Back on the rails

After a big faulter over the winter so Victory Challenge are off once again skipper Magnus Holmberg reports to Tim Jeffery

Sweden’s Victory Challenge is on the march again. The team’s employment contracts ended at the close of 2005 and team owner Hugo Stenbeck declared new funding was required for the Swedes to continue right the way through the 32nd Cup.

“We are still alive, have more funding and are fighting very hard,” says Magnus Holmberg, skipper and team leader. “We will be sailing the Acts. In fact I think you could say there is quite a lot of light in the tunnel.”

There’s no news yet of external backing but Killian Bushe will start modifying SWE 63 and 73 soon; Mani Frers is busy with design work; Hallspars will start a new rig next week; the base in Valencia is advancing well; and the sailing team resume activities there on 1 March.

Not bad for a team for whom there were worries that their prospects were as inviting as the long Swedish winter.

“We are still not fully funded so we can’t relax and only concentrate on the technical and sailing aspects,” confides a candid Holmberg. “We still have to push for more funding in the future. But the relief of getting going with the sailing team and the technical aspects is good. We are close to being fully up and running again.”

Ever since Hugo’s father, the late Jan Stenbeck, started Victory for the 2003 Cup in Auckland, the Swedish team have not talked about money. So neither the team members or the outside world know whether Victory is resuming activities thanks to funds from the Stenbeck family or from their Modern Times Group of media companies. Or elsewhere.

In 2003 they were a mid-sized, two-boat operation. Sadly Jan Stenbeck was denied the chance to see his team compete, dying suddenly shortly before the October 2002 start of Louis Vuitton Cup. But his engaging, enthusiastic and energetic son Hugo has kept Victory alive, likening it to a work hard, play hard, ice hockey team that’s lean and efficient compared with the profligacy of several Cup outfits.

In 2003 Victory punched above their weight, and that’s what they want to do again.

Holmberg is delighted to have Killian Bushe signed-up as boatbuilder. The Irishman from Cork has called Sweden home for 10 years and Victory wanted him last time round but he was committed to the aborted illbruck team from Germany.

“The one thing about Killian is that it is a huge step forward for us to have that sort of quality,” says Holmberg, mindful of Bushe’s terrific reputation which is being reinforced all over again with the success of the ABN AMRO boats in the Volvo Ocean Race.

Bushe’s team is preparing the shed in Gothenburg’s shipbuilding area for construction of the new boat, though when that starts Victory isn’t saying. Nor if they will be a two boat outfit again. “We still have the option of being a two boat campaign, but the longer the time is running the less is the benefit of it,” says Holmberg enigmatically.

The mods to 63 and 73 will be part to use up what’s left of the 60% canoe body modification allowance for converting boats from Version 4 to 5 of the ACC rule and partly a step towards the new design. Unsurprisingly, 73 will be modified more given that her form in the Malmo Act was poor last summer when 63 had been impressive in the previous Act in Valencia.

“It was a quick fix we did for the first Act in 2005 at Valencia," continues Holmberg of the stumble last summer. "We were rolling at such a high tempo because of the Acts that it was difficult to develop the boats sensibly in 2005. My guess is that if we had more time in the preparation of 73, it would have been better. Then we had to put on the handbrake on design work because of the funding even though we were sailing all the way through to 9 December in Valencia.”

The Victory technical team numbers around 10 including people in Mani and German Frers’ office, independently contracted CFD and structures experts and sail designers.

What is heartening for Victory is that during their winter hiatus, and with a hiring deadline under the Protocol looming, only three sailors chose to leave. “Sten Mohr is the probably the most newsworthy,” admits Holmberg. “He’s gone to BMW Oracle, so we have to now look again for another helmsman.” He is recruiting again, in the market for trimmers particularly.

Victory’s publicly declared position that they would shut down over winter was laudable for its frankness. No one was strung along. But it brought pressures too because it was public knowledge that Victory was reassessing its financial position. Pressure too on the management in dealing with its own personnel.



“You always feel some responsibility for the people you employ even though we always were very open with financial situation,” admits Holmberg. “Everyone knew we had only money to the end of the year. Even so, it’s never enjoyable to terminate contracts which we had to do at the end of the year. We were also trying to honest but not trying to lock people in. It would have been terrible to have started-up again with people who felt they had been forced into the situation. I’m just happy we have a team who hung in there, stuck together and really wanted to make this happen. We are very relieved to have got more funding and we realise this is going to require more strength from us having lost a little bit of time in the winter.”

Over the years, the Swedes have been an open and honest team. Holmberg does not try and dress up the fact that they have lost time. “This will be a tough year for us,” he says of the 2006 Acts in which they will continue with their old boats. Every other team apart from Team China and K-Challenge have started new boats. “I think we will see some of the smaller teams bringing out new boats for the Acts.”

So where does a re-activated, re-energised Victory see itself? “I feel a lot of confidence in the sailing crew we have, particularly in the match racing part of it. If you just look at the match racing we were tied with the Spanish as fourth amongst the challengers,” explains Holmberg.

“We still have a lot of strong points compared to other teams. Some of them have bought boats which other teams have designed and built but further down the line everyone has to design and build their own boats. That’s not an easy task in this game and although we have lost a bit of time I feel Victory still has the capabilities to be very competitive.”