SWE-63 and SWE-73 of Victory Challenge ready to sail in Dubai

[Source: Victory Challenge] The keels are back on Örn (SWE 63) and Orm (SWE 73), the masts as well. Everything is ready for Victory Challenge’s winter training in Dubai, which can therefore begin straight after the team’s essential Christmas and New Year holiday. With that, Victory Challenge would like to wish everyone a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

“We are absolutely ready to sail,” says Scott McAllister, who is daily operating manager for the temporary base in Dubai.

It has been an amazingly logistically complicated operation, in which SWE-63 and SWE-73, three containers, a tender boat and all the other equipment, more than 100 tons, we transported on two Antonovs, the gigantic Russian freight planes.

“It has been executed very well, without any problems at all,” says Victory Challenge’s shore manager Sam Murch, who arrived in Dubai when the keels and masts were to go back on the boats.

SWE-63 and SWE-73 are now ready for the maiden sail. Dubai, 20 December 2006. Photo copyright David Renkwitz/Victory Challenge

The temporary base is also completely ready for a team that is very used to temporary bases. They are similar circumstances to those they had in association with the pre-regattas in Malmö and Trapani last year and that they have had the majority of the time in Valencia. The permanent base building in Valencia simply didn’t exist last year, and the office area wasn’t ready for use until recently.

A number of Victory Challenge’s sailing and shore team have been on site in Dubai to get the boats ready to sail and to put the base in order. Only a few are staying over the Christmas and New Year holidays. When the team then reassembles there will be almost 70 people involved in the winter training.

Then the work on SWE 96 at the shipyard in the Lindholmen Science Park in Göteborg will be finished. SWE 96 is the boat that will be used in next year’s challengers’ series, the Louis Vuitton Cup that begins on 16 April.

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