Action packed year for Rob Greenhalgh

The skiff ace is back with Puma but also has Tour Voile and Melges 32 campaigns

Hamble’s own son Rob Greenhalgh must be one of the busiest men in yachting at present. The last two weekends have seen him winning the Audi Melges 32 East Coast Championships on Long Island Sound on Leenabarca with Alex Jackson, also the owner of the Juan K-designed supermaxi Speedboat, following this up with a win on board Anthony O’Leary’s Ker 39 Antix at the Irish IRC Championships in Dun Laoghaire last weekend. And this is just the prelude to a busy year ahead on both sides of the Atlantic.

“It is amazing how busy it is – it seems to be busier than ever in this recession. I can’t complain at all,” says Greenhalgh. But when we speak to him he has a day off and is busy hunting bass on the Hamble River.

While Greenhalgh was part of the TeamOrigin line-up that crewed Speedboat during her first season, this is his first year with Jackson on the Melges 32 and he says this year their aim is the World Championship in San Francisco at the end of September following the Rolex Big Boat Series (which will be their Pre-Worlds).

“They are good boats, I quite like them,” says Greenhalgh of the 32. “They are quite similar to Mumm 30, but with the A sail. It is a competitive class and a lot of people are spending money on it, but it is relatively new, so there is quite a lot of room for improvement. It will be an interesting year and having the Worlds in San Francisco is always good because it is a fun venue.”

In theory they have a couple more Melges 32 events to sail before the Pre-Worlds, but this is dependent on owner Alex Jackson’s schedule and also the program with Speedboat, for the supermaxi has been taken out of mothballs, recommissioned and is currently on stand-by, like Mike Slade’s ICAP Leopard, ready to leave at any time for an attempt on Mari Cha IV’s west to east transatlantic monohull record. Whether Greenhalgh will be on board Speedboat for this really depends upon if a suitable weather window materialises. Certainly for the next few days there is nothing worth getting out of bed for and if this continues then the boat will do Newport-Bermuda instead.

But Greenhalgh’s big gig at present is returning to Ken Read’s Puma team for their second attempt on the Volvo Ocean Race. Having come second to Ericsson 4 last time, this time they have more of race winning ingredients – the new Puma will be one of three new Juan K designs, who’s boats have won the last two VORs, and they also have in the team Kiwi secret weapons Brad Jackson and Tony Mutter, who have been central to the ABN AMRO One and Ericsson 4 wins in the last two races, Greenhalgh of course having been involved in the former.

“It has been going most of this year,” says Greenhalgh of how the Puma campaign has been progressing. “They didn’t finalise the money until relatively recently. It was always probably going to happen, but it’ll be a good team. The team is very different and it will be a big improvement. It is probably only 50% the same crew from last time.” One absentee will be Chris Nicholson, now skipper of the Camper/Emirates Team NZ campaign.

According to Greenhalgh, who is a helmsman/trimmer on Puma, they have training sessions planned for June, August and September and the first of these will incorporate the Bermuda race, while the others are mainly for testing, new masts, etc. Greenhalgh says that he isn’t get involved much in the design of the new boat – the team interface with Juan K’s people is mainly Ken Read, Jackson and Mutter.

“I think they’ll be very different,” says Greenhalgh of how he reckons the new generation Juan K VO70s will turn out. “Deck layouts will be very different. Hull shapes probably won’t be too different, but people will pick them for different wind speeds.”

These are obviously built to a new VO70 rule, but Greenhalgh reckons this won’t change life on board too much. They have the same number of crew as last time for example. “We have less sails which makes life a bit better, although I’m not sure how the stacking downstairs is going to pan out. It maybe will make a bit more priority on sail design and also a case of picking your sails. It will be horses for courses. Some boats maybe will win some legs because maybe they have the right sail. But then it is about being consistent.” Pretty much echoing Damian Foxall’s sentiments.

And just when you thought we might be wrapping up... coming up before all of this is a no small task that will take up all of July for Greenhalgh, for over this period he is to skipper Oman Sail’s Farr 30 in the Tour de France a la Voile. The line-up for this includes Green Dragon crewman Phil Harmer and former Ran boat captain, Anthony Haynes with Nat Ives navigating, plus a squad of five Omanis, with three racing on board at any one time.

“We did a lot of training in the UK. We were Hamble-based for two weeks and then we did Pornichet and we have Le Havre coming up,” says Greenhalgh of the program leading up the 29 June Tour Voile start from Dunkerque.

Greenhalgh has done this unique race anticlockwise around the French coast previously in 2001 with Simon Sarsfield’s Panther AMG team when they finished fourth. “Organisationally and logistically we are way better off than we were then and sailor-wise. It is a fantastic race. That whole French scene is good, everyone takes it pretty full-on. The regatta we did was good with inshore racing and offshore racing. You couldn’t ask much more from a regatta.”

This is obviously the first major vaguely Anglo-Saxon participation in the Tour Voile for several years and this year the Oman Sail will be joined on the start line by Californian hot shot Deneen Demourkas on Groovederci, as well of course as a strong French and Swiss entry list.

Oman Sail’s participation in the Tour Voile looks set to be on-going. This is the last year the event will be sailed in the Farr 30 and Oman Sail already have on order one of the new Archambault M34s, that will be used from 2011 and beyond, with a view to campaign the two races after this year’s.

And dinghy sailing? Greenhalgh, the former International 14 World Champion and JJ Giltinan Trophy winner still has a 14 and an 18ft skiff. “I’m struggling at the moment, but I’d like to find some time for some 14 and 18 stuff later in the year. It has had to take a back burner for the ‘job’-side of things.”

All work and no play...