Ken Read, a Newport sailor, skipper and CEO of PUMA Ocean Racing, is making plans to take a 40-member team around the world.
PUMA agreed earlier this year to sponsor Read in creating the Newport-based racing company, which is overseeing the selection of crew, development of the yacht and everything else, for racing in the 2008 / 2009 Volvo Ocean Race, a round-the-world competitive sailing race known as the “Mount Everest” of sailing.
It is the first time PUMA, a multinational sports apparel and equipment company, has ever sponsored a team for the race. And the first time a Rhode Island sailor has been placed at the helm of a Volvo Ocean Race entry.
To that end, Read spent part of the summer testing a former Volvo Ocean Race boat, called “Avanti,” for ways to make the new boat faster. In addition, he and a revolving crew won every race they entered in their class during the summer months, and broke three records for elapsed time, or total time it takes to complete a race, Read said. The races included the Block Island Race, the Transatlantic Race, the Fastnet Race and the Middle Sea Race, for which the crew won in its class and overall.
The experience has left Read optimistic about his team’s chance to win the nine-month-long race, which begins in October 2008 in Alicante, Spain.
George David, CEO of United Technologies Corp. in Hartford, Conn., allowed Read to be skipper of his yacht, called “Rambler,” which won the races, Read said. David also allowed the yacht to be used for crew evaluations for PUMA’s Volvo race entry.
PUMA Ocean Racing received 250 applications for 10 crew positions for the Volvo race and had narrowed it to 36 possibilities before entering the racing arena this summer, Read said. Being allowed to test the potential crew members in a competitive sailing environment helped in evaluating their skills, though Read has not announced who the 10 crew members will be.
Of the 36 contenders, two are from Newport, Read said. The rest are from five countries around the world.
Also from around the world are the 20-plus staff members of PUMA Ocean Racing who are currently living and working in Newport or Bristol with their families. All are in local semi-permanent housing and “adding to the economy,” Read said.
Seven of them are working at Goetz Custom Boats, which was contracted to build PUMA’s boat for the Volvo race, said Eric Goetz, president and owner of the Bristol-based company, which has built several Americas Cup boats and other Volvo boats. Having that many from the sponsor “is beyond normal,” Goetz said.
Help from the entry holder in building the boat is something Goetz hasn’t witnessed before, but he said it’s going to give the PUMA team an advantage because those who are working on the boat might be shore crew when the boat makes one of its 11 pit-stops around the world.
It’s an advantage, because if something breaks or something needs to be improved, the shore crew will have knowledge of how the boat was originally constructed, Goetz said, and be better able to make the needed adjustments.
“It’s interesting for us because these guys have experience building boats in different countries,” he said. “We see the different techniques they use. We’re treating it as a learning experience.”
The next step will be to train the chosen crew members on the final boat, which is tentatively scheduled to be complete in April. In the meantime, Read and his office staff, based at the Newport Shipyard, will be working out the logistics – the necessary airplane tickets, hotel rooms, movement of supplies – to 11 different ports during the nine-month race.
“Carting a big group around the world … It’s a logistical nightmare,” Read said. “It’s like bringing a TV show around the world.” •
