail

The Race office just announced the media crew members (the 11th crew member on board) for each participating boat! They will be our eyes on the boat, so this years race will have a bit more of a “big brother” twist than last time! But they are not allowed to take part in sailing the boat!!

Media Crew Members for Each Team
Delta Lloyd (Ger O’Rourke) to be advised
Ericsson 4 (Torben Grael) Guy Salter GBR
Ericsson 3 (Anders Lewander) Gustav Morin SWE
Green Dragon (Ian Walker) Guo Chuan CHN
Puma Ocean Racing (Ken Read) Rick Deppe GBR
Team Russia (Andreas Hanakamp) Mark Covell GBR
Telefonica Black (Fernando Echavarri) Mikel Pasabant ESP
Telefonica Blue (Bouwe Bekking) Gabriele Olivo ITA

It must be frustrating for sailors not to actually be sailing the boats, but focus on catching those moments with their cameras.
No grinding guys!!!
/Kristin

T minus 4 days to Alicante!

That means that I am leaving for Alicante in 4 days time, and I don’t say this assuming every reader doesn’t understand, I just need to repeat it for myself! I have worked for 357 days on this project – without counting last Volvo Ocean Race – and it is really on now!

Volvo encourages diversity in religion, in ages, in gender, in nationalities etc… and this is really reflected in this race. Take Team Russia for instance: skipper is from Austria and 42 years old, navigator is dutch and 33 years old, and apart from those 2 guys there are: 2 brits, 2 south africans, 2 russians, 1 irishman, 1 spanish, 1 german, 1 danish, 1 kiwi and they range from 29 to 46 years of age!? If that were a joke it would have been difficult to tell… or to remember

Now that I know that this is up and running I will do my best to keep you up to speed on everything that’s happening. And I don’t mean speed in that way… drugs are bad…

Smell u later!

/E

Everything is relative…

You probably have all heard of the most classic example to make that point. If you haven’t, buckle up!

If you are walking at 5 km/h on a train that is moving at a 150km/h, your speed is 5 km/h in relation to another passenger sitting down on the train but your speed is 155km/h for someone sitting in a car at the railcrossing watching the train pass by. depending on your point of reference, the speed is different. Everything is relative!

Now why would I bring up this topic, well, simply because Mike Sanderson (winner of Volvo Ocean Race 2005-2006 with ABN AMRO 1) put this into perspective with the new fleet. He said that the difference between ABN AMRO 1 and the other boats in last race was bigger than the difference between Delta Lloyd (same boat) and the rest of the fleet this year. So what does this mean? Same boat, different differences… Everything is relative!

Moral: Don’t condemn Team Delta Lloyd, I think they will surprise us!

Ciao!

/E

I am getting one of these

I must agree with Edward. It is a strange feeling packing down the last things to go down to Alicante. After all work, project meetings and preparations the start is only a few days away.

Something quite fantastic with this race is that it engages all different ages. One of the Volvo Trucks activities we worked on looks to be a great hit in the harbour…

I can’t wait to be driving one of these of my own
Thank you Ebba von Geijer, Project manager from VCC for the image!

/Kristin

Finally in Alicante

It was quite early we walked into the Race village this morning.

Our first visit was of course to the Volvo Exhibition, where Karin Bäcklund Director for the Volvo Ocean Race at Volvo Car Corporation (VCC) was Pavilion Manager for the day. It’s a responsibility shared between Volvo AB and VCC. She has been quite busy lately!

  
Next stop is the accreditation office, where we met Anders Löfgren, Director of Strategic Relationships, who has a very good speciality of sharing his Cars with everyone!

 At the Media centre I met up with the Volvo Penta crew and Ebba from VCC.

A very smiley crew!

I’ll try to keep you up to date, because this is when it all happens!
Kristin

Spanish traffic is tricky

Just ask my colleague and co-driver Petra, who has nearly given up the thought of ever trying to get the GPS working in our car.

The Volvo Group companies take advantage of the race presence here in Spain in lots of different ways by arranging business activities of different kinds. Most of them are located in the race village but there are also activities going on outside the harbour areas.

Petra and I drove out to the Volvo Truck dealership today, Provehima, where preparations are underway for the Spanish launch and customer demo driving exercise, which will go on for the next two weeks. Volvo Logistics has done a good job of delivering all fourteen demo trucks down from Gothenburg and the Volvo Demo Centre. From that very same place comes our colleague Tommy Rusholt, who is out here to assist the local organisation in their preparations and make sure the trucks are in their best condition for the customers.

