Ian Walker has won two silver medals at the Atlanta and Sydney Olympic Games and was skipper of the Team GBR challenge for the America’s Cup in Auckland in 2003. Now he is skipper of the Galway-based, Chinese-partnered Green Dragon team in the Volvo Ocean Race and will be writing an exclusive weekly commentary for The Independent plus talking to Stuart Alexander by satellite link from the boat during the 10 legs and 37,000 miles that take the fleet from Spain around the world to St. Petersburg.
This morning I packed my bag for leg 1 of the Volvo Ocean Race. 6,500 miles to Cape Town from Alicante, which is exactly 5,891 miles further than I have ever raced before. I have dreamed about sailing around the world for a very long time and now I have my chance.
This leg is only the opening salvo, as we have 37,000 miles ahead of us in total. Despite very little preparation time (we only formed the sailing team in June) we feel very well prepared. I do of course have concerns about our speed, as I'm sure most teams will have at this stage. Nobody wants to get left behind.
Listen to Ian Walker talk exclusively to Stuart Alexander ahead of the Volvo round the world race
The first week will probably give a strong indication of who has the best speed but it may take a bit longer for the potential race winner to emerge - speed is only part of the equation as reliability will definitely kick in at some stage in these very powerful boats.
The human element should not be underestimated, too. When you think that we normally race 50ft boats inshore with 15 people, trying to sail these far more powerful boats at 100 per cent with only 10 sailing crew, 4 of whom are 'off watch' at any one time, is incredibly demanding.
Fortunately our team has a nice mix of youth and experience. In Neal McDonald, Damian Foxall, Ian Moore and Justin Slattery I have four of the most skilled and experienced offshore sailors in the race.
To single these guys out does not do justice to the others onboard. Everybody has earned their spot and everybody is putting their bodies on the line from here on.
It seems that everyone apart from Andrew McLean and myself have crossed the equator before and I have already heard murmurings of King Neptune making plans for our 'initiation' - it is going to be quite unusual for the skipper to be initiated by the others!
Life onboard as skipper can be quite a lonely role. You are not tied to a rigid watch system but exist in a permanent state of 'on call'. Whilst I will be called upon for any sail changes my time will largely be split between steering, navigational and media duties.
Perhaps my most important job of all is to keep an overview of safety and make sure the boat and crew all come back in one piece.
Sleep will be grabbed in one or two-hour chunks where possible. I suspect the first few days will be exceptionally hard as we try to exit the tortuous winds of the Mediterranean. Already we are glued to the weather models as we try to second guess what may or may not happen. So far the weather model has changed so much from day to day I am wondering if we are not better off waiting until Saturday morning before we look at it again. Saturday will be a huge milestone for this project. Trying to put a programme of this nature together with precious little time or money is not easy. You have to make compromises, but, where possible, you try never to compromise the boat - the boat is our lifeblood for the next nine months.
We have a fantastic shore crew who have been working all hours to get us as well prepared as we are now. We also have a fantastic network of sponsors and supporters, both financial and other.
I have no doubt that it will be the Irish and Chinese who will be cheering loudest as we round the final turning mark and head south.
In hard economic times it is a brave company that invests in sports sponsorship. But, as the ceo of Volvo rightly said, it is even more important to invest during difficult economic times as this can help to lead the way out.
The world is a rapidly changing place right now and perhaps one of the strangest things in this day of instant worldwide communications will be being cut off from the outside world.
We will be sending daily photos, video and media reports from the boat, but we ourselves are not allowed to access the internet onboard. The world will be able to watch us but we cannot see the world.
Whenever anybody looks in on the Green Dragon I can assure you that you will see a committed team trying their hardest no matter what is thrown at them. Our team has a very strong spirit and over the next nine months we will need every ounce of it.
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