Act two – Part I

There is much intrigue in the 2008/9 Volvo Ocean Race around whether the light to medium air emphasis of Farr Yacht Design's two VO70s for Telefónica will prove sufficient in the long run to overcome a strong start by Torben Grael's Juan Kouyoumdjian designed Ericsson 4. In the first part of this series Britt Ward of Farr Yacht Design looks at Version 2 of the Volvo Open 70 rule and presents some of the technology used in developing the Telefónica VO70s. Next month we will focus on the innovative features and design details on the Equipo Telefónica entries and examine some of the technical initiatives explored by their race rivals

Lessons learned
At the conclusion of the last Volvo Race Farr Yacht Design spent a good deal of time reviewing specific problems and issues and the details of our first-generation designs. More importantly, we took a hard look at our internal design process and our involvement with each team over the course of the construction and race period to understand what had worked and what hadn't so that we could apply those lessons for the next edition of the race.

In December of 2006 FYD were contracted by Equipo Telefónica to design two new Volvo Open 70s for the 2008-9 race. The team principal Pedro Campos has been a longtime client of Farr Yacht Design and with the addition of sporting director and co-skipper Bouwe Bekking we had a solid foundation upon which a successful campaign could be built.

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