Fourteen trucks waiting to be lined up by Tommy R.

How tricky was it to find our way back to the harbour?… Well actually easier than what we thought, since Alicante city is scattered with these:

They make us feel right at home.
See you tomorrow!
/Kristin

200,000 people through the gates

Tension is building up inside the race village as we get yet another day closer to the in-port. The official number of entries into the Volvo Race Village has by this morning exceeded 200 000, most of them came through Thursday – Sunday. That is a massive amount of people!

The Volvo Event Management Race office has their morning briefings, the Volvo Crew their morning briefing to make sure everyone’s up to date. The boat crews also have their morning sessions.

Most boats are at the dock, but some are being lifted out of the water. They are quite massive boats hanging from the cranes.

 

Well, now I’m off for todays duties. 
Catch you later!
/Kristin

What is blow carting?

Blow carting is a vehicle on three wheels with a sail as an engine, and it’s a popular activity for visitors in the harbour. The activity is hosted by the Volvo Group and Volvo Car Corporation to show another way of using wind as a method of transportation!

It is environmental friendly, fun, and quite fast if the wind is blowing, unfortunately during some parts of the day we had lack of wind, and therefore some carts needed a bit of a friendly push

Nevertheless, competition was fierce!
/Kristin

Media is here

It is 4 days to the start of the In-port in Alicantes. The buzzing is getting louder every where at the race village. As I walk between meetings, cameras and film teams stand in scattered showers here and there catching different aspects of the preparations.

   

Helena De La Gandara Lopez-Alonso, the Race Office Travelling Press Officer, being interviewed by one of the film teams this morning.

  

The sailors are not left alone either. Here’s Ericsson crew being questioned by a film team.
/Kristin

Mañana, mañana…

Howdy friends!

A famous swedish author named Herman Lindqvist once wrote a book called :”Caramba, säger de aldrig!” translating to :”Caramba, they never say!”. This refers to a famous expression that everyone (or at least Herman Lindqvist) expects the spaniards to say. And they never do…

I have another one of those: “mañana, mañana”. I never hear spanish people using the expression as such. The word is common in the local language, but they never seem to use the expression just like we (or I)expect them to…

Now, speaking of mañana (tomorrow in spanish…) we are getting closer by the minute to the first inport race of this years edition!!! Very exciting times! So far I haven’t heard anybody anticipate or even speculate in who could be the potential winner of the inport race. It promises to be a close fight between all involved!

All for now, more news to come!

/Edward

Watch the action live on TV4

Have your morning coffee in front of the TV and watch the Volvo Ocean Race action live at TV4, this Friday, Saturday and Sunday, from 6.00.

The morning hosts Tilde and Andreas will be reporting live from our Volvo Exhibition balcony this weekend. The technicians are setting it up right now for a trial testing before they go live.

/Kristin

Ericsson 3 – keel problems

The biggest gossip of the race village today is the international jurys decision yesterday of imposing a penalty on Erisson 3. The reason being that the keel is missing 0.625 kilograms of weight to be called solid.

Ola Rembe the Director Media Relations from Ericsson in discussions this morning at the race village.
You can read more about the international jurys decision at www.volvooceanrace.com.
/Kristin

The breakfast show is on

Many of us where sleeping when TV4 and some of the Volvo staff started the setting up this morning at 2.30 AM. The set up went well and the show was up running at 6 Am this morning.

Here’s Tilde and Andreas doing there thing during breakfast on the Volvo Exhibition balcony.  

Behind the scenes is quite interesting as well. No matter how nice the guests look, no one get’s in front of the cameras without passing these girls first!

/Kristin

Skippers & Tacticians Press conference

The eight skippers on the stand drew a lot of media attention during today’s press conference as they shared their thoughts on tomorrow’s battle for the first points in the Volvo Ocean Race. 

I got the impression of that all sailors just want to get going now. Skipper Ger O’Rourke, Delta Lloyd made no secret of that they are doing improvements every day while many of the others seem rather finished preparing.

Ger O’Rourke said that his team had not had much time to get used to the boat, and that they would use the leg to Cape town to get the team together.

Ready for In-Port

Rehearsals and testing is now officially over. Tomorrow we’ll see the real thing!

