News    All legsAROUND SPAINLeg 0Leg 1Leg 2Leg 3Leg 4Leg 5Leg 6Leg 7Leg 8Leg 9Leg Galway    Show 102050

Antonio Cuervas-Mons “Ñeti”: “Everyone is eager to see what will happen with the new inshore race format”

Menu of the day: inshore training. Ingredients: 20 knots of wind, lots of short waves, typically found in the Mediterranean and lots of water on board. In Alicante Team Telefónica are still working at a frenetic pace. There are now just nine days left until the Volvo Ocean Race stopwatch starts ticking with the start of the first inshore race of the 2011-2012 edition. So, with that in mind, today the round the world team's schedule featured some training out on the water for this type of regatta.

Racing close to the coast
The inshore races were incorporated into the Volvo Ocean Race calendar in the 2008-2009 edition of the regatta and now represent 20% of the total scoring for the regatta. The courses are approximately an hour long with racing between buoys and close to the coast, allowing spectators and fans to enjoy the show offered up by the powerful Volvo Open 70s and their crews from land.

So there's a big difference between an offshore leg and a coastal race. As well as the brevity and intensity of the inshore racing itself, it's more important than ever that the crews are synchronised in their roles, especially in terms of increased agility and speed for manoeuvres. All of these ingredients make these races a veritable challenge.

New format, new problems
There have been many changes introduced by the regatta organisers in terms of the format of these races for this edition. The main ones are: fewer crew members on board (two fewer crew than in the 2008-2009), on single race instead of two and open courses (instead of the windward- leeward racing between buoys used previously).

Spaniard Antonio Cuervas-Mons, better known to all as “Ñeti” is one of “Telefónica”'s bowmen. He commented on the changes: “The course is totally different to the previous edition of the competition. Before we had classic windward-leeward racing, so downwind and upwind between buoys, whilst now it's variable”.

“Ñeti” is also one of Team Telefónica's Under-30 crew members and will be sailing his second round the world regatta. “In Alicante there will be a series of fixed markers and then a moveable one. Basically the course will be open, with the chance of there being various upwind and downwind legs or even upwind, downwind, close-hauling... That all means that preparing for the races is tricky, given that the array of courses and manoeuvres is so broad and anything can happen with any sail”.



“Everyone is eager to see what will happen to see what the course will be like, what manoeuvres there might be and to se what the inshore races will be like in general for this edition”, added the Spaniard.

So, how does the fact that the legs are shorter affect a role such as bowman? Ñeti provides a clear answer to that: “At the bow we have to be even more careful because with shorter legs everything has to be done much quicker. For example, with Pepe Ribes I must prepare to lower the spinnaker and to prepare it for being hoisted as easily and quickly as possible. We only have three minutes to do this and we are talking about 500m2 of sail...”.

So, we are facing a course that is more difficult to prepare for, as it's harder to know what it might throw up. Ñeti: “Shorter legs with less crew for manoeuvres and everything's tighter. Physically it's going to be a lot tougher than in the last edition”.


Spanish talent and ingenuity to “survive” the inshore races
Continuing with the comparisons with the previous edition of the competition, “Telefónica” Skipper Iker Martínez also touched on some other points to bear in mind, this time relating to the Spanish yacht itself: “So far we've seen that the inshore racin I going to be more difficult for us this time because last team we had a boat that was particularly good over short legs, it accelerated well and had other characteristics that meant that she sailed very well in these races”, explained Martínez. “However, we also saw that the perfect boat for inshore racing wasn't the round the world winner, so this team we have gone for a boat that is more of an all-rounder in different conditions. We will be using all of our ingenuity and talent to survive as best as we can in these races”.