Nice Guy To Lead Volvo's Mean Machine
Nice Guy To Lead Volvo's Mean Machine
Softspoken Kiwi Ray Davies, a veteran of two Volvo Ocean Races and three America's Cups, will lead Peter de Ridder's 2009 VOR campaign. "For the Record" from our November/December 2006 issue
If you could mold a Volvo skipper from scratch, it's doubtful the final product would bear much resemblance to Ray Davies, who was recently tabbed to drive Peter de Ridder's Mean Machine Volvo campaign. The 34-year-old New Zealander doesn't have the physical size, weather-beaten visage, or intimidating presence usually associated with success in sailing's most challenging distance race. The 5'7" Davies, who answers to the nickname "Hooray," seems too nice for the job, a fact he doesn't dispute. "I think there's more ways to skin a cat than the way we've seen traditionally," he says. What Davies does have, however, is talent, a healthy amount of respect from his peers, and a ton of experience-Volvo campaigns under Grant Dalton and John Kostecki, and three America's Cups. With all this, he's confident, in his own understated manner of course, the nice guy will finish first in the next Volvo Race.
You've mentioned that one motivation behind this effort is that Peter de Ridder wants to keep together the Mean Machine TP 52 team. Is that really true?
The trouble that we've had in the past is every four years the America's Cup comes around and a lot of the core team members are dispersed to the big campaigns. It's quite frustrating to someone like Peter to suddenly lose his crew. Instead of going through that again, we decided to take on the Volvo Race. It's an expensive way to get around that problem, but we're hoping to find sponsorship for the campaign. Peter is putting up the seed money.
How did you meet Peter and come to be such an integral part of the team?
I first sailed with Mean Machine in 1999 in the Admiral's Cup. Peter wasn't actually sailing, I met him at a party in Holland afterward. The following year he bought an IMS boat and he asked me to be the skipper on that and we had a very successful year. Then the decision was made to go to the Farr 40. The relationship between Kiwis and Dutch guys is really good, we have similar no bull-type personalities. When the chips are down we don't start accusing each other, we drink Limoncello and try to figure out what went wrong during the day.
Were you surprised that Peter proposed such an involved idea to keep the team together?
I wasn't surprised because it was my idea. We were thinking of ways to keep the TP 52 team together and I said to Peter, "I've got a pretty extreme idea, maybe you want to hear it."
Are you tied to Emirates Team New Zealand through the Cup?
I'm committed to winning the America's Cup; I'm full time for the next eight months. I won't be doing anything to do with the Volvo effort, it'll all be up to Dirk [de Ridder, no relation to Peter] and Peter. Then that project's going to launch into full effect, along with the TP 52 circuit. We're hoping to have the team in place by the end of the Cup, and we've acquired the Pirates of the Caribbean boat as our test boat. We'll work on building a new boat by the end of 2007. Then we'll do a little bit of two-boat testing in 2008 with the race starting in September.
Are you worried about a low turnout for the race in 2008?
I feel there's going to be more. Jumping into the Asian market is pretty exciting, and exciting for the sailors, too, with new oceans to sail through. Hopefully, the race will still include a leg in the Southern Ocean. The whole Volvo is geared toward selling itself to the sponsor, and I think that's going to bring in more teams.