It’s a quiet night in race village as all the sailors have an early night as well as most of the land and staff crews. Everything has been lined up for tomorrow including the rib boats.

By this time tomorrow one of the teams will be celebrating their first points in the Volvo Ocean Race 2008 – 2009. A lot of the sailors from earlier races have said after participating in the race once that this is something that they would “never ever ever do again”. Despite this, quite a number of them come back for more.  According to very unofficial personal statistics from Guy Swindell, the fall back rate is about 10 out of 12. Two people out of the twelve of which he has spoken to he says has actually stuck to their word.

Why? Is it the challenge or is it just that they forget how demanding it is? Who knows?
Maybe I’ll try to get hold of one of them to ask one of them.
/Kristin

Champagne for winners!

4th of October was an excellent day to race, sunny, around 28 degrees and a huge crowd of spectators.

The skipper of Telefónica Blue, Bouwe Bekking won both the races yesterday. With some smooth manoeuvring of the boat Telefónica stole the winning position from Puma who led most of the 2nd race.  

The prize was handed over by the Swedish Prince Carl Philip, and he just about got away before Mr Bekking sprayed the entire crew with their winning Champagne. So yesterday evening the whole Spanish crowd celebrated along the streets in Alicante and race village, while listening to the concert of Bryan Adams on the main stage.

/Kristin

Volvo Ocean Race 2011-2012

Yesterday morning Leif Johansson, President and CEO of AB Volvo and Knut Frostad CEO of the Volvo Ocean Race announced the next edition of the Volvo Ocean Race to start in 2011. When you look at the extent of planning and preparation for entering with a boat into the Volvo Ocean Race, you can sort of understand that the teams will really need all the time they can get to prepare. It’s not only finding your crew, but finding finance and a boat to compete with.

As soon as the press conference and question session was over the journalists took their chance to get an interview.

The press conference attracted quite a number of journalists, but there where also future investors in the race from all over the world who really want to take the race to their part of the world. Having spoken to some of them, I realise that Middle east and Asia seem very keen on being a part of the action next time around.
This story is to be continued as the Race office start their work on the route for 2011-2012.
Take care,
Kristin

More common than you’d think…

Fellow humans,

It has come to my attention that Mr Göran Gummeson, the CEO of Volvo Penta, is a colleague of mine on the AB Volvo level as well as on the blog level! In fact, Mr Gummeson keeps his employees and the rest of the people who have access to Violin informed about his daily work. I must admit my defeat here since I have been fairly inactive these past few days. Lucky for me I have a dedicated blog partner in Kristin to keep you all informed. Kristin, you’re the best!

For Göran Gummesons blog click here.

As you all know, this race’s first inport race was yesterday and became a roaring success for the Telefónica team who managed to take first place with their Blue boat and second with their Black boat. Congratulations to all you guys!

Here in the fight with PUMA:

Take care y’all!

/E

Volvo IT crew on a mission

Edward and I try to cover what happens in the port while you’re not here. But there are other blogs around as well. Reporting from the first floor in the Race office/Media  centre is our own Volvo IT crew.

 

These guys are really delivering a wide variety of IT services and they do so from a room filled with servers, cables, wires and networks!
Have a look at what they are up to!
/Kristin

Profession: Ambassador!

- “What do you do for a living?”

- “I’m a Volvo ambassador! I travel around the world and represent Volvo”

Malin, Christina, Joanna, Josefin, Thomas, Christian, Sebastian and Jonas are the selected product specialists that have the honourful task of being Volvos face to the Volvo Ocean Race world!

They have gone through an extensive recruitment process and have been “coloured blue” as we like to say… They do not only promote our brand and core values to the world, they also answer product related questions, give Volvo Ocean Race guided tours to groups of customers visiting the ports, and they also help out the race office in the presentation of the trophies at prize givings.

Reporting live from Alicante, Edward Persson, Volvo Group, out!

/E

Half a million visitors

As of Monday 500 000 visitors had passed through the gates to the race village. Saturday the 4th of October, the day of the In Port, in itself attracted approximately 65 000 visitors!

So now we´re hoping to reach 1 million visitors before the race leaves Alicante for Cape Town.
Catch you later,
Kristin

CNN future watch

It’s not only Swedish TV4 who’s been reporting live from our exhibition, but now also CNN.
CNN is producing a series called “future watch”, where Leif Johansson, Achim Steiner and the CEO from Ericsson Carl-Henrik Svanberg where part of a panel to discuss the future and our environment.

