News

11.11.2005

Alinghi crew head offshore

Rodney Ardern
(Photo credit: Th.Martinez/Alinghi)

Alinghi crew members Rodney Ardern (NZ) and Curtis Blewett (CAN) will set off on the Volvo Ocean Race on Saturday 12 November at 14:00 on board the Pirates of the Caribbean, one of seven VOR70s to cross the start line in Vigo, Spain.

Rodney, runner/pit with the 32nd America’s Cup Defender, Alinghi, will race four legs of the most extreme round-the-world yacht races in the racing calendar as watch captain and Curtis, midbowman with Alinghi, will race as bowman. Both have significant round-the-world experience, interspersed with America’s Cups. Rodney has three Whitbreads/Volvo’s behind him and five America’s Cups and Curtis raced onboard EF Language with Skipper Paul Cayard in 1997-98 and he is on his third AC campaign.

Alinghi runner/pitman, Rodney Ardern comments on the differences of racing offshore and the match racing with Alinghi: “This race will give us a variety of sailing conditions and we get to sail in different boats. Obviously we enjoy both types of racing, offshore and match racing. These boats are quite different and it is nice to have a change from the day to day match racing technique. Hopefully by learning about these boats with their different sails, different masts and other things, we can try to bring some of the technology and the techniques back to Alinghi.”

Curtis Blewett
(Photo credit: Steven Tee)

Alinghi midbowman, Curtis Blewett is keen to get on the start line: “I’m pretty happy to get started on Saturday. The boat is definitely ready to race. We’ve got the trip down to Vigo, which will give us some mileage to test the structure and to make sure that we have everything we need to be able to race hard. But we are ready.” We asked him how the Pirates compare to Alinghi: “The feeling on board is similar and that is one of the only similarities. It is a strong team right of the bat, there are really great guys on board and everyone is pretty excited about it all. We don’t have any trouble focusing and the guys want to go and push hard. In this respect, there isn’t much of a change from Alinghi to this boat.”