Volvo Ocean Race: race village logistics challenges
by GAC Pindar 13 Apr 2015 16:01 BST
13 April 2015
The Volvo Ocean Race has passed the halfway mark and reached Itajai in Brazil, the fifth stopover. While the focus of the race has been centred on the battle for the podium positions and the Dongfeng Race Team leg five retirement, GAC Pindar, the official logistics provider for the Volvo Ocean Race, have been working hard to tackle their own logistics challenge to ensure that the Itajai race village was ready to be opened on time.
Behind the scenes GAC Pindar's logistics team guaranteed the race village from Sanya was safely re-built in Itajai, 55 days later, after leapfrogging the fourth race stop in Auckland. GAC Pindar's role includes the logistics and customs clearance of each race village in each port.
Richard Mallen, Advance Planning Manager from GAC explains: "The route from China to Brazil wasn't a straightforward one. We organised for the 112 containers carrying the race village to be shipped from Sanya to Vietnam and then onto Malaysia where they were loaded onto a container ship that reached Itajai on 24th March. In addition 16 air freight containers bringing crew kit, media equipment and two Volvo life size scale model cars were flown into São Paulo and then trucked 500 miles to Itajai."
Mike Millar, Commercial Director, GAC Pindar continues: "We're pleased to report that the Itajai logistics operation was finished on time but careful planning and work with multiple GAC agencies was instrumental to the successful completion of the task. We started planning in July 2014 with a site recce and followed up with two further visits to ensure no stone was left unturned."
Due to the sheer size of the Volvo Ocean Race, 38,739 nautical miles across five continents and eleven ports including a pit-stop in The Hague in just nine months, two identical race villages are required and leapfrog each other across the globe. After departing Itajai, the race village will head onto Lisbon, Portugal, the seventh stopover of the race. By the end of the race in June next year GAC Pindar employees, including eleven permanent staff, will have worked over 21,000 man hours to complete this unique logistics challenge.
It is not just the race village that provides GAC Pindar with testing logistics challenges; presently GAC Pindar has three yacht masts in transit around the world. Two masts are being shipped from Auckland, the first to Philadelphia as a contingency for when the boats head to Newport later this month. The second mast is heading back to Europe for Team Vestas Wind. The other mast has been air freighted from Dubai to Amsterdam and will eventually land in Itajai to replace the broken mast suffered by Dongfeng Racing team.
Not only has the fifth leg seen the drama of Dongfeng Racing Team's broken mast but Team SCA, MAPFRE and Dongfeng Race Team were also unfortunate to experience a Chinese Gybe, also known as a death roll. A Chinese Gybe is an accidental gybe caused by either strong wind or a big wave. It forces the main sail to slam over the boat to end up in the water with the keel on the wrong side to keep it on its side.
The sixth leg of the Volvo Ocean Race departs for Newport, USA on Sunday 19th April. To keep up-to-date with all the action from the Volvo Ocean Race visit volvooceanrace.com