Achim Steiner is the Executive Director of United Nations Environmental Program (UNEP) and he’s not only in Alicante to take part of the CNN debate, but also because UNEP has held their Global Forum for Sport and the Environment in the city during the last two days. You can see Achim himself report live from the race village on the UNEP website.
/Kristin

Multitasking à la Volvo Group

Meet Johannes Carlsson: Born and raised in Sweden with a passion for engines and mechanics. He works both for Volvo Penta and for the Volvo Ocean Race organisation. In Sweden he works with customer support, in the Volvo Ocean Race he works with the 2 Penta engines that all the VO70s have onboard. He is one of those guys that always smiles and always helps out. He is the type of person that would call off drinks with the boys to help out the shore crews with the boats!

Johannes doesn’t only do Penta engines, he does pretty much everything that has to do with technology and he got a chance to show his skills in yesterdays model boat race in the harbour here in Alicante. The reason why I am talking about Johannes is that he is not only a model spokesperson for AB Volvo, he will also help Kristin and me out with the blogging during the race.

Stay tuned for some inside scoops about the teams…

/E

Where have all the sailors gone?

I don’t know about you, but I was wondering where all the sailors go in between the in port race and the start of leg 1.
Skipper of Green Dragon, Ian Walker explained to me when I got a chance to ask him the other day.
The boat is equipped in a special way for the in port race and this is quite different compared to when it’s set up for a long distance leg, such as the one to Cape Town. 

Preparing the boat for the start of leg 1 takes days, and it’s not only the sailors that help out, but also the shore crew. For example, during the in port race, only a few sails are taken on board while on a leg they’ll have all sails on board. The boat is also fitted with different types of technology for the inport compared to what it is for the legs.

But it’s not all about the boat these last days. All crew members get to spend some quality time with their families of course. During the Pro Am race, all members of the Green Dragon team with kids got the day off, and they got to test the younger colleagues instead.
I hope they all are having a good time sleeping in their comfortable beds anyways, because I am sure it won’t be as comfortable in the boat.

Pictures of the new boats are not possible to get, but the Ericsson crew where kind enough to give a tour of their older boat from the last race Ericsson 1. And this is what it looks like. 
 

/Kristin

The Volvo Crew – taking care of our customers

Practically every day the Volvo Group Crew take care of large amounts of visitors. Much of the work is done behind the scenes, before and after opening hours and away from the spotlight. It’s all our efforts together that make sure each and every Volvo invited visitor get the right attention and experience.

Each morning before the action starts, the Volvo Crew meet at the Volvo Exhibition to run through the day or days ahead. This morning we had Chinese press in the pavillion and Knut Frostad giving interviews just following our morning meeting.

 
Just another day at the Volvo Ocean Race.
/Kristin

Just another day in the office…

Our president and CEO, Mr Leif Johansson, said the other day at a press conference something that has stuck in mind: “even if times are tough we cannot afford to stop selling products”. I cannot say how many times I have reacted a day later or so over things that Leif Johansson has said. When I grow up, I want to have Leif Johanssons speaker skills!

See below 2 pictures of the race village in Alicante. The first taken by the Volvo Ocean Race official photographer, Rick Tomlinson, on a sunny inport race day. The other one I took this morning on my way to our team meeting in the Volvo Exhibition.

We can now agree that the weather gods seem to prefer inport races to the week days in between

Johnny be good!

/E

“I have a dream…”

Probably the most known first words of a public speech. I have a dream as well. I will share that with you one day… and that’s a promise!

This time however, I thought I’d update you a little on the situation out in the Atlantic Ocean:

Puma, followed by Ericsson 4, followed by Ericsson 3, followed by Delta Lloyd, followed by Green Dragon, followed by Team Russia, followed by Telefonica Blue, and somewhere way out west is Telefonica Black.

Telefonica Black chose to go north of the canaries and edventure out into the Atlantic at an early stage and it seems like that may not have been a wise decision. On the other hand, just like Ken Read said yesterday in his email from the boat, “the beauty of ocean racing is that you never really know until all the cards are dealt”. This says quite a lot because there is plenty more ocean to come for these guys! Read Ken Read’s email here. (That’s funny, “read ken read’s…”; I have to say that more often! I bet he has heard it a couple of times in his life as well!)

Puma and Ericsson were among the favourites so we are not too surprised to see them leading the pack. What does surprise me though is that Telefónica are last and second to last!? Once again, we shouldn’t take anything for granted but…

See below a picture of the brutal force a Puma can generate on water! No wonder they have called it “IL MOSTRO”…

All for now, take care of yourselves… and each other!

/E

Make yourself heard!

Hiya!

Today is a good day. It is the day when Ian Walker andd his Green Dragon Team are heading the fleet towards the scoring gate at Fernando de Noronha island! Happy times! I have said it before and so has Ken Read, nothing is sure until all the cards are dealt… And by the way, Telefónica Blue is now in 5th position! Although they took the 12 hour penalty for repairing the boat just before they left the Mediterranean they have now caught up with the fleet and have started their climb towards the top. Being the overall leaders so far, they have a reputation at stake…

Ericsson 4 stopped in Cap Verde to drop off one of their crew members wha had an inflamated knee and had to seek medical care that was not available on the boat, there of their fall from the top of the leaderboard to currently 6th position.

This race is like a drug, soooooo addictive! Talk soon!

/E

Let me tell something to you…

If you have seen the movie “Happy Feet” you know what I am talking about… Ramón! If you haven’t, watch the movie, it’s worth it!

You may have reacted on the incoherence of the titles I give to my posts and the actual content. Nothing to worry about, I am born with some screws loose! Anyways, I want to get a message through to you today. Comments!

Comments are the fuel of a successful blog. On September 24th, an anonymous person by the alias “anightrayder” commented my fellow blog colleague Kristin’s post about the christening of the Telefónica boats. That’s the spirit! More of those! This is an invitation to make yourselves heard in cyber-space! It doesn’t need to be fancy, it can even be of a more aggressive nature, but Kristin and I will definitely read them and develop our writing accordingly! The best thing is that you can register under the alias you want and therefore you can be totally anonymous!!! It’s the best thing since sliced bread!!! You have to try it!!! Put some wood in the fire, put some gas in the tank, give us your opinion on what we write about or how we write it!!!

Later!

/E

P.S. The man in the picture has nothing whatsoever to do with anyone of the writers of this blog…  D.S.

The first scoring gate – coming up now

Green Dragon with skipper Ian Walker will very soon prpobably be the first boat rounding the first scoring gate. Close behind are the two boats Ericsson 4 or PUMA. You can get a closer look at the battel on the cool feature Raceviewer at the volvooceanrace.org site. It’s great because you can also see a 5-day prediction of the race as well if you need to be away from your computer for a while . Just don’t forget that you need Java to be installed on your computer to be able to view it properly!

Ian Moore has done a great job as Navigator on the Green Dragon so far.

Ian Moore, Navigator, Green Dragon

See you soon, Kristin

What is a scoring gate?

Some of us more leisure sailors might not be so updated on the scoring system in the competition, so here’s a summary of what you need to know about scoring gates.

In the Volvo Ocean Race course around the world there’s seven of these “scoring gates”. The gates are an important part of the course since the boat needs to pass these before finishing the leg. In between Alicante and Cape Town, the boats need to pass this first scoring gate close to the South American coast before they reach Cape Town.

Scoring gate 1

At each scoring gate the teams have a chance to score points and they are calculated in the same way as for the leg but then divided in two. Now that we have eight boats in the race, the first boat to pass the scoring gate scores 4 points, the second boat scores 3,5 points etc.

After lunchtime today we should have a new overall standing in the race!
/Kristin

the 600-mile barrier!!!

Those of you who have visited the official Volvo Ocean Race website have probably answered a poll about the fastest 24-hour run in the race. The question was how long (in nautical miles) the record held by ABN AMRO 2 would become, 602.66 nautical miles in 24 hours!!!

Truly amazing stuff that Torben Grael and his boys have achieved!

If you have ever been on a boat that does 25 knots, try to imagine doing that speed in average over 24 hours!!! That’s what these guys have done! An average speed of 25.11 knots over 24 hours! I can’t say it too many times, and no offense to Puma’s boat, but these yachts are like canned aggression waiting to be unleashed…

Congratulations boys!

/E

Almost there now!

“Reporting live for Life at the Extreme, Edward Persson, Cape Town…” If you have seen the movie “Bruce Almighty”, you can get a pretty good picture of the type of reporter I would be if I worked in that sector…

Friends and colleagues, we are now less than a day away from greeting the winner of the first leg from Alicante to Cape Town! At the moment, and with the intelligence at hand, we are expecting Ericsson 4 to cross the finish line somewhere between 8am and 9am tomorrow morning. They are followed by Puma, expected to cross the finish in the vicinity of 5pm tomorrow afternoon, and Ericsson 3 and Green Dragon are still fighting for 3rd place.

As mentionned previously, I have experienced some technical difficulties with the picture uploading tool. Not to worry, it is now working again.

In the pictures below, see how our Volvo Pavilion rises above Cape Town…

’til next time!

/E

Sweet taste of victory…

Ericsson International are the winners of the first leg of the Volvo Ocean Race 2008-2009!

After a fantastic finish of the first leg, including a mesmerizing 24-hour run record, Torben Grael and his boys crossed the finish line outside of the Victoria & Alfred Waterfront in Cape Town at 05:54 GMT this morning. They were met at the docks by friends and family as well as the early birds among the general public here in Cape Town. Ericsson has quite a team down here, they sure know how to be visible…

Traditionally, this race has been won by the winner of the first leg. Having seen how close the syndicates have been to each other during the entire leg, Ericsson 4 and Puma have had visual contact for approximately 70% of the distance, it puts even more pressure on Ericsson 4. Can they pull it off? Are the boats competitive enough to break the tradition? Time will tell…

What we do know is that the guys have done a terrific job, they sure deserve the beer and burger they receive upon arrival (especially considering they had to drop off a crew member, Tony Mutter, due to a knee injury) and we wish them and their families a good stopover in Cape Town while we focus on the next arrival. If everything works out the way it should, Puma should show up on the horizon at approximately 4pm (14:00 GMT) this afternoon. More news then!

/E

It’s a beautiful day!

Tuesday November 4th, 2008:

7 boats have now successfully made their way through the Atlantic from Alicante to Cape Town on this first leg of the Volvo Ocean Race 2008-2009. Last one to join the party here in the Victoria and Alfred Waterfront was Delta Lloyd who showed up just after 2am local time. 2 boats have taken longer time than the rest to get from the finish line to the arrivals dock: Telefónica Blue and Delta Lloyd. TeBlue had run out of fuel which meant that extra fuel had to be brought out to them before they could get the engine going and propel in towards the greeting crowd. Delta Lloyd had managed to lose their propeller, which of course meant they had to be towed in.

I have said it before and I say it again: it is Life at the Extreme!

Telefónica Black, who lost one of their rudders in what is thought to be a collision with a larger sea animal (whale maybe), are expected somewhere around 5pm this afternoon and then the fleet will be complete in the V & A.

Yours faithfully,

/E

Technical mumbo jumbo coming up…

“It’s all relative” and that is true when it comes to technical descriptions of an engine for example. It’s all about how you tell the story. I have never been so aware of this as the time when I bought a low price ticket from Cape Town to Johannesburg 3 years ago when I was in this fantastic country for the previous edition of this race. A company called Kulula.com had several flights daily from CT to JBG. How many times have you actually listened and paid attention to the safety instructions before take off? I can tell you that kulula.com changed my perception of safety instructions for ever…

e.g. “we remind you that this is a non smoking flight and that the lavatories are equipped with smoke sensors and that anyone who is caught smoking in the lavatories will be personally escorted to the end of the wing and then pushed over the edge…”

What I am trying to tell you is that Johannes Carlsson, the official Volvo Penta mechanic of the race, will soon be joining me in the writing of this blog and sharing details far beyond my technical understanding but we will bring this to you in a clear and easy way.

All for now, over and out!

/E

Just another day in the office…

Friends,

It’s funny how people like myself who work with this race fro so long and get completely devoured by it still have a hard time understanding that the sailors are doing a job as well and take some time off like every other working person…

Yesterday was the so called AfterSail in our pavilion in Cape Town. This is a casual event where we invite everyone from the Volvo Ocean Race family to join us. There was no representation of sailors here yesterday. This is something that Knut Frostad told us about a week ago: “most of the sailors if not all will be taking some time off and leave Cape Town for roughly a week”. Ok! I guess I just hadn’t thought of sailing the Volvo Ocean Race as a job that has to be done but rather like a calling for these guys. Then again, looking at the representation at the arrivals pontoon, almost all of these guys have families and most of them are travveling around with the race. Impressive stuff!

Anyways I thought I’d leave you with some pictures of Cape Town.

Life in the fast lane!

/E

P.S.

All the pictures are taken by yours truly…

Here comes the story of the hurricane…

Remember the movie? Ruben “Hurricane” Carter emprisoned for a crime he didn’t commit just because he had the wrong skin colour and the local police didn’t like them. Great movie, even better soundtrack!

I am not here to tell you about movies and such, I am here to give you the insights of the Volvo Ocean Race from the different stopovers! Cape Town has experienced extremely strong winds (they caught a gust measuring 78 knots?!?!?!?!) that have made the normal operation of the race village slightly more difficult than normally. Jetty1, which is the area where the race village is located, has been closed for three consecutive days now since the security around the elements on Jetty1 could not be guaranteed.

Our pavilion is still standing although the last mornings when arriving to it we have almost expected it to have taken off… Yesterday, just in time for our first international group in the Volvo@Sea lounge, the winds dropped a little and have been fairly under control today. Yesterday and today have been farily hectic days for Race Office since they have started envisioning scenarios where the restart would be delayed… Not popular at all. Eveything seems like we will be able to carry out everything on time now. Below, the wind blew over one of our light posts onthe exhibition…

Stay sharp!

/E

Life is made of flukes and coincidences…

A classmate of mine back in school said that expression. It is nice to see the world like that, free of responsibility… Currently I would put that more like: “life is made of lies and excuses”…

Let me explain: I have not been able to post pictures on the blog since our AB Volvo network is not compatible with the format of this website (that’s the excuses…). That is partly the reason why I haven’t been active lately, the other part is because an alien stole my computer ;o)

So much has happened since I last wrote that I think I am going to have to put it down in different posts. After the hurricane had passed through Cape Town, the boats were able to get prepared for the start on Saturday Nov 15th. Fabulous weather, enough wind to make it interesting and not enough for them to leave right away.

Piracy has been an issue for this second leg of the Volvo Ocean Race, and after the tanker being hijacked some 840 km off the coast, some nerves were tightened within us all. The waypoint of 58 degrees East is mainly to avoid the yachts from going too close to the “action”…

Current standings are: Ericsson 3, Ericsson 4, Telefónica Blue, Puma, Green Dragon, Telefónica Black, Team Russia and finally Delta Lloyd. The nordic team from Ericsson, just slightly ahead of their sistership, are as competitive as the other boats now since they had their new keel fitted in Cape Town. It seems like it’s not slowing them down at least! Just to give you an idea of how fast these boats are, we were expecting the first boat in Cochin on December 1st. If they keep the current speed, they will reach Cochin on Nov 29th at 9:50am… Truly incredible!

Peace Out!

/E

Thnx 4 all…

It’s funny how you connect with some people and how you don’t with others… I would like to take the occasion to send a special thank you to one special lady who made the days in Cape Town run by faster than they should…

Thank you Glynis for being who you are! It was a pleasure working with you and I hope I will see you again! Hopefully before the race is over… Take care of yourself and I’ll see you soon!

And the rest of you, take this opportunity to give compliments to people who deserve them and be true to yourselves!

Ciao!

/E

Should I stay or should I go?!

Howdy folks! How’s it? I can’t stop saying that… I learnt it in Cape Town and I personally think it sounds much better than “How’re you doing” or “How’re ya going” or similar phrases…

A lot has happened since I last wrote to you. The standings in the race have been rearranged, the pirates have stayed away from our yachts so far, and there has been a terrorist attack in Mumbai. Hmmm,  where do I start…

Not only was Sirius Star, this huge oil tanker, hijacked a couple of weeks ago by pirates some 800 kms outside of the coast of Somalia, yesterday saw also some pirate activity in those waters. A tanker sailing under the flag of Liberia and carrying chemicals was hijacked yesterday morning. There are EU forces navigating the eastern coast of Africa now and Sweden is also sending down a small force with the aim of reinforcing the existing peace keeping forces. Wouldn’t it be easier if all the pirates were like Jack Sparrow?

My colleague Jessica was supposed to head down to Cochin on Thursday last week (27th) but since the boats were sailing faster than expected (even if they almost all had considerable damages) she was force to leave a day earlier. From Gothenburg via Frankfurt and Mumbai to Cochin. She was derouted from Mumbai to Delhi due to the terrorist attacks and waited for approx 12 hours before she could catch a flight to Bangalore and from there another one to Cochin… The (formerly unknown) terrorist group Deccan Mujahedin has taken responsibility for the attacks and now, when it seems to be over for this time, the count is 195 casualties and many more wounded… Very sad.

Ericsson 4 is still ahead, now only 78 nm from Cochin. They are hunted by Telefónica Blue who made a very good move going west and avoiding the lack of winds that the rest of the fleet found. Ericsson 3 in a third place with approx 30 nm down to Green Dragon in 4th. Only 4 nm separate GD from Delta Lloyd in 5th and they are merely 1 nm ahead of PUMA in 6th. Telefonica Black on 7th and Team russia desperately last with 244 nm to Telefónica Black. See it like this: whether you are first over the line or last, you’re still going to be eating curry for a few weeks!!!

Ciao!

/E

New blog tool

Hi All,

In 5 minutes I will be learning the new AB Volvo blog tool.

I’ll keep you posted!

/E

Off to the far east…

It is 14:46 on Tuesday the 3rd of February, I’m soon on my way to cold and mysterious Qingdao in China, and I have promised myself I will keep you much more up to speed on what happens in the ports from now on.

Before I continue, I thought I’d give you the status of the race:

Leg 4 was completed by only 4 boats; Telefónica Blue, Puma, Ericsson 4, Green Dragon in that same order of arrivals.

Team Russia is in Cape Town, searching for funds, Telefónica Black, Delta Lloyd and Ericsson 3 had to suspend racing and take a serious look at the damage suffered in the tough conditions on Leg 4, resulting in the decision to get Telefónica Black back to Singapore for repairs, Delta Lloyd being shipped to Rio for repairs, and Ericsson 3 doing their best in Taiwan to get the boat back together… It has been a Leg strait out of HELL!!! Or actually into hell…

Anyways, pictures and videos and links and gossip are on the agenda for the following 14 days so buckle up and prepare for some scoops in the coming few days!!

I’ll leave you with this picture, a favourite of mine…

Last but not least…

I couldn’t keep the following to myself, I just had to share with you:

Ericsson 3 is being repaired in Taiwan and in difference from Delta Lloyd and Telefónica Black, the shore crew expects to be done with the repairs so that Ericsson 3 could sail to Qingdao and thus collect valuable points for Leg 4 and be ready for the start of Leg 5 on Feb 14. They won’t make it to the inport race on Feb 7 but we should see them on the starting grid for Leg 5!!! Very exciting news!!!

/E

All media is good media… or?

A few days ago a reporter for the swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter (DN) wrote an article about the Volvo Ocean Race (click here to read). The message was that Volvo had made a bad decision in going to Qingdao in the conditions experienced by the sailors.

What I am wondering is if there is such a thing as “bad media”… Is it better to keep quiet than to have people talking about the race in a negative way? Perhaps my asking this question is the reason why I don’t work in the communications department at Volvo…

See you later,

/Edward

P.S.

Rumour has it that Anders Lewander, skipper of Ericsson 3, will not come back to join the team at all… (see article)

When I grow up…

It’s funny because I just realised that I never spend time trying to come up with a good title for my posts… What you read in the title field is pretty much what pops into my head when I open this page!

Now you probably think: “So what about when you grow up?” or ”How old are you?” or ” What does that have to do with the Volvo Group?”.

Truth is I have always (and probably always will) seen myself as a child! I like to know that I’m still on the way to become who I am supposed to be: Edward Persson! Who he is? No clue, as I told you I am trying to find out (In other words this particular post has nothing to do with the Volvo Group )

One of the sailors onboard Ericsson 3, Martin Krite, is studying to become a priest when he is not racing the oceans on a wind driven bullet that is the Volvo Open 70! Roger Nilsson, navigator onboard Telefónica Black, is a doctor! I like to hear that these sailors are not just competitive machines fighting King Neptune all around the globe but they actually have a life outside of the sailing world bubble as well. Once again I end up thinking of one word that has become important in the corporate culture of the Volvo Group; diversity.

On these philosophical thoughts I leave you to your own quests for identity and satisfaction!

Peace Out!

